What to Wear to the Demonstration: Revolutionary Headgear

The day after the inauguration, American women are going to Washington to make their voices heard. Exactly what we’re going to try to communicate I’m not sure, except to say that we are watching and listening, and we aren’t about to put up with nazis, fascists, racists, thieves, Russian agents, and enemies of women running around the White House for the next four years. Any time the new authorities get out of line they can expect us to hit the streets. We’re here, we’re sore, and we’re not going away.

Being women, however, we are aware that what we wear to this shindig matters. A movement is afoot to knit pink hats with cat ears, on the theory that a sea of women wearing pink hats with cat ears will demonstrate seriousness of purpose, the solidarity of sisterhood. There are knitting patterns for these hats—pussy hats, they call them—online. Not to be outdone by the other sisters I knitted myself one.

Plenty of precedents exist for revolutionary hats. Who can forget the broad black brimmer of the IRA? Or the black beret of the Irish provos. To say nothing of Che Guevara. We think of the French resistance fighters as wearing black berets. The Black Panthers wore them. They were dignified and a little scary. If a million women showed up on the Mall wearing black berets all Washington would tremble before us.

A prime example of the revolutionary hat was  the liberty cap, adorned with a tricolor cockade, worn during the French revolution. In such a hat you were one of the people, a citizen, and if you were lucky it helped you keep your head on your shoulders. What do you think Madame Defarge was knitting as she sat in front of the guillotine? (Hint: it was not a pussy hat.)

If the D. C. cops show up in riot gear, unlikely in the face of a parade of grannies like me, but not unheard of, you may want to be wearing a bicycle helmet, according to an interesting site I came across from some anarchists across the pond. The anarchists are in favor of hats with brims or peaks that can be pulled down over one’s eyes when the government comes to take pictures, to foil their face-recognition software and keep you off their enemies list. Similarly, a scarf may be wrapped around the lower face. Scarves are also good for tear gas. I had my picture taken by government agents at a peace march during the Bush administration. It made me mad, if you want to know. Now I’m sufficiently radicalized to enjoy marching down the streets of Washington and screaming at the government. Bastards.

But not in a pussy hat. I finished the pink hat today and tried it on. It was not threatening. It was ridiculous looking. The ears aren’t even cat ears. They are the ears of a pig. It is, in fact, a piggy hat.

 

So I’m going to wear a black beret. See you in Washington. Right on, and all that stuff.