explaining pussyhats to my mother

Since when are heartbreak, sadness, and anger political? Always. Retro post from the first Women’s March, “Explaining pussyhats to my mother.”

Leigh Here Now

The morning after the Women’s March on Washington, Mom and I set up a date to talk over our experiences – mine in Philadelphia, and her march of 200 people in her rural Arizona town 40 minutes north of the wall in Mexico.

“So can we talk about the hats?” Mom asked over Skype. “My friends and I are trying to understand, but can you explain? In my generation – that word – I don’t think I even knew that word, I mean,well, it’s just so … it’s not a word I would ever say in that way. My friends agree that none of us would ever use it.” She looked at her hands. “That word makes me so uncomfortable.”

We went on to talk about the message behind the sea of pink. What it means to reclaim power over the things that make us angry and uncomfortable. What it means…

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Method 23: Destruction of Own Property

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Last night, in a magnanimous effort “to make sure that everything is right” during the government shutdown, Trump treated the Clemson Tigers to 300 hundred hamburgers and “many, many french fries.” According to the WaPo, burgers and chicken nuggets were distributed on platters in the style of servers at an elegant cocktail party. “Another Big Mac, sir? Please, help yourself.” The buffet cost about $3,000.

Due to the 25 day partial government shutdown, the White House catering staff is on furlough, along with about 800,000 federal workers are affected – 420,000 working without pay, according to an estimate last month from the Senate Appropriations Committee

If we followed Method 23 of Gene Sharp’s 198 Methods of Nonviolent Action, the streets would be filled with American hamburgers today.

Tea parties, draft card burning, the destruction of Stalin’s statue during the Hungarian Revolution. During the nonviolent revolution in India, imported cloth was burned to reject dependence on foreign nations. In 1918 and 1919, suffragist members of the Women’s Party publicly burned copies of President Wilson’s speeches to demonstrate that while he spouted promises of democracy and freedom, he did nothing to help women get the right to vote.

Hamburger strike?

That’s “hamberder” in Presidential speak.

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Method 22: Protest Disrobings (CONTENT WARNING)

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Note: images at the end of this post may be inappropriate for some work environments.

My senior year in high school, I was given two weeks of detention after playing a song I wrote on the morning radio show. I cued up “Get Naked,” and then I bolted. I spent the rest of the morning getting screamed into a corner by my advisor:

“For the rest of your life, you will be nothing. You are nothing. No matter what you do from here, this is the best you will ever be.”

I didn’t even GET naked, I just used the word because I knew its power in my hometown of Churchville, New York. It was like my own Footloose moment – I was going out with a bang.

Public disrobing is an effective method of nonviolent protest because it gets people’s attention – but it’s only effective if the wobbly bits draw attention to the intended cause. A recent example of this was on Tuesday night, when Stormy Daniels folded her laundry and listened to Taylor Swift in her underwear live on Instagram for 8 minutes. Exactly 8 minutes – the time it took Trump to “formally” advocate for building a 5.7 billion dollar border wall.

The Russian punk art collective Pussy Riot and activists from the Ukranian group Femen (video above) have been leading the charge against Putin’s repressive state since 2008. Femen regularly stages topless protests against sex tourism, homophobia, religious institutions, and underage marriages. In 2012, they protested against voter fraud in the 2012 Russian elections. (ARE YOU READING THIS?) In 2013, members of Femen disrupted the visit of Russian President Putin and Chancellor Merkel at a tech show shouting obscenities, with anti-Putin slogans written on their bodies.

In 2012, two members of Pussy Riot were arrested for singing the punk protest song Putin’s Prayer in Moscow’s main cathedral. They spent two years in a Russian prison for “hooliganism,” something member Nadya Tolokonnikova described was a time of “endless humiliations.”

After their release, the activists pledged to devote their energies to changing the political system in Russia and improving conditions inside its prisons – but they haven’t stopped protesting. In 2018, members of Pussy Riot crashed the World Cup and were arrested for 15 days.

Public disrobing is not new: in the 1800’s, pacifist Ukranian immigrants called the Doukhobors (“spirit wrestlers) staged naked protests when the Canadian government wouldn’t give them the land they were promised, and this continued into the 1970’s.

The annual Running of the Nudes in Pamplona, Spain, protests the cruelty of the centuries-old tradition of the running of the bulls. PETA’s “Lettuce Ladies” dress in lettuce bikinis and hand out flyers about veganism. Breasts Not Bombs, Naked for Peace, Bare Warning – all protests against war.

Women in Uganda have protested naked because their farming land is under threat of being acquired by the government as a game reserve. For the Acholi people of northern Uganda, a woman stripping in public is more powerful than fighting because it’s believed that these actions bring worst of curses on the woman’s enemy.