The worldwide Women's March was conducted yesterday at Washington, D.C. The Women's March aims to advocate for legislation pertaining to women's rights, reproductive rights, immigration reform, LGBTQ+ rights, etc. The unofficial symbol of the Women's March is essentially the "pink pussyhat." (Pictured below)
The consensus on Twitter from non-white women of color and transfolk appears to be that the symbol of the pink pussyhat is exclusionary because "feminism extends beyond women, [to women that do] not have vaginas, and [to women of color's vaginas that] are [not] pink". (Taken from Tweet below)
Furthermore, yesterday, it was found that some white women placed a pink pussyhat on a statue of Harriet Tubman, a female Black abolitionist who helped many slaves escape their slaveowners by using the Underground Railroad. (Tweets below)
All criticism aside: the pink pussyhat creator addressed the critiques in an article on February 2017.
Source: https://www.nbcnews.com/feature/nbc-out/pink-pussyhat-creator-addresses-criticism-over-name-n717886
Although Suh's explanation makes sense at face, it is important to understand that many women of color, LGBTQ+, and non-binary people still experience radically exclusionary behavior from white women. This is similar to other groups that intersect with "white" or otherwise privileged forms of identity that indirectly or directly benefit from the plight and activism of marginalized groups. One of these groups would be Black men being the "face" and atop the totem pole of the civil rights and Black Lives Matter movement because of their male identity being a "privilege" in comparison to their female counterparts (for more reading on this read about misogynoir--misogyny that is directly aimed and experienced by women of color, especially Black women--please refer to this article, an interview by the woman who coined the term: https://mic.com/articles/152965/mee...an-who-created-the-term-misogynoir#.JQueFlEZx).
I have collected a few Tweets below that (although not embedded because of the limit of 2 Tweet embeds per post) chronicles the experiences of both women of color, LGBTQ+, and non-binary peoples:
How can we do better to ensure this exclusionary behavior stops? Should the Women's March leadership implement measures to keep these exclusionary people out?
