A friend and fellow feminist posted this article on her Facebook wall last night, and when I read it this morning I launched into a series of questions about its intent. Primarily, I questioned why we should leave our pink pussy hats at home at this year’s Women’s March if, as the article implied, we know the mission behind the Pink Pussy Hats and that they are meant to be inclusive??

The message I missed as I read the article is hidden in this paragraph:

But, it’s not just a hat. It is a symbol of personal empowerment and feminism. For many, it’s a symbol of a type of feminism dominated by middle-class white women who have not always been stalwart allies of women of color or transfolks or marginalized folks in general. And to be frank, it’s been a pretty rocky year on this front. [my emphasis]

I know that many of us who wore the hats have been allies to women of color and transfolks and dreamers and others who may not have the ability to speak truth to power the same way we do. We write letters and send postcards and make phone calls. We teach our children to listen to and support friends at school who may be fearful because they don’t look like we do. We are members of organizations that support immigrants and fight against police brutality and we help pay for legal representation for men and women who are wrongly accused and murdered because of the color of their skin or the gender they identify with.

So when I read that paragraph, I thought, sure, some women, maybe, but not all of the women who wore those hats are clueless about those fights. (Yup, that’s me thinking #notallwhitewomen. Ugh.)

I said if we drew a line in the sand and said “Don’t wear those hats.” it would lead to women who do wear the hats being stereotyped as “those women”; Those self-centered, privileged white women who – like Gloria Steinem and Betty Friedan and Germaine Greer in the 1960s – are accused of leaving women who don’t look like them behind as they march for equality.

I felt the sting of discrimination.

I still have a lot to learn in my feminist education, but one thing I have taken to heart this year is this:  if you’re a white woman who feels you are being discriminated against, it’s time to sit down and let yourself be educated by those who have some answers. So, I asked questions.

Some people might have read my questions as evidence of my privileged, white upbringing, and they’d be right. And they also might think I’m being defensive (hello, I’m human), or trying to hold onto that ignorance and privilege I grew up with. But the difference between someone who asks and argues, and someone who asks and listens is this: I don’t mind being wrong.

And I was.

I read the article – twice, actually. But when I read the paragraph posted above, I didn’t take away the meaning the author, Rhiannon Woo, was getting at: That those pink pussy hats were nowhere to be found at the Black Lives Matter marches, and the immigration rallies, and numerous other gatherings that centered around rights for people who don’t look like the majority of the faces seen in photos of those hats.

When those rallies and marches were planned, too many of us who proudly wore our pink pussy hats on January 21, 2017 found easy excuses to miss them…

Our kids had piano lessons that day. {How nice that you can afford piano lessons.}

We were exhausted from a busy week at work. {Good for you with your reliable, full-time employment – health insurance too, probably?}

We were hosting friends for dinner that night. {Isn’t it nice that you can have friends over without calling attention to yourselves by having so many cars parked in front of your house.}

I heard it might get dangerous. {Bitch, please.}

We just forgot about it. {Because for you, it’s not about life and death.}

So, my pink pussy hat will stay at home this year while I join women in my community to stand up for all women.

Because it’s not about me.