Pussies Galore: Women, Power, and Protest in the Age of Trump

Authors

  • Jack Santino Author

Keywords:

protest, Women’s March, demonstrations, carnivalesque, ritualesque, pussy hats

Abstract

The Women’s March of 2017 was an international response to the election of Donald J. Trump to the Presidency of the United States. In Washington, D.C., the gathering was estimated to be 500,000 participants. It was large, festive and carnivalesque with its costumes and bodily imagery, but it was not a carnival. The participants were very serious in their presentation of a counterpoint to the apparent validation of values they saw embodied in Trump, those of intolerance toward women, LGBTQ people, and racial and ethnic groups. This article investigates ways of analyzing such large-scale public performances, and suggests the term “ritualesque” as a useful complement to the idea of the “carnivalesque”.

Author Biography

  • Jack Santino

    Jack Santino is Professor of folklore and popular culture at Bowling Green State
    University. He was the Alexis de Tocqueville Distinguished Professor at the University
    of Paris IV – Sorbonne, 2010–2011. He has been a Fulbright Scholar in
    Northern Ireland and France and taught in Spain. His film “Miles of Smiles, Years
    of Struggle: The Untold Story of the Black Pullman Porter” received four Emmy
    Awards. His most recent book is Jack Santino, ed., Public Performances: Studies in
    the Carnivalesque and Ritualesque. Logan, UT: Utah State University Press. He has
    conducted research in Northern Ireland, Spain, France, and the United States on
    carnivals, public rituals, holidays and celebrations, and the public memorialization
    of death.

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Published

2024-12-31

Issue

Vol. 13 No. 1 (2024): THE RITUAL YEAR 13

Section

Articles