A few pink hats (and some good advice) from Saturday's women's march in Nashville.
Yesterday the owner of The Joy of Knitting, a boutique yarn shop in Franklin, posted a message on Facebook:
With the recent women's march on Washington, I ask that you if you want yarn for any project for the women's movement that you please shop for yarn elsewhere. The vulgarity, vile and evilness of this movement is absolutely despicable. That kind of behavior is unacceptable and is not welcomed at The Joy of Knitting. I will never need that kind of business to remain open. Two wrongs will never ever make it right.
The author of the post, Elizabeth, cited her Christian beliefs as the main reason for her stance, saying, "The women's movement is counterproductive to unity of family, friends, community, and nation."
One of the symbols of the women's marches around the world, of course, was a pink knit or fabric hat, AKA a "pussy hat," and the hats were so popular that many regions across the nation were seeing pink yarn shortages. Which is why it's odd that The Joy of Knitting would share their controversial opinions after the women's march took place. Seeing just how much yarn was being sold, it's likely the shop already benefitted from pink yarn sales. Or were they questioning buyers of the yarn before the march, too?Â
I called The Joy of Knitting to ask how employees were planning on policing people's purchases, and whether or not the shop benefitted from selling pink yarn before the march, but my calls went unanswered.
Facebook users were quick to respond to The Joy of Knitting's post — the post has over 2,000 reactions, many of them the angry and laughing faces, and there are nearly 3,000 comments, the bulk of which appear to disagree with Elizabeth's statement. The shop's ratings are suffering, too — it had 1.7 stars on Facebook last night and this morning it's at 1.2 stars.
An employee at Nashville's Haus of Yarn, who had heard about The Joy of Knitting's post, confirmed their West End shop does have pink yarn in stock (though they did run low days before the march) and knitters are "absolutely allowed to buy that from our shop. Anyone is allowed to buy any color they want for any project they want." #NOTALLYARNSHOPS
We'll update this post if we get more information.
