
Buttons worn on shirts and lapels and vests and collars can make wonderful symbolic statements. Button collections can also be expanded into curiosities, event displays, wreaths, framed works, museum displays, and auction items.
The statement on a button has long been a key symbol of the feminist and pro-choice movements -- probably even more so than the other standards -- t-shirts, posters and bumper stickers.
The Chicago Women's Herstory Project, the online archive of the Chicago Women's Liberation Union, has a brilliant 1971 article by Jo Freeman that extols buttons and button-collections, as well as explaining the history and use of buttons in the feminist movement.
Button wearing serves many purposes. The most obvious is that it gives one an opportunity to make a public statement about strongly felt issues. Letters to the editor are rarely printed and the chance to make public speeches is available to only a few, but anyone can wear a button. It's a good way to start a conversation if you're in the mood to talk and to recruit if you want to proselytize.
The site's section on the arts also has a Feminist Buttons poster gallery with pages of buttons, like the one pictured above. Other pages show more iconic buttons, such as "Powerful Woman!" and "Abortion, a private decision" with a picture of the Statue of Liberty, a coat hanger and "Never Again," and "The Future Is Female."
Jo further explains the value of buttons:
You can say things on a button that you often can't confront people with directly. You can also say things repeatedly without being repetitive. Flo Kennedy's urgent plea to DEFEAT FETUS FETISHISTS can be stuck into casual conversation once, but you can wear it into almost any gathering where it will at least be read if not agreed with.
The button displays and Jo's article also point to a need in the pro-choice community. Jo writes, "Symbol-making is a necessary part of any social movement; it provides a quick, convenient way of proclaiming one's views to the world."
The reproductive justice community is sorely in need of new iconography -- the antis have polluted the public with theirs. I have a few ideas and am collecting others. To share: wordsofchoice@mindspring.com.
Posted by Cindy Cooper
Pictured above: Feminist Button Gallery,Chicago Women's Herstory Project












