Women's Work

Today I started reading the book Women's Work The First 20,000 Years by Elizabeth Wayland Barber (link to book). I have only completed the introduction and first chapter, and I can already tell you that it is a must read. The insight in this book is unmatched. Barber has combed through world history with a fine tooth comb and found the hidden stories of the women who lived before the Industrial Revolution; and those stories are fuzed with the history of textiles. If you are a lover of textiles, women, or history this book is fascinating!

Barber starts the book by getting right to the point and addressing the question "why textiles were traditionally women's work". The tedious and ongoing task of spinning, weaving and sewing were traditionally women's work simply because it was work that could be done while child rearing. You don't need to leave the house. You don't need to take the baby to a dangerous environment. The work is quiet. Some of the work is even portable. So, because women needed to be at home with the babies, textiles became our fated work for centuries. And boy was it WORK. Barber even goes as far as to suggest the reason why women were not the ones to mechanize weaving or spinning was because they were sooo busy cooking and making textiles that they had no time to invent. In other words, the textile duties of the pre-industrialized woman cock-blocked women's potential to invent, discover, create etc.

After absorbing these words I had to pause. This small but very meaningful realization hit me like a tonne of bricks. Let me take a step back to explain. I am a pretty strong-headed woman and a vocal feminist. I am proud to be a woman, and proud to fight for gender equality. Prior to my time in school, I had a flourishing career as a strategist in advertising. The ad world is a bit of a boys club, so part of my success came from my ability to hold my own against powerful men. I took pride in the way I was breaking from the domestic expectations that still burden many women today. My time in advertising did not last, however, and after roughly a decade I left the ad world to pursue my passion for art and textile making. This transition happened 4 years ago, and I am just now realizing the interesting symbolism of my actions. I left a typically male-occupied career that gave me financial independence, to return to school to study textile making. Think about that for a second. To be a modern (and privileged) woman in this day and age is to have the freedom to explore textiles as an innovative medium, and for the sake of my own curiosity. Not out of necessity. Not out of obligation. Not out of expectation. It dawned on me for the first time ever that my textile work, no matter what I create, is an act of feminism simply because I do it because I want to. And though that is true for every career a woman chooses, it is particularly satisfying and liberating to chose the field my predecessors had no choice about. In a way, it is a reclamation of the art in hopes to redefine it and give it the respect it has always deserved. I have only read one chapter and I already feel more connected to my medium, my craft and my path more then ever before.

I knew my capstone would have nods to feminism, but this new insight has me thinking about things a bit differently. I want my work to speak to this liberation I feel. I want it to represent where women started with textiles, where we are now, and how connected I feel to the women that occupied this career before me, by choice or necessity. My mind is bubblin', I can't wait to finish reading this book!