For the coming full moon, CAYA’s Grove of Artemis is focusing on the archetype of the weaver/dreamer. Obviously, this is a ritual I’m very excited about, and its gotten me thinking a lot about the work that women do in this world.
Women’s work.
What comes to mind when you hear that phrase? How do you feel about it? Do you conjure up sepia-toned images of quiling bees or the soft whiring of a spinning wheel? Or the quintessential 1950s mother cheerfully cooking dinner for her family and cleaning the house, all in heels and pearls? How about a corporate executive, with her powersuit and iPhone?
Women’s work. What is it? What does it mean?
Sifting through history you find–pardon the pun–common threads. Women create. Now, this may seem strange at first, since a glance at any art history textbook will tell you that most artists were men. But that’s just where things start to get interesting. Male artists? Are a very small percentage of the population. Most men are not artists, and most artists never move from obscurity to claim a place in the canon of western art. Women on the other hand, well, a look through history will tell you that nearly every woman was a creator. From the poorest peasant woman spinning and stitching to keep her family warm to the most powerful noblewoman whose delicate stitchwork offered proof of of her status.
Collectively, women took the most basic needs of clothing and warmth and they turned them into things of beauty. Simple socks became stockings with intricately stitched patterns. Woven cloths used to insulate the walls and floors became storied tapestries and brilliantly patterned carpets. Blankets became quilts that told history, life events, or even led the way to freedom. Women learned these crafts and though for centuries they were denied access to education, they taught these skills to their daughters who learned a rich history that still gets overlooked and undervalued.
Craft. A word that is scorned, marked, dropped out of “arts and crafts” until art–as decided by the mainly male, mainly white establishment–is all that’s left worthy of respect. But without craft, what do you have left? Women craft the things needed for survival, and in doing so, they craft the culture that endures through time. Women weave at their looms, and they weave together the stories and history that really matter. Not the history of conquerers and kings, but of our ordinary ancestors. Women gather for quilting bees or stitch n’ bitch nights, and who bring the community together.
I worry sometimes that this history is being lost. I am a feminist, and I am also a career woman. But sometimes I think that we’ve thrown the baby out with the bathwater; now knitting or sewing or quilting is seen as hopelessy uncool in most circles (despite much trumpeting of the trendiness of craft). Even in the midst of a massive movement to rethink the way America eats, canning and gardening are viewed as hopelessly quaint, or as occassional hobbies not a way of life. We’ve lost touch with the very things that we need to do to sustain life. If we’re cold, we buy a sweater or turn up the heat, if we’re hungry, we stop at macdonalds. If our skirt tears, we toss it in the trash rather than try to mend it.
It’s time, I think, that we start taking a hard look at the value of women’s work. There is value to it, and as the economy and gluttenous society we’ve built up begins to crack and crumble, it only becomes more useful.
As a witch, I turn the wheel of the year with the seasons. As a woman, I create and stitch the same way that women have done through the ages. And together, as witches and women, I believe we can craft a future where we live in a closer relationship with the earth, and we can begin to value the work women have traditionally done and move towards a less disposable and more sustainable world.