Are Stitchers Feminists?
Monday, April 30th, 2007I’ve been reading Thomasina Beck’s The Embroiderer’s Story — and enjoying the heck out of it. Not only are the pictures absolutely WONDERFUL (my only “complaint” is that the pictures aren’t bigger … but I can never get quite close enough to stitching to appreciate it as well as I’d like to, can you?), but all of Beck’s research is extensive, her writing is engaging, and so I as a reader feel entirely captivated. I’m almost as happy reading this book as I am when I’m wielding my needle, and although I do love to read, it’s not often that I can say I love reading just as much as I love stitching because for me, stitching brings me a special kind of peace. The ONLY other place I find anything even close to that same type of peace is with my face buried in the fur of a purring cat while my eyes are closed; stitching is the only thing I do with my eyes open that gives me that feeling.
Anyway, I have on occasion been the recipient of a rather surprising — and rude — remark or two in the past as I’ve sat stitching somewhere. Usually I’ve been in some public place, such as a doctor’s waiting room, a bookstore or a library. Once I was spending a lovely afternoon on a fresh spring day in a park … You know the type of situation I’m talking about, I’m sure, as we stitchers know how to while away those extra hours we chance upon between appointments that others would find annoying — we grab our stitching to take along with us and find somewhere comfortable to camp out between the things we have to do.
I may or may not have been wearing one of my feminist T-shirts, as I am prone to do whenever they come to the top of the pile of clean laundry and on those types of days when I’m running the types of errands during which I’d have the lovely opportunity to take a four hour stitching break somewhere. These T-shirts are all fairly generic, in my opinion. My favorite, which usually elicits multiple requests about where it can be purchased each time I wear it, is the one with the quote by Rebecca West from 1913 that says, “I have never been able to find out precisely what feminism is; I only know that people call me a feminist whenever I express sentiments that differentiate me from a doormat.” (It also happens to be my husband’s favorite of my T-shirts because he remembers it is what I wore on our first date!)
So, I have been happily stitching away while perhaps wearing a feminist T-shirt, or perhaps wearing something else altogether, when some person, usually male but not always, completely unknown to me has barged into my meditative stitching reverie with a comment such as, “Don’t you think you’re setting women back 100 years by doing that?” Or, “It sure is nice to see a woman these days doing something feminine instead of something uppity like those gosh-durned feminists.” (Come to think of it, it’s probably fairly obvious that I was NOT wearing a feminist T-shirt the day I got that second comment.)
Another time, the comment came from a guy with whom I was on my third date. He’d invited me over to his house for a home-cooked meal (which was delicious; I have to give him that much credit) and to watch the 1944 version of Jane Eyre. He didn’t seem to think I’d be able to pay attention to the movie and stitch at the same time; I proved him wrong (it did help that I’d read the book several times over the years), and I also chewed gum while I was at it. Needless to say, that was our last date. 
It’s always startled me to hear such comments from people about my being a stitcher. Unfortunately, except perhaps for the guy I was dating, I’ve done a very poor job of responding in the impressive fashion I’d like to tell you I whizzed past these individuals because, being so stunned, my response has mostly consisted of a rather clueless sounding, “Huh?” before they went along on their merry way.
What does my loving to stitch have, or not have, to do with feminism? Do the assumptions of these handful of people have any basis at all in fact? I’ve never really bothered to analyze this myself, always intending to sometime in the future when I had the chance, but never getting to it. I’ve always kind of hung onto Betsy Ross as my own personal heroine, but I haven’t bothered to check whether she designed the flag herself, or whether she was chosen because she was a woman, or whether she was chosen because she was known to be a very skilled needleworker, or … well, you get the picture. I suppose I have hesitated to look further into this mystery for myself because I don’t want to have my personal heroine bashed in any way. And, frankly, because I’d rather be stitching.
Oh, and what stitcher isn’t charmed by first hearing about Patty Polk, who reportedly stitched on her schoolgirl sampler that she “hated every stitch”? Personally, I’ve always smiled because young Patty had the nerve and apparently the encouragement to express her own thoughts in stitches — and isn’t that feminism?
The fact is, I stitch because I love to stitch — and feminist or not, I’d be a stitcher either way. I think that’s probably true for all of us stitchers. We love the colors, the feel of the threads, the sound of the floss going through the fabric, the play of the light and the way it can change the look of things, experimenting with different stitches and the way those change the look of things. That others look at what we do and call it art is a bonus for us because we are doing it because, essentially, it is FUN for us. It gives us pleasure.
I am not an artist; I can’t draw to save my life. I can play a good game of Pictionary (and this is probably my favorite game), but I definitely am not interested in stitching the things I can draw (and I doubt anyone else would be either). For me stitching allows me to create beautiful things with gorgeous colors, to make things with my own hands that other people look at and ooh and aah over — that I even ooh and aah over when I’m done because they’re pretty … and it surprises me to realize I made them. Stitching allows me to trick myself into thinking I’m a creative person because I can play with all those lovely colors of threads and fabrics and end up with something beautiful to show for it — and that makes me very happy. I couldn’t do it if I weren’t following someone else’s directions; I just don’t have the skill to design it myself. So until these handful of people made these off-the-cuff comments to me, it really hadn’t occurred to me to question whether or not my stitching was or was not in line with my feminist viewpoints.
But while reading Thomasina Beck’s chapter on “The Victorian Embroiderer” in The Embroiderer’s Story, I’ve been again reminded that I want to think about this issue further. It seems that during the Victorian age is when embroidery first started to move from being a necessary skill into the realm of a hobby. This is also when Berlinwork (which, as I understand it, seems to have been primarily tent stitch needlepoint done with wool threads during the Victorian age) was at its height in popularity, and people could make a living as professional embroiderers. The “first practical manual ever written for embroiderers” was written in 1842 and was the Handbook of Needlework by Miss Lambert, whose first name is apparently unknown 
. In the 1860s, magazines such as The Englishwoman’s Magazine began to include pull-out patterns and shops agreed to supply the materials for those patterns in kit form, which allowed the first mail-order needlework business to occur in order for the most “in” items and patterns to reach even the most rural of areas and stitchers. Needlework became popular enough that stitchers started to develop what could be called “stashes,” although I seriously doubt most of their stashes could ever have compared with any of ours today … but it was definitely the start of things. The first needlework shows, markets, and competitions occurred during this time period, too, which also paved the way for needlework criticism. For instance, Beck tells us of the regret of a Mrs. Merrifield (who wrote a book called Dress as a Fine Art, but again apparently did not have her first name go down in recorded history):
“that fancy work was practised by ladies merely as ‘the amusement of an idle hour,’ without any thought being given to its design. She made fun of the most flagrantly bad designs, and also — which was far more important — tried to explain why they were bad. She was convinced that if needlewomen had some knowledge of the rules of ornamental design, they would be able to differentiate between the good and the indifferent patterns on offer, and that ’some would invent their patterns if they knew how to set about it.”
I personally disagree with Mrs. Merrifield’s opinions on believing it important to tell people their needlework is “bad,” but that issue is a whole other discussion subject. However, the fact that she was not only respected enough to be allowed to criticize the work of others, but also to believe her criticism was for the purposes of encouraging other women not just to improve but also to design their own needlework shows significant growth in what was allowed and expected of women during this time period.
In a more humorous vein, Thomasina Beck quotes from a poem in M.T. Morrall’s 1852 History of Needlemaking:
The other day when I went home no dinner was for me
I asked my wife the reason she answered, “One, two, three,”
I told her I was hungry and stamped upon the floor
She never even looked at me, but murmured, “One green more.”Of course she made me angry — but she didn’t care for that,
And chatters while I talk to her, “A white and then a black
Seven greens and then a purple — just hold your tongue my dear
You really do annoy me so, I’ve made a wrong stitch here.”
To me, this poem sounds as familiar as if it had been written yesterday and posted to a YahooGroup mailing list because so little has changed. If anything, perhaps the foot-stamping husband is not nearly so angry anymore, as today’s stitcher doesn’t seem very tolerant of the foot-stamping type. I’m not all that certain this is because today’s stitcher is a feminist, though; we might just be very dedicated stitchers who aren’t about to be rushed, and if that gives the appearance of feminism, then so be it. (In my case, I guess it’s both.)
However, as Beck continues to enchantingly educate us with her research, women in the Victorian era were still largely reliant on marrying well for their livelihood. Therefore, she explains, “etiquette books and magazines were full of advice on ‘How to Manage a Husband.’ … Two decades later the warning was repeated almost word for word in a piece on ‘Bored Husbands’ in The Ladies Treasury (2 August 1869), recommending wives to finish their needlework during the day to avoid ‘dull silent evenings’ broken only by the infuriating ‘click of the needle.’”
Certainly if the click of the needle was “infuriating,” to men, then for women to persist in clicking it was feminism at its finest? Some would say it was foolishness, but indeed, history has often shown foolishness to equal feminism depending on who was doing the defining — and the eventual outcome. Today’s stitcher might look at the above tidbit with a bit more humor, too, and see that the stitcher of the past was simply given guidance, just as we are, on how to hide from our spouses just how precious our stitching is to us so that we do not incite jealousy. 
It’s never occurred to me to ask my husband if he still thinks I’m a feminist now that he knows just how much of a stitcher I am. I suppose it’s possible some of the arguments we have over which one of us should be responsible for some of the household chores could stem from his thinking I am less of a feminist than he initially thought I was, and that he might be making that determination based on my love of stitching. Hmmm … I don’t think I’ll involve him in this discussion just yet … “)
But since I have the Independent Needlework News community available to me to ask, I’ll present the issue here as a topic for discussion. I think it’s a fascinating subject, and I’m really interested in your own experiences, thoughts, and research. Do you think this discussion matters at all? Are you a feminist stitcher? Are you a stitcher who is NOT a feminist? Do you think being a stitcher has any connection to being a feminist? Has anyone ever made a comment like this to you? What did you do? What would you do differently if you could be more prepared for such a conversation?
Also, I know I have at least one male reader, and you may well have an entirely different perspective; I’d love to hear about it.
Technorati Tags: Thomasina Beck, Embroiderer’s Story, feminist, feminism, independent needlework news, needlework history, Rebecca West, Betsy Ross, Patty Polk, Bronte, Jane Eyre, feminine, US flag, American flag, Merrifield, Lambert
