Weaving worlds II – what women make – Brigitta Stone-Johnson (Brigs)

Weaving worlds II

I once calculated that the distance in wool my grandmother had knitted throughout her lifetime, 94 years, 3 months and 21 days, was roughly equivalent to the earth’s circumference, 40 075km. I have estimated that the weight of the stone I have shifted throughout my PhD is approximately 9,8 tons[1]. I have always liked the idea that the span of one’s life could be measured in tangible material ways. The impact on one body of such habits is how we measure time. Some material work is heavy, others light. Some things take longer than others, and some works are slow, others are quick. The materiality is understood by the body doing the work. Its resistances and flows are registered through hand, muscle, sinew, and bone: eye and skin. Making things is not gendered; it is merely the time it might take to do them. However, The knowledge passed down from one maker to another often is. We learn as we do, but we also learn from others; we watch, they demonstrate, we try, and slowly, knowledge is passed along. The question of who that knowledge is passed to is gendered.

Over the past ten years, I have worked at a school of architecture, and I have had many discussions around women who make, with colleagues who are often well-meaning, asking me if I know a woman who will give a talk on making, etc. The answer is two-fold: yes and no. Yes, I know of many women who are makers, and no, because I know they are not the makers you are looking for.

The thing is, we gender making. Many of the women I would describe as makers make things like clothing, jewellery, and pottery; some do leather work, some embroider, and some weave. Often, they repair or maintain things. Very rarely will you find a woman in a timber workshop or welding stuff; of course, the size of the equipment and the PPE have something to do with that. Nevertheless, it is more than that; if a girl shows she is good with her hands early on, she is more likely to be taught to sew, knit, embroider, and weave than how to carve, weld or build something. At the Bahhus, despite claims that the school was open to all genders. Women were discouraged from pursuing the study of architecture. Weaving and photography, yes. The great fathers of architecture did not dream of them being capable of studying architecture.

Gropius allegedly believed that men’s and women’s brains functioned differently: men could think in three dimensions while women did not. Young women could thus develop their creativity in weaving but were discouraged from indulging in architecture, sculpture or painting.

In 1990, in South African schools, girls did needlework, and boys did woodwork in primary school. At high school? Home economics was for girls and the occasional boy, and woodwork was for boys only. Can you tell I am still bitter? Today, kids seem to learn neither since both those skill sets have been set aside in favour of STEM subjects. University-age students struggle with the coordination of holding a pen correctly and forming letters well. Unfortunately, the Bauhaus model remains, by and large, the model on which many modern higher education institutions of design and art were founded. While methodologies have shifted, to some extent, societal forces remain present.

These notions of different brains, espoused by Gropius in1919, have barely shifted in the 100 years between. ‘Male brain’ theory, or systematizing/empathizing mind theory as it has been re-named, has been espoused in research as recently as 2018. Rebuttals ask questions about nature/nurture and outward expression of gender, as well as societally gendered normative answers. It matters what you teach children that it is acceptable to be interested in. In our school, in recent years, women have outperformed men in design and technical subjects.

Nevertheless, in industry, they fade as their skills are second-guessed or ignored. So that when it comes time to invite practitioners back, they are absent from the record. Much like those who have come before them, their work scrubbed and misattributed, and much like their predecessors, their contributions are often swept aside due to their materiality or scale.