APRON STRINGS

Making Mothers with SPAN, 27th February and 13th March 2015

- Recognising motherhood as work and rethinking work done within the home

- Recognising that feelings towards motherhood are sometimes ambivalent (for example, being a mother can be both empowering and oppressive)

- Recognising the power of the ties that connect women – especially mothers and daughters

The main ideas we will explore in this workshop are:

“Floral aprons are the symbol of a time best left in the past. It is a powerful symbol of the repression of women, when they were not allowed to follow any life path other than housewife. It hearkens back to the day when women were virtual slaves in the kitchen, barefoot and pregnant, discouraged from expressing their own identity, and strongly discouraged from making any life choices that led to individual freedom separate from her husband. It is a symbol of a time when the only ambition a woman was allowed to have was that of housewife, the only life path was that of marriage and children. It was worn because a woman was only allowed by her husband to have a few dresses. For women my age the apron is a powerful symbol of what we fought against, what we left behind and what we never want to see again. I can afford to have my clothes cleaned, I have a career outside the home, I always aspired to more than a “happy housewife" existence, I have an identity that is not tied to my house, husband, children and home. I will never wear a floral apron due to its association with a time that was oppressive to ever woman. You should think carefully about what that apron symbolizes and you will understand why other women your age also refuse to wear a floral apron.”

For some, aprons remain a symbol of women’s oppression…

Aprons have long been worn to do many different jobs, both inside and outside the home…

Women’s work…?

"To nourish children and raise them against odds is any time, any place, more valuable than to fix bolts in cars or design nuclear weapons." -- Marilyn French

"Take motherhood: nobody ever thought of putting it on a moral pedestal until some brash feminists pointed out, about a century ago, that the pay is lousy and the career ladder nonexistent." -- Barbara Ehrenreich

“It is difficult when writing about mothering—or when experiencing it—to be balanced about its grim or satisfying aspects.” -- Sara Ruddick

The work of motherhood…

Aprons can be made in many different fabrics and styles, full length…

…or half-length

Woman Work

I've got the children to tendThe clothes to mendThe floor to mopThe food to shopThen the chicken to fryThe baby to dryI got company to feedThe garden to weedI've got shirts to pressThe tots to dressThe can to be cutI gotta clean up this hutThen see about the sickAnd the cotton to pick…

From ‘Woman Work’ by Maya Angelou (1928-2014)

From the House of Yemanjá

My mother had two faces and a frying pot where she cooked up her daughtersinto girlsbefore she fixed our dinner.My mother had two facesand a broken potwhere she hid out a perfect daughter who was not meI am the sun and moon and forever hungry for her eyes…

By Audre Lorde (1934–1992), extract from “From the House of Yemanjá” from The Collected Poems of Audre Lorde.

“…Sorrow clings to my apron-strings,I have so much to say.”

Dorothy Parker (1893 -1967)

Time-budget studies show that women’s housework has decreased and men’s has increased somewhat with the growth in women’s employment, but men’s greater efforts do not fill the gap left by women doing less… Men create more housework than they do and, in many households, children do as much housework as men... Even in supposed paradises of gender equality, such as Sweden, 87% of couples do not share housework.’The Ann Oakley Reader, 2005, p56.

“Housework is work directly opposed to the possibility of human self-actualization” Ann Oakley

“There is always within her at least a little of that good mother’s milk. She writes in white ink.”

Hélène Cixous

‘…first-time mothers… discover that it is not just a case of having the baby and carrying on as though nothing had happened: something has happened, a historical event… producing a baby is re-producing, looking differently at one’s body, one’s identity, one’s way of living… And in becoming a mother a woman takes her place among all women, conscious in a new way of the divisions between men and women… Motherhood is a handicap but also a strength; a trial and an error; an achievement and a prize.’ Becoming a Mother, 1979, p308.

“The connections between and among women are the most feared, the most problematic, and the most potentially transforming force on the planet.” Adrienne Rich

My children cause me the most exquisite suffering of which I have any experience. It is the suffering of ambivalence: the murderous alternation between bitter resentment and raw-edged nerves, and blissful gratification and tenderness. Sometimes I seem to myself, in my feelings toward these tiny guiltless beings, a monster of selfishness and intolerance.ADRIENNE RICH, Of Woman Born

Aprons as a feminist symbol…?

20th century apron patterns

Polish Folk Russian Traditional

Traditional beaded Zulu apron

Traditional Tibetan dress

Hungarian Folk

Lace, Northern European

Macedonian, 19th Century

Some traditional apron styles

Weaving Women for IWD – MShed, Bristol, 7th March 2015

The poet borrows terms to weave a web of words, to spin a yarn. But all the time, without the text, women are weaving and repairing. It is the very fabric that makes our material culture. Skills and hopes are shared in samplers; multiple stories are spelt out in a patchwork of quilts and protest banners: lives are connected by interwoven threads and apron strings. Join us to celebrate IWD2015 with Bristol Women’s Voice, and help make a collective piece inspired by ‘weaving women’, and the themes of IWD2015, Building Bridges and Paint It Purple. All welcome. A full programme of the day’s speakers and activities is available from BWV IWD2015

Making Learning will be joined by Dr Maud Perrier (SPAIS, UoB) to talk about two collaborative community projects Making Mothers and Text(iles) to Transgress.IWD2015 with Bristol Women’s Voice: Saturday 7th March 2015, MShed, Bristol, 11am-5pm (crèche and transport facilities are available for the day – see BWV site for more details)

Sometimes in ancient poems weaving seems to stand for women’s work and, metaphorically, for storytelling. The act of weaving (and embroidering, and other forms of fabric-working) conforms to certain expectations of women’s work within the home. And yet the stories that unravel around these epic weaving women often seem dissenting. Helen weaves and works-in scenes of the war that the Greeks and Trojans fought over her, although she has no say in the outcome. Penelope weaves by day, and then unweaves her work again each night, keeping time suspended. Philomela, so violently denied a voice, concealed within her weaving a desperate message to her sister. And Arachne’s fabulous weaving was a challenge to Athena. Although she was turned into a spider for her trouble, it didn’t deter her: ‘if you bash into the web of a spider she doesn’t get mad. She weaves it and repairs it’ (Louise Bourgeois)

Women’s action at the Bohemian Club in Downtown San Fransisco, 1981