feminish

Anne-Marie (teacher, President of the village’s Sauvegarde et Animation society, mother of four and talented research historian) was knitting the other day a green jacket (with purple buttons) for her granddaughter.

“I never like to not be doing anything”.

She’d just sat us down, had an eye on the television, an ear on our conversation with her husband, and a steady consciousness of the asparagus omlette cooking next door.

There was something timeless about it - and something so undeniably womanly.

My thoughts rolled out like a ball of wool dropped down stairs…

The first was on female multi-tasking: the weaving of survival-work tasks into and around each other that has been happening for centuries… creating a tapestry of daily acts (fire-lighting, feeding, clothwork, gardening), weekly rituals (washing, scrubbing, going to market) and seasonal rhythmns (planting, spring-cleaning, harvesting….). I would like to understand the female predisposition to this (psychological, physiological, cultural), and to deeply recognise the way in which it is hard, useful and creative Work - not just ‘pottering’. (I could start by respecting it in myself…)

And I then began musing on the place of spinning/ weaving/ tapestry/ knitting/ sewing in women’s lives for centuries…. millions of hours spent making and beautifying of cloth. What a waste of time! I thought (not really respecting it as Work).

Some part of me thinks Thank God for H&M.

The H&M revolution (or whatever you want to call it) has created a liberating disrespect for cloth. It’s not what you wear (or who made it) but how you wear it: I can get as much as I want, cheap, and badly-made, to last a few pay-cheques. This didn’t come with the ’70s wave (my Mum’s still got her lovingly hand-sewn mini-dresses from Vogue patterns); and it was barely there in the late 1990s (when buying a top was a big deal) - it’s truly a 21-st Century feminist advance. (-and most likely at the expense of the women, in the Majority World, who are making my polyester 3.99 tops)

I think it’s a big deal that I could live in a London house of five young women and no sewing machine, no spinning wheel, and no knitting needles - and it’s also a big deal that I could find this photo.