Writing our stories with hooks and needles: literary women's voices in textiles

ABSTRACT

From medieval romances to twenty-first century popular novels, weaving, sewing, embroidery, and knitting have been a framework for female voices otherwise marginalized by the culture depicted in the text or by the genre itself. The habitus connecting women and textiles is strong enough that, even as textile production has become almost wholly industrialized, the association remains powerful in contemporary popular culture. This article offers a comparative look at the textiles produced by women in Laura Esquivel's novel Como agua para chocolate (Like Water for Chocolate, Mexico, 1989) and Völsungasaga (The Saga of the Volsungs, Iceland, late 13th century). Although separated by almost a millennium, in these literary texts, Tita and Brunhild each use their skill at textile production to express the things they cannot say out loud. The close readings performed here are part of a larger work examining the varied means by which women in patriarchal societies enact agency through their reproductive labour, particularly women's communication of narrative through production of both texts and textiles.

KEYWORDS:

• Textiles
• reproductive labour
• women
• magical realism
• saga

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 For a discussion of use-value and exchange-value, see Marx and Engels (1909). For a discussion of these terms in relationship to feminist theory and reproductive labour, see Benston (1980), Morton (1980), and Karras (2004). For a discussion of the evolving role of women in the family in Marxist theory, see Engels (2010). My gratitude to Rose Casey for suggesting Bhattacharya's edited collection and to Ruth Mazo Karras whose work first led me to Marxist-feminist theory.

2 The term #girlboss was popularized by Sophia Amoruso's (2015) memoir #GIRLBOSS, since that time the term has received scrutiny and resistance, for an overview see Maguire (2020).

3 For discussion of this criticism, see hooks (2015), especially Chapter 7, and Bhattacharya (2017).

4 For analysis of third wave feminism's framing of choice, see Mary Thompson’s (2016) update of her 2006 essay ‘Third Wave Feminism and the Politics of Motherhood.’

5 For an overview of womanism, see Coleman (2013), particularly the foreword and introduction.

6 For an overview, see Abetz and Moore (2015).

7 On the historical dynamics of this devaluation see Rozsika Parker (1989).

8 Scholarly analysis like Barber (1996), Showalter (2012), and Parker (1989) suggest this tradition of resistance in their historical overviews of women and textiles. More recent pieces in the popular press – Bateman (2018) and Camhi (2018) – describe it more overtly.

9 The full manifesto is available at Greer's craftivism.com webs tire. For further discussion, see Myzelev (2015) and Minahan and Wolfram Cox (2007).

10 This citation of the character Molly Weasley does not constitute an endorsement of Rowling's gender politics in the Harry Potter series or in her subsequent public statements. Despite my disagreements with the author, this character remains an effective example.

11 See Barber (1996, Chapter 11).

12 According to Jesse L Byock's translator's note: Singular vellum manuscript dates to AD 1400, though thought to have been composed between 1260 and 1270. Twenty-one paper copies derive from the one vellum ms. (31). Throughout this section, quotes are taken from Byock’s (2010) translation. Grimstad’s (2005) facing pages translation was also consulted for textile vocabulary.

13 See also Mitchell (2012), Showalter (2012) and Pristash et al. (2012).

14 This novel was originally published in Spanish in 1989. Quotes throughout this section are taken from the 1992 translation by Christiansen and Christiansen.

15 The night Gertrudis has run away after quail in rose petal sauce (Esquivel 1992, p. 59). When Pedro has stopped complimenting her cooking and Tita doesn't know why (Esquivel 1992, p. 69). When the nephew Tita had nursed was taken away (Esquivel 1992, p. 95). When she is mute in John Brown's house (Esquivel 1992, pp. 107, 109).

16 See Emily Wilson's recent translation of Homer's Odyssey, particularly her introduction, for a discussion of the difference that a woman scholar's perspective makes.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Kate Christine Moore Koppy

Kate Koppy is an Assistant Professor (ntt) of Humanities at the New Economic School (Moscow, RF). Her teaching and research focus on the interactions between narrative and community, with a particular interest in the ways marginalized voices make themselves heard. This article is part of a larger project on the voices of women and gender minorities in narrative textiles.