Domestic Trauma: Textile Responses to Confinement, Coercion and Control

Abstract

One result of the public health quarantine measures resulting from the Covid-19 pandemic has been an increase in the incidence of domestic abuse against women. This practice-based interdisciplinary research paper considers the domestic trauma resulting from confinement, coercion and control within the home and textile responses to it. It aims to highlight these domestic concerns, challenge attitudes about coercive control and provoke discussion. Contemporary research into domestic abuse is combined with examples of domestic coercion and control described in literature and textile. Many women, both in life and literature, have used textiles as an alternative form of discourse to describe coercion and control in the home. As first-wave feminist Olive Schreiner shrewdly noted about women traumatized by domesticity “What has she but her needle?”. Textiles such as Elizabeth Parker’s sampler recording her domestic abuse are discussed, as well as contemporary responses by survivors and artists. As well as recording coercive control, textiles can also be used as an alternative form of discourse in the healing process. The paper ends on an encouraging note discussing textile initiatives that assist victims of domestic trauma.

Keywords:

• domestic abuse
• coercive control
• textiles
• Covid-19
• lace
• practice-based research

Notes

1 The source of this statistical information was Hill (2020) See What You Made Me Do.

2 This research into coercive control was carried out by Albert Biderman a social scientist with the US Air Force in the 1950s.

3 The reference given for this statistic in Hill (2020) is Paladin/Sara Charlton Charitable Foundation/Women’s Aid. 2014. Domestic Violence Law Reform – The Victim’s Experience of Domestic Violence and the Criminal Justice System.

4 Section 76 of the Serious Crime Act 2015 created a new offence of controlling or coercive behaviour in an intimate or family relationship.

5 It was not until until 1883 that The Married Women’s Property Act came into effect in England and Wales.

6 Schreiner began writing From Man to Man in 1873 but it was not published until 1926, after her death. This quote was taken from Parker (2010 [1984], 15).

7 The accession number for the sampler is T.6-1956 and it can be seen on the Victoria and Albert Museum website http://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O70506/sampler-parker-elizabeth/ (accessed 1 February 2021).

8 For more information see www.vam.ac.uk/exhibitions/katerina-jebb (accessed 1 February 2021).

9 Llewellyn (1999) also includes the full text of the work pp. 68–71.

10 The video can be seen on Alison Lowry’s website https://alisonlowry.co.uk/adress/#jp-carousel-1704 (accessed 8 February 2021).

11 The Ask for ANI (Action Needed Immediately) codeword scheme has been developed to allow victims of domestic abuse to access support from the safety of their local pharmacy www.gov.uk/government/publications/ask-for-ani-and-safe-spaces-schemes (accessed 15 June 2021).

12 Rather gruesomely she kills their son, cooks him and serves him to his father at a feast (Barber 1994, 232).

13 This information came from https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/fashion-renaitre-domestic-violence-niango-1.5801599 (accessed 8 February 2021).

14 More information about the initiative can be found at www.sue-rock-originals.myshopify.com (accessed 8 February 2021).

15 For more information about this initiative see https://glitchtextiles.com/covid-19 (accessed 8 February 2021).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Carol Quarini

Dr Carol Quarini is an independent researcher and artist. She undertook her practice-based PhD at the University for the Creative Arts, Farnham. Her postdoctoral research focuses on the history, manufacture and design of net curtains and lace panels. Her current practice critiques domesticity and feminism using subversive stitching and lace. She has exhibited widely in the UK and internationally, published in the UK, and presented her research at international conferences. More about her work can be found on her website www.carolquarini.com. [email protected]