Creating a caring Economy (2008)

 What happens to women’s work? How is it assessed? Or is it just an expected role in society? Questions that are definitively related to the unpaid work of women in caring for all the relationships they are involved in: husband, children, the grandparents of both families, and others through their charitable caring works.

This quilt had begun to take form over ten years ago, for the 2008 UN International Women’s Day, created before I started a blogspot. It was named "Creating a caring economy", and I was in the process of reading Rianne Eisler’s wonderful expose of the need for a more equitable basis to all economies, based in gender equity. In The real wealth of nations: creating a caring economics, published in 2007, Eisler makes the case for what lies behind how the productivity of the economies that we live within have arisen and been developed, are sustained and maintained on the basis of the long-time gender bias toward the work of males, totally discounting women's work through the ages. 

Maybe twenty years earlier I had read Counting for nothing (1988) by New Zealand’s first female parliamentarian Marilyn Waring. It was ground-breaking and is now a classic feminist analysis of the gender bias in society that so obviously extends to the economy. Without GDP being fuelled by women’s unpaid labour in the home, and elsewhere in some societies, work in the home and family has not been valued or acknowledged by the contribution to the world’s economies. Unlike cleaning up a disasters for example, which does contribute to the overall GDP, work in the home counts for nothing. 

The wall hanging (measuring 800x1000mms) was inspired by a screen-printed Indian fabric, and commissioned by my friend Sheila. Given to Sheila as a parting gift by her sisters following a visit to their religious congregation in India, the single piece of fabric showed three women. They are depicted wearing traditional Indian dress and veils, complete with decorative emblems and jewellery. These women are determinedly striding out, two with vessels carried gracefully on their heads, and one in a sack over her shoulder. Delighted to work with the image of these three strong women walking across the scene, I decided to cut them out individually and reposition them onto a background fabric pieced together from ‘indigenous’ inspired fabrics in my own stash.

By doing so, I was able to provide space to include random textual quotes from The real wealth of nations. Some excerpts are scattered down the veils, and others across the background. They include one basic message: “gender equality to remove poverty”. And other catch phrases are pulled from the text: “the economy begins in the household; good governance to open doors for women in a dominator world; trade justice to achieve women’s economic empowerment; respect of other life forms we share the planet with; reproductive freedom.” 

I had known that the word ‘economos’ in Greek is a reference to the hearth, the centre of all trade, exchange, sustenance and wellbeing. “The most important human work is sustaining the activities of the household - care and care giving throughout life.” This is what basically sums up a functional and functioning economy for me. Where would we be without home and hearth? I added some silver thread hand-stitching to the women’s paraphernalia and jewellery, including their earrings and belly buttons. Much fun in bringing to together, and very pleased that Sheila has bequeathed it to me as she is the process of finding her new place.