Last year, I spent a few months in New York City, where I was fortunate enough to stumble across an exhibition of American quilts, titled Workt By Hand, at the Brooklyn Museum.
The quilts date from the late 19th to early 20th centuries … and if you’re still reading, kudos to you. (I’m fairy certain I risked losing half my readers just by placing the word “quilt” in the first sentence.)
Why would anyone want to read about that boring, old-fashioned hobby of women who have nothing better to do and no remarkable talents to do it with?
But what if I told you that those very quilts were actually the precursors to the American Abstract Expressionism art explosion of the mid-20th century? That the work of famed male artists such as Jackson Pollock and Hans Hofmann bears more than a passing resemblance to the handiwork of mostly anonymous, long-dead American women?
In 1971, New York’s Whitney Museum of Art ran an exhibition titled Abstract Design in American Quilts, which showcased the remarkable and undeniable similarities between the tapestries of American housewives and abstract expressionist paintings.
The exhibition, which was curated by quilting aficionado Jonathan Holstein, was credited with not only reviving interest in quilting but with elevating it from mere “craft” to bona fide art.
Or, to put it another way, the stunning works of women lay undervalued and forgotten until a man taught the world to appreciate their intricacies … by pointing out the similarity of these quilts to the already lauded works of men.
Sadly, there are clear signs that women are still undervalued, such as the consistent lack of female presence in Triple J’s annual Hottest 100 countdown. By now, most of us will be familiar with the excuse given every time we call attention to the gender imbalance (which is to say, every year around late January). “Music,” we are told gravely, “like all art is subjective. You can’t tell people what art to like.”
Tell that to Jonathan Holstein.
But sometimes this devaluation of women’s work happens less obviously. Last Thursday, The Project’s Charlie Pickering wrote a compelling piece for Mamamia about society’s questionable priorities. Pickering wants to know why our media is focusing on random attacks on men in the form of drunken “king-hit” punches when such attacks are exceedingly rare. Meanwhile, domestic violence against women is so common that one woman dies at the hands of her partner every week.
As I said, it is a great piece and one whose advice we’d do well to heed. But it’s also an issue female writers have been tackling for years.
Even when it comes to issues directly affecting women, why do we seem to require an authoritative male voice to validate it? The title of the article itself, “Charlie Pickering Wants To Speak To You About Your Priorities”, indicates that we should listen, not so much for the message but for the messenger who delivers it.
At last check, Pickering’s piece was shared 29,725 times on Facebook and 993 times on Twitter. Compare this to a first person anonymous piece by a female domestic violence victim, for the same website, which had just 2,520 shares and 28 tweets.
As a writer who spends probably way too much time on social media, I am accustomed to seeing the works of other women shared and dissected in the feminist sphere.
But Pickering’s viral screed was shared, applauded and shared again even by those of my Facebook friends whose statuses usually consist of how many kilometres they ran last week or what they ate for dinner.
In other words, it made a far greater impact in the wider community. The last time I saw a feminist issue get so much mainstream attention was when Army Chief Lieutenant David Morrison gave his much-lauded “The Standard You Walk Past Is The Standard You Accept” speech.
Why is it that ideas that are long-touted by women and all but ignored outside the feminist echo-chamber are subsequently treated as revelatory and wakeup calls when espoused by men?
Of course, none of this is the fault of Pickering or Morrison. It just so happens we live in a world where male (specifically, white male) privilege is firmly entrenched. This means feminists who discuss violence against women, both inside and outside the home, are readily dismissed as man-haters and accused of “playing the gender card”. And that when men grace us with very similar, even identical, opinions, they are hailed as reasoned, objective truth.
This privilege extends beyond the realms of gender. White people are often given a far longer leash with which to lead a discussion about race than people of colour. As one film critic said about Tarantino’s slave-revenge fantasy Django Unchained, “(It’s) not likely that a black director would’ve gotten a budget to even attempt such a thing.”
But where feminism differs is in its apparent need to appeal to men, to seek their approval. For example, the idea that feminism should be “inclusive” of men is a popular one even though what would actually benefit women most is for men to use their privilege to make society more inclusive of women. Many a feminist writer has been crucified – by other feminists – for suggesting men should take no more than a backseat role in any feminist gathering.
It seems incongruous to me that those who benefit from institutionalised privilege should be the ones who we look to most to provide a so-called objective analysis of society.
All of which goes to show just how little we have come. We remain, whether we care to admit it or not, mired in that patriarchal mindset that routinely and unconsciously assigns more value to the work and words of men.
So even as I thank Charlie Pickering for his contribution to widening the conversation, I am aware that women have been doing this same vital work for years, with not nearly as much fanfare.
And I ask you to keep in mind that the world would never have had the likes Jackson Pollock’s Blue Poles if one Victoria Royall Broadhead had not first given us the magnificent Tumbling Blocks.
This article was originally published on ABC’s The Drum. Read the original article here.