“ . . . the million tiny stitches, the friction of the scrubbing brush, the scouring cloth, the iron across the shirt, the rubbing of cloth against itself to exorcise the stain, the renewal of the scorched pot, the rusted knifeblade, the invisible weaving of a frayed and threadbare family life, the cleaning up of soil and waste left behind by men and children . . . unacknowledged by the political philosophers . . . [that is the] activity of world-protection, world-preservation, world-repair.” - Adrienne Rich
In the evenings, my mother would darn socks. I’d watch, intrigued by the way she’d insert the darning egg, and with her needle weave the threads back and forth, turn, then back and forth again, until the holes were filled and the sock was made whole. She always had her pile of mending – a rip needing repair, buttons needing to be sewn back on, a skirt needing to be hemmed. Whether cooking, cleaning, tending, or mending, much of her life was devoted to the protection, preservation, and repair of our little world.
During World War II, she made a life for her two small children. My brother was about five and my sister just a toddler when our dad was drafted and sent to the Philippines. My mother’s job, as has so often been said and sung[i], was “to keep the home fires burning.” But what of those whose homes have been burned? As thousands and millions of women and children flee Ukraine, as well as Afghanistan, Syria, and other places of conflict and persecution, I think of the women, the mothers, weaving together a frayed life, creating home from so little, protecting their children as much as possible from the ravages of war, continuing to feed, clothe, shelter and educate them, consoling and cheering them in the midst of their own grief and loss.
Most of the history we were taught in grade school consisted of memorizing names and dates of battles and wars, as well as the names of the warriors. These were the actions and actors deemed worthy for us to remember decades and centuries later. It was indeed his story. It was not until my own forays into seeking out the letters, diaries, and unpublished essays of nineteenth century feminists that I discovered a whole world of her story – the stories of all those who protected, sustained, and nurtured life over the millennia – the understory of humanity. In her essay, “The Power of Anger in the Work of Love,” theologian Beverly Wildung Harrison disclaimed the notion that “ . . . political or military conquest [are] the noblest expressions of the human power to act,” claiming instead that the most honorable and uplifting actions are those of women -- “ . . . the doers of life-sustaining things, the ‘copers,’ those who have understood that the reception of the gift of life is no inert thing, that to receive this gift is to be engaged in its tending, constantly” (215 -216).
Her words bring to mind not only the refugee women, but all those who daily do the work of tending life. The indispensable nature of this work has been highlighted during the pandemic, as more than two million women in the US left paid employment in order to care for, tend, homeschool, play with, and nurture their children. So many of those considered “essential workers” -- food service workers, nurses, nursing home care workers, teachers -- are those whose work is primarily what would be considered “women’s work” – providing food, educating the youth, caring for the young and the old, the sick and the dying.
In other critical issues of these times, women have been at the forefront of the work of protecting and preserving life. Three women -- Patrice Cullers, Alicia Garza, and Opal Tometi – together formed Black Lives Matter, whose work to preserve and protect the lives of those they love and to ensure that those lives matter, has been especially crucial in these times of racial reckoning since the murder of George Floyd. Indigenous women water protectors -- those who began the protest and encampment at Standing Rock and at Line 3, as well as the water walkers who preceded and followed them,[ii] preserve and protect life for all beings on this planet. In these sacred tasks of women, tending this gift of life, constantly.
Yet, in her The Second Sex, feminist philosopher Simone de Beauvoir railed against this life of constant tending to which women were, in her word, “doomed.” “She is occupied without doing anything. . . . Her life is not directed towards ends; she is absorbed in producing or caring for things that are never more than means, such as food, clothing, shelter . . . “(604). [iii] Even after living in occupied France during WW II, she still regarded these tasks to be “inessential” (604).
Feminist bell hooks, on the other hand, considered them “all that truly mattered.” In her essay, “Homeplace,” she wrote: “In our young minds houses belonged to women, were their special domain, . . . places where all that truly mattered in life took place – the warmth and comfort of shelter, the feeding of bodies, the nurturing of our souls” (41). Writing of the origins and goals of Black Lives Matter, co-founder Patrice Khan-Cullers echoed the same, saying: “We deserve, we say, what so many others take for granted: decent food. . . . And shelter . . . homes that are safe and non-toxic and well-lit and warm” (199-200). More than these basics of existence is what they enable. As Khan-Cullers continued, “A shelter where our gifts our watered, where they have a place to grow, a greenhouse for all that we pull from our dreaming and are allowed to plant” (200).
Rejecting de Beauvoir’s statement that “woman is not called upon to build a better world. . . ” (451-452), Harrison argued instead that it is women in particular who make a better world possible. “We dare not minimize the very real historical power of women to be architects of what is most authentically human. . . . we have been the chief builders of whatever human dignity and community has come to expression. We have the right to speak of building human dignity and community” (217). bell hooks as well found that among the “things that truly mattered,” the building of human dignity was key. “There we learned dignity, integrity of being; . . . Black women resisted by making homes where all black people could strive to be subjects, not objects . . . where we could restore to ourselves the dignity denied us on the outside” (41-42).
What more important work is there in the world, than as Harrison said, “to build up and deepen personhood itself” (217)? Each word of affirmation, each proffer of respect forms a tiny stitch, which when woven together create the warp and weft of relationship, of community, of true care for the well-being of others and the collective.
However, as Harrison noted, just as we have the capacity to build up, so do we have the capability to tear down. The latter was on full display in the recent Senate confirmation hearings on the nomination of Ketanji Brown Jackson to the U.S. Supreme Court. Enduring three days of insults and demeaning questions and comments from Senate Republicans, Judge Jackson all the while maintained her dignity and grace. In her introduction of Judge Jackson, long-time friend Prof. Lisa Fairfax spoke of how Jackson has consistently been the one to build up and deepen the personhood of others. I suspect in her so doing, Jackson created a community of mutual respect that has been that homeplace for her in the maintenance and sustenance of her dignity.
Harrison presaged this precarious moment in the history of our nation and world when she wrote: “I believe that our world is on the verge of self-destruction and death because the society as a whole has so deeply neglected that which is most human and most valuable and the most basic of all the works of love – the work of human communication, of caring and nurturance, of tending the personal bonds of community” (217). The importance of Harrison’s argument cannot be overstated. The time to value this work is long overdue. The tending of relationship is fundamental to the work of building community, to the work of love, justice, and peace. Let us use the power of our love to build each other up, not tear each other down.
As we approach the end of Women’s History Month, may we remember herstory, celebrating the mostly unseen and unrecognized vital work of women around the world sewing the fabric of community, one tiny stitch at a time, as they engage in the activities of “world-protection, world-preservation, and world-repair.”
Notes
Beauvoir, Simone de. The Second Sex. Ed. and trans. H.M. Parshley. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1953.
Harrison, Beverly Wildung. “The Power of Anger in the Work of Love,” in Plaskow, Judith and Carol P. Christ, eds. Weaving the Visions: New Patterns in Feminist Spirituality. San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1989.
hooks, bell. Yearning: race, gender, and cultural politics. Boston: South End Press, 1990.
Khan-Cullers, Patrisse and Asha Bandele. When They Call You a Terrorist: A Black Lives Matter Memoir. New York: St. Martin’s Griffin, 2017.
Rich, Adrienne. On Lies, Secrets, and Silence: Selected Prose: 1966-1978. New York: W.W. Norton, 1976.
Watch Ketanji Brown Jackson's BFF Exemplify The True Definition Of Sisterhood (msn.com)
[ i] “Keep the Home Fires Burning,” written by Lena Gilbert Ford and composed by Ivor Novello during World War I, was considered to be World War I’s greatest anthem. Ford died in air raid two years after writing the song. [The story behind World War I’s greatest anthem, 100 years on (theconversation.com)]
[ii] In April 2003, Nokomis Josephine Mandamin -ba from the Fond du Lac band of Ojibwe, and others with her, began their first walk for water, circling first Lake Superior, then all of the Great Lakes. In Anishinaabe culture, women are the keepers of the water, and they walked for the protection and health of the water for all future generations. Their walk has inspired many other walks along rivers and lake shores that continue to this day. Every step is a prayer. [Water Walkers | Indigenizing Education (ubc.ca), NibiWalk – Every Step is a Prayer]
[iii] Steeped in the Western paradigm of mind/body value dualism, de Beauvoir considered any work of the body to be the “lower” work of necessity as opposed to the “elevated” work of creativity – the work of the mind and of men. Mind/body value dualism divides certain categories and qualities into arbitrary opposites – mind/ body, men/. women, nature/ culture, human/ animal, freedom/necessity, transcendence/immanence, etc. – in which those things associated with the mind are accorded greater value.