Stranger in a Strange Land
Stranger in a Strange Land
Men who can be described as feminists...
Stranger in a Strange Land is a portrait of my paternal grandfather I made in 2015. It was my first year working full time in my studio. This portrait created a minor buzz in the art quilt world. It was displayed in an exhibition at the Smithsonian Textile Museum at Georgetown University.
My submission did not directly address the theme of the exhibition, since my grandfather’s family migrated from Scotland prior to the American Revolution. In my artist statement, I argued that everyone has a connection with migration. My grandfather moved from West Virginia to Colorado in the last decade of the 19th century. From Colorado to San Francisco after WWI. From San Francisco to Los Angeles after the influenza epidemic. His reasons for moving were no different than refugees from Mexico, Syria, or Africa. Like these people he moved for reasons of safety and security for himself and his family.
Almost ten years later, I still love this portrait, despite hating it when I began working with it in my studio. I thought the static mugshot orientation of the figure in grayscale was a huge mistake when the printed fabric arrived in my studio. In hindsight I realize the composition was a great learning experience which helped me grow as an artist. To rescue this portrait I had to fix the problem of the deadweight of the figure and find a way to make it grab the attention of a viewer.
The lack of a background was an opportunity. I fused little pieces of commercial fabric that had a pattern composed of vintage want ads. I used strips of fabric with newspaper text tinted with yellows and orange that spread over the figure. I painted blue horizontal stripes and dropped little puddles of inks on the fabric . The contrasting colors, juxtaposition of horizontal and vertical lines framed the figure creating a bold visual statement.
Almost ten years later, I still like the final composition and continue to use the lessons I learned creating it, but the back story is different for me.
My father looked more like his father as he aged. Looking at this portrait now I easily see my Dads face. I see a through line between these two men and in the man in my own life. The common thread is they are men who support women. Men who see the women in their lives as equal partners. Men who can be described as feminists.
A feminist believes in all genders having equal rights and opportunities. An observable attribute of a feminist man is his respect for a diversity of a woman's experiences, identities, knowledge and strengths.
I believe grandfather was a feminist, although he may not have used the term. He demonstrated his feminist sensibilities in an era of firmly defined gender roles. He married my grandmother at sixteen when they were teaching in a one room school together. He moved west away from opportunities in the coal mines of West Virginia, to enable my grandmother to study at Colorado Women’s College in Denver.
Years latter, when his job as an mining engineer fell victim to falling gold prices after WWI he moved again to allow their oldest daughter to attend Stanford. A few years later he moved the family to West Hollywood, allowing his second daughter to work in film. To my grandfathers’ credit, future for his daughters was not planted in a sterotypical role of marriage and children. He saw each of them as having unique identities and strengths as individuals.
My father, like his father; moved his family after he retired from the University of Hawaii to the mainland so that his girls would have a better and larger selection of colleges. Higher education and a new setting would provide opportunities for his girls to build wealth in a much more affordable state.* I remember him taking pride in helping set the stage for his girls to build an independent life on their terms.
*It took me years to forgive my parents decision to leave paradise!
I married a man who was raised by two working parents. His mother had a full time position at the phone company night switchboard. His Dad made dinner. His mother made breakfast. It was unusual for a kid born like my husband in the early 50’s to see an independent woman working in partnership with her husband to raise kids.
When we were raising our kids in the 80’s and 90’s, we also worked as a team like his parents. My husband worked early in the morning and could pick up kids from school when I had after school meetings. We have always understood that any decision, task, or challenge; is faced by us as equals. We were true partners.
Partnerships in marriage is easier said than done. Many women of my generation suffered from the “must have it all syndrom”. Having a career at the same time their spouse assumes they would also ake care of the home and the kids. I am one of that first generation of women getting married after the Equal Rights Movement. Many of my friends’ marriages didn’t survive.
There was an extraordinary rise in marital instability after 1970. In 1980 the divorce rate was at a high of 50%. Today the divorce rate has fallen from that historic high. Current divorce rates are between 35% and 39%. Less woman are choosing to get married. The education levels of women choosing marriage has increased. Women are getting married later and are more likely to be financially independent. It’s a huge shift in the power dynamics within a marriage.
The Feminine Mystique by Betty Friedan was published in 1963.
The seed of the book began 1957 when she conducted a survey of her Ivy League college classmates for a reunion. Instead of finding happy affluent women living the suburban dream she found the opposite. The title was coined by Friedan to describe the assumptions that women would be fulfilled from their housework, marriage, sexual lives, and children. The book started a revolution.
What remains of that revolution seems to be unseige these days. Despite huge gains in education and pay equity, men hold the majority of positions in power, particulary in State Legislatures. In 2020 of the 7,383 state legislators in the US; 81% are White and over 71% are male. These men are are in charge of the 15 states which have a total abortion ban, the 27 states which have abortion bans based on gestational duration, and the 7 states which ban abortion at or before 18 weeks gestation.
A major breakthrough in reproductive rights occurred in 1965 when the U.S. Supreme Court struck down a Connecticut law that made it illegal even for married couples to obtain birth control devices. In Griswold v. Connecticut, the Court ruled that the ban on contraception violated the constitutional right to “marital privacy.” In 1972, the Court extended the right to use contraceptives to all people, married or single. These cases laid the foundation for a constitutional challenge to abortion bans. Between 1967 and 1971, under mounting pressure from the women’s rights movement, 17 states decriminalized abortion. Public opinion also shifted during this period. In 1968, only 15 percent of Americans favored legal abortions; by 1972, 64 percent did. When the Court announced its landmark 1973 ruling legalizing abortion in Roe v. Wade, it was marching in step with public opinion. ….. ACLU Position Paper 2000