We Are All Enlisted
It was not my customary weaponry, but it was familiar enough. Shears sharpened and cannon loaded with a fresh needle, I was ready. The instructions were clear and simple, but I still double checked with the woman in charge to make sure I did the job right.
My daughter and I did not wait for the draft; we were active volunteers. Patterns for non-disposable menstrual pads were being cut and sewn in bulk. Because I was an experienced seamstress, I was assigned the slightly-more advanced needle work of sewing the curves to be fitted around legs.
The War on Women has long been waged by men (and pro-patriarchy women) wielding weapons of patriarchal culture. For centuries women have survived through this, yet I like to think that over the past two centuries, our defences have morphed into action—an action making it a War FOR Women.
This new action realised by my Mormon mothers. For the Pioneer era, it was in sewing shirts for men in support of construction of the temple and clothing the impoverished Native Americans who were displaced time and time again, making it not only a war for women, but a war against poverty.
In the Utah Era, my Mormon mothers carried sabres of pens and papers, wherein they enlisted 13,000 names in favour of women’s suffrage within the United States. This created a feminist friendship that resulted in weaving the finest silk for the gift of a dress of Mormon women’s long-time friend, Susan B. Anthony.
As wars came and went, the weapons yielded by women resulted in droves of canned peaches, repurposed fabrics that were hand-patched into quilts, and mountainous canisters of flour. My own mother saw her war in missionary work, sewing sleeves on dresses to make them temple-worthy, joining a union to protest for equal pay, and creating costumes for pageants and roadshows where she hoped potential converts might grasp a part of the passion she felt. She later saw the benevolence in making birth control available, but spoke so only in whispers, afraid of the air raids that would strike her from above.
A scant decade ago, beloved Mormon female friend called for battle in her native Fiji, gathering donations of fabric, thread and notions. The church stepped in and gifted the women with first-class Berninas, Janomes and Husqvarnas. These weapons empowered Fijian women to quilt goods that were then sold to tourists, thereby providing political, social and economic independence through income.
For myself, I have spent decades waged in a personal war for reproductive and infertility treatment, in addition to being entrenched with my sisters in battles for equal pay, safety from sexual abuse, and being respected at church. Strange how that last item falls in with domestic terrorism against women. And yet, it does.
The war is not over. Women still do not make a wage that compares to men. Poverty is not solved. Domestic violence, an ongoing issue, took a sinister turn up during COVID. This re-ignited a long-fought battle for the right to not be hit, the right to not be sexually assaulted, the right to be treated with dignity.
Dignity was my battle for the day, as a part of a Days For Girls International.
I was using an industrial sewing machine. Each puncture of the needed in the layered fabrics sounded like rapid machine gun fire. These thread pellets were battling the way for a young woman in East Timor to be able to attend school during her monthly periods. A simple, human thing, and yet a crusade. A major crusade.
It was and is a war that I was proud to be engaged in with my daughter. She was folding, positioning fabric and pinning her heart out. She originally did not want to come; she had better things to do on that Sunday afternoon. But she was born into this war, and that moment was a teaching opportunity like no other. Like a natural, she stepped up and was thrilled to be in combat. She knew she was doing right. God bless her.
I noticed mid-battle how few women knew how to operate sewing machines. It made me grateful for my mother, and for the odd Young Women activity that taught basic sewing, empowering me in way that is not as fashionable or necessary as it once was. And yet… I wondered if the church would be as partnered with me, fighting for the dignity of women, as it seemed to once be.
As the church ages, it seems to me that it is focuses less and less on the War For Women, and more and more on the sustaining of patriarchy. As I sewed, I wondered if my daughter will want to remain within a church that does not appear to fight for her as much as it appears to fights for its own patriarchal structure.
I don’t know. So I kept sewing.
I hope the church will right itself. I hope it will work alongside women in progression of humankind.
I hope.
I battle.
I wage war for women.
And I pray.
Notes:
Women of Covenant, p 137, 170, and more.
