Editing Weaving (section)

== Gender politics ==

=== Women's work ===
{{Further information|Women's work}}
Weaving is a practice that is typically considered to be "women's work", either part of their employment, cultural practices, or leisure.<ref name=":4">{{Cite book |last=Weltge-Wortmann |first=Sigrid |title=Women's work: textile art from the Bauhaus |date=1993 |publisher=Chronicle Books |isbn=0-8118-0466-6 |location=San Francisco |oclc=27894429}}</ref><ref name=":2">{{Cite book |last=Müller |first=Ulrike |title=Bauhaus women: art, handicraft, design |date=2009 |publisher=Flammarion |others=Ingrid Radewaldt, Sandra Kemker |isbn=978-2-08-030120-8 |edition=English language |location=Paris |page=34 |oclc=432409234}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Vetter |first=Lisa Pace |title="Women's work" as political art: weaving and dialectical politics in Homer, Aristophanes, and Plato |date=2005 |publisher=Lexington Books |isbn=0-7391-1063-2 |location=Lanham, Md. |page=1 |oclc=57414764}}</ref> The categorization of weaving as women's work has bled into many fields, from art history, anthropology, sociology, and even psychology. While claiming that women had not contributed much to civilization's history, [[Sigmund Freud]] wrote that "one technique which they may have invented [is] that of plaiting and weaving."<ref>{{Cite book |last=Freud |first=Sigmund |title=New introductory lectures on psycho-analysis |date=1989 |publisher=Norton |others=James Strachey, Peter Gay |isbn=0-393-00743-X |edition=Standard |location=New York |page=132 |oclc=23591744}}</ref>

Women's work is often not recorded as a central activity to building Western history and culture.<ref name=":1">{{Cite book |last=Roberts |first=Elizabeth |title=Women's work, 1840-1940 |date=1995 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |others=Economic History Society |isbn=0-521-55265-6 |edition=1st Cambridge University Press |location=Cambridge |page=12 |oclc=32468904}}</ref> Yet, some anthropologists argue that textile production facilitated societal establishment and growth, therefore women were integral to perpetuating communities.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Kruger |first=Kathryn Sullivan |title=Weaving the word: the metaphorics of weaving and female textual production |date=2001 |publisher=Susquehanna University Press |isbn=1-57591-052-7 |location=Selinsgrove [Pa.] |pages=21–22 |oclc=45466154}}</ref>  To record their stories, beliefs, and symbols important to their culture, women engaged in weaving, [[Embroidery|embroidering]], or other [[Fiber art|fiber practices]]. These practices have existed for centuries documented through art history, myth, and oral history and are still practiced today.

=== Reception in the mainstream art world ===
Weaving is often classified as "[[craft]]" alongside other art forms like ceramics, embroidery, [[basket weaving]], and more. Historically, there has been a hierarchy between artists who were considered "[[craftspeople]]" and artists who worked in traditional mediums of painting and sculpture.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Adamson |first=Glenn |date=2020-01-13 |title=How Craft Entered the Mainstream Art World |url=https://www.artsy.net/article/artsy-editorial-art-embracing-craft |access-date=2022-12-02 |website=Artsy |language=en}}</ref>  The traditional artists wanted to keep artisans in the minority{{citation needed|date=May 2024}}, so there was little reception for arts that were considered craft.
[[File:The Anni Albers show at Tate Modern is astonishing.jpg|thumb|Photo of weavings exhibited in Anni Albers' retrospective at Tate Modern in 2018.]]
In 1939, art critic [[Clement Greenberg]] wrote "[[Avant-Garde and Kitsch]]" where he presented his ideas about "high" and "low" art. His definition of "low" art was likely informed by years of theory against decoration and ornamentation, which was correlated with femininity in the early 1900s by critics like [[Adolf Loos]] and [[Karl Scheffler]].<ref>{{Cite book |last=Loos |first=Adolf |title=Ornament and crime: selected essays |date=1998 |others=Adolf Opel |isbn=1-57241-046-9 |publisher=Ariadne Press |location=Riverside, Calif. |oclc=36883998 |url=https://archive.org/details/ornamentcrimesel0000loos/mode/2up |url-access=registration}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Scheffler |first=Karl |title=Berlin ein Stadtschicksal |date=2015 |publisher=Suhrkamp Verlag |isbn=978-3-518-42511-4 |edition=1st |location=Berlin |oclc=930814184}}</ref> Although Greenberg never explicitly says the word "craft", many scholars postulate that this is one of the origins of Western opposition to weaving, and more largely art that is considered craft.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Auther |first=Elissa |date=2004 |title=The Decorative, Abstraction, and the Hierarchy of Art and Craft in the Art Criticism of Clement Greenberg |journal=Oxford Art Journal |volume=27 |issue=3 |pages=339–364 |doi=10.1093/oaj/27.3.339 |jstor=20107990 |issn=0142-6540}}</ref>

Only recently has the art world begun to recognize weaving as an art form and to exhibit woven articles as art objects. Exhibitions of large scope have been organized to affirm the importance of textiles in the art historical canon, such as the [[Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles]]' With Pleasure: Pattern and Decoration in American Art 1972–1985.<ref>{{Cite web |title=With Pleasure: Pattern and Decoration in American Art 1972–1985 |url=https://www.moca.org/exhibition/with-pleasure |access-date=2022-12-02 |website=www.moca.org}}</ref> Women weavers, like [[Anni Albers]], [[Lenore Tawney]], [[Magdalena Abakanowicz]], [[Olga de Amaral]], and [[Sheila Hicks]], are now the subject of exhibitions and major retrospectives across the world.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Tate |title=Anni Albers {{!}} Tate Modern |url=https://www.tate.org.uk/whats-on/tate-modern/anni-albers |access-date=2022-12-02 |website=Tate |language=en-GB}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Gipson |first=Ferren |title=Women's work: from feminine arts to feminist art |date=2022 |publisher=Frances Lincoln |isbn=978-0-7112-6465-6 |location=London}}</ref>