### Record Type:: [[Claim - Craft provides empowerment for women]] ValueofCraft:: [[Equity value of craft]] ### Note Craft offer pays directly to female producers. This can grant them an independence that helps maintain the family budget. For women who need to remain at home, craft can offer flexible work that complements domestic responsibilities. Foregrounding women’s home-based craft skills and capacities opened up key spaces for women’s empowerment in the first half of the twentieth century. In India, for example, anonymising occupational caste identities through craft skills training created possibilities for the remaking of women’s subjectivities around dignified work. In south India, Muthulakshmi Reddy fought against prevailing norms of caste and patriarchy by introducing training programs for socially ostracised women that emphasised moral hygiene (house-keeping, midwifery, nursing, weaving, needle-work, dress-making, home-science), thereby ensuring their acceptance and integration within caste society. Beyond missionary upliftment, Jennifer Way’s research on the deployment of craft therapy for convalescing American soldiers during World War I by women ‘reconstruction aides’ reveals the use of craft within an aesthetics of collective care and rehabilitation In a study of pastoralist copper bell makers, from the Kachchh region of Gujarat in Western India, Meera Velayudhan notes that after the partition, when the cattle population and their movement was hampered by the India and Pakistan border the formation of women’s self help groups (SHG) became an opportunity for revitalizing the economic viability of the craft. >“The women in this community appear to have a more pronounced role within the family compared to Muslim women in other craft communities and are gradually moving towards recognizing the benefits of interest based loans, despite religious beliefs, if the contribution of women are added to the rates of copper bell size. The SHGs, in turn are linked with Khamir [a local ngo] which in turn builds linkages with government schemes and support programs (health, business). ### References %% DATAVIEW_PUBLISHER: start ```dataview list summary from [[Claim - Craft provides empowerment for women]] where contains(file.path,"Warp") ``` %% - [[Warp/Craft Traditions, Local Natural Resources and Changing Market.md|Craft Traditions, Local Natural Resources and Changing Market]]: In Kachchh, women's self help groups revitalised the economic viability of crafts. - [[Warp/Prolegomena for World War I craft therapy for American injured soldiers and Reconstruction Aides.md|Prolegomena for World War I craft therapy for American injured soldiers and Reconstruction Aides]]: Women played a role in craft therapy for US soldiers during World War 1. - [[Warp/ProvokeProtect.md|ProvokeProtect]]: \- - [[Warp/Riotous Needlework - Gendered Pedagogy and a Negotiated Christian Aesthetic in the American Ceylon Mission.md|Riotous Needlework - Gendered Pedagogy and a Negotiated Christian Aesthetic in the American Ceylon Mission]]: Needlework enabled Tamil women in Sri Lanka to develop their identity. - [[Warp/Saheli Women.md|Saheli Women]]: This Indian NGO demonstrates the benefits of craft specifically for women living in traditional communities. - [[Warp/Tackling Climate Change Through Craft Development The Case of Rural Women in uPhongolo Local Municipality.md|Tackling Climate Change Through Craft Development The Case of Rural Women in uPhongolo Local Municipality]]: Craft provides women in South Africa with livelihood while combating climate change. - [[Warp/The Question of Women and Craft, Pre- and Post Independence India.md|The Question of Women and Craft, Pre- and Post Independence India]]: Weaving was introduced to marginalised women in India to ensure their social integration. - [[Warp/The Subversive Stitch - Embroidery and the Making of the Feminine.md|The Subversive Stitch - Embroidery and the Making of the Feminine]]: Women used embroidery to express subversive messages. - [[Warp/The Women Weavers of the Little Loomhouse.md|The Women Weavers of the Little Loomhouse]]: The Little Loomhouse in South Louisville, Kentucky, has evolved from a refuge for women artists in 1898 into a vibrant textile arts community. - [[Warp/Weaving, Guardian of Identity.md|Weaving, Guardian of Identity]]: Timorese women used the power of their textiles to prevent environmental disaster through mining. %% DATAVIEW_PUBLISHER: end %%