The Way Forward Must Be For All of Us

Shelby Rodeffer - Louisville, Kentucky

September 2020

Dimensions: 20x30"
Acrylic, enamel, and gold leaf on quilted silk with brass chain and fringe.

The experience of being a woman is not monolithic. Not all women are mothers, we do not look the same, we do not have the same world lens, and we do not all identify as women. The dissonant experience of being marginalized is present in the form of a bricolage quilted tapestry—an art form that has historically been relegated to domestic craft, or “women’s work.”

"The way forward must be for all of us" is my urging for white feminists on the centennial of white women’s right to vote. For too long, we have denied space for trans women, BIPOC, the disabled, the genderqueer, and the undocumented. One hundred years of history has shown us that gatekeeping and exclusionary ideology has caused deep harm within the Feminist movement. If we want to move forward into true equality, we can only do that if we fight injustice with all women and post-binary people in mind.