The Female Consumer and Producer

Reflecting on the ways in which quilts were used to sell, trade, or to pay debts, the role of girl as producers of products presents a different way for me to consider quilting.  As a way of contributing to the household economy, the girls and women of the home did their own part, by producing quilts on top of doing all of the work already set out for them. 

This is in stark contrast to my views of female as consumers of products, which is much more millennial, and not so much early twentieth century or nineteenth century.  The female as consumer seems linked to marketing and to obtaining or maintenance of a class position.  Different from quilting, my vision of female consumerism has so much less to do with survival, warmth, or contribution to the household. 

Complicating the above thoughts, however, is the knowledge that women’s roles in the professional world differ so much from the ways women have worked and contributed to their homes historically.  Of course, there is the second shift, which women have worked for hundreds of years.  There was the first shift, of cleaning and cooking, mending, gardening, and canning (among other roles) in some races and classes.  There was fieldwork, servitude, cooking, cleaning, etc., in other races and classes.  But after the sun had set, there was the second shift.  This shift included helping children, the children setting in on second shift of school work, quilting, cleaning, washing, etc.  The 1980s gives me the great memory of women setting off to work in high heels to work from “9 to 5” and return home to clean, cook, wash, etc.  This female producer leads me to discussion of the female consumer.    

The female consumer plays a role in the girl/female community, which seems to me, to set a bar.  I consider Pottery Barn, online shopping, and places where the female consumer sets herself in line to walk with the other females who are consuming.  I wonder about websites likes David’s Bridal, which are probably perused by most to-be brides, bridesmaids and female family members.  I think about the trends being set on those highly trafficked sites, which tell females what to consider “in,” or “out.”  In my early years, my mother turned to Cosmopolitan and Women’s Day magazine, also, Good Housekeeping to learn that the particular year’s black was chocolate brown or navy blue. 

The quilting community brought women together, whereas writing was a personal activity, I would think.  With today’s technology, the female gathering community has become global.  The females can work together on written collaborations, fundraisers, send quilting squares across the globe to make community quilts, and blogs have made the most private thoughts public.  The female community is no longer local, we are global – producing and consuming globally.