The Dinner Party by Judy Chicago: Donald Woodman, Wikimedia Commons
Knitting and other forms of needlework made a resurgence when Second Wave feminism reclaimed traditional “women’s work” as a form of feminist expression, promoting crafting as a tool of feminist empowerment. The most prominent example of this was Judy Chicago’s 1979 The Dinner Party that celebrated prominent female historical and mythical figures. A massive artwork, it consists of 539 quilted triangle pieces from all over the world, embroidered place banners, and ceramic plates arranged on a large triangular table.
Women form the vast majority of those engaged in knitting resistance,[i] and beyond the reclamation of women’s domestic arts, craftivism provides women a voice that is often usurped and talked over in masculine political spaces. As one of the participants in a resistance knitting circle that was studied by feminist scholars stated, “’Because politics is still very sexist and configured for men . . . I think women don’t get very far . . . I think craftivism is . . . something that’s accessible to women . . . and is an alternative form of expression.”[ii]
“All the women knitted. . . . So much was closing around the women who sat knitting, knitting, that they their very selves were closing in around a structure yet unbuilt, where they were to sit knitting, knitting, counting dropping heads.”[i] – A Tale of Two Cities
So does Charles Dickens tell the tale of perhaps the most infamous resistance knitter, the character of Madame DeFarge in his A Tale of Two Cities. Using a different pattern of knots for each letter of the alphabet, Madame DeFarge uses her knitting to encode the names of spies and traitors to be beheaded by guillotine in the French Revolution’s Reign of Terror.
Tricoteuse
Her character is based on the true story of the tricoteuse – the women who notoriously knitted while sitting next to the guillotine. They undoubtedly took up this public position because just a few months before the Reign of Terror began they were banned from government proceedings and prohibited from forming any political assembly. Initially praised for their role in the resistance after successfully forcing Louis XVI to acquiesce to their demands following their march on the palace at Versailles protesting rising food prices, they had become too much of a threat to the aristocrats. It is said they were knitting liberty hats.
Fast forward to today. Begun with a simple “Melt the Ice” pattern designed by Paul Neary from the yarn shop in Minneapolis, Needle & Skein, women and men all over the world are once again knitting liberty hats. The red pointed hats are modeled after the nisselue — or “Santa hat”– that Norwegian women knit as a symbol of resistance to the Nazis who were occupying Norway during WW II. Needle & Skein made the pattern available for $5, with proceeds going to support rent and food assistance to those unable to leave their homes due to ICE’s ongoing presence in the Twin Cities. As of March 5th, they had already raised $705,000.
That the movement has become worldwide is extremely moving to those of us in Minnesota. It lets us know we are not alone. It has become a sisterhood of sorts, with a continual round of Facebook messages like this one from Elisabet Engström, “I am knitting the Melt the Ice hat right now. . . . It feels so good to be a part this. I live in Sweden. Happy knitting to all of you.” Another writes from Ibaraki, Japan, that has a cultural exchange program with Minneapolis, that she is knitting MTI hats “in solidarity and support.”[ii] I particularly loved this one, “I changed the pattern a bit, but I’m loving the resistance and how much it’s already earned for donation. I’m 82 and can no longer march, but I can do this.”[iii]
These days, at every protest I attend and just walking around town, I see people, mostly women, wearing the red Melt the Ice hats. There’s something particularly fortifying about wearing one’s convictions so visibly in solidarity with others doing the same. On the 84th anniversary of the Naz’s banning the wearing of the nisselue hats, people all around the world wore the red MTI hats they had inspired, proudly displaying their resistance to the occupation forces of ICE that have terrorized cities and immigrant communities throughout the US.
I first engaged in knitting resistance in 2009 when students in my course, “Women, Peace, and War” participated in CodePink’s Mother’s Day action against war, displaying a banner on the White House fence with the words, “We will not raise our children to kill another mother’s child.” CodePink sent out requests for 4X4 knit squares in pink yarn, and so we began to knit. Many of the students already knew how to knit. We taught those who did not. Most class sessions we were all busily knitting while discussing the readings on women’s roles in war and peace, and by the due date sent in a few dozen squares. It was a wonderful exercise in activist engagement that also brought us together as a community in the classroom and with other anti-war feminist activists throughout the country.
Many people first engaged in knitting resistance when Kat Coyle of Ravelry – the social group for knitters and crocheters – created a pattern for the “pussy hat”[iv] – a symbol of resistance to Donald Trump worn in the first Women’s March following his inauguration in 2017. The streets in Washington, DC and other cities across the country were filled with pink pussy hats.
Women’s March on Washington in 2017
These are just a few of the hundreds of ways knitting and other crafts have been used in resistance to oppression, tyranny, violence, and war. In 2003, Betsy Good coined “craftivism” – a combination of “craft” and “activism” – to describe this worldwide movement.[v] As one craftivist described it, craftivism is “a strategy for non-violent activism in the mode of do-it-yourself citizenship or do-it-together citizenship’.”[vi] Craftivist and author Sarah Corbette wrote, “To be a craftivist is not just to be someone who likes craft: it is to be someone who hones their craft to question injustice, encourage peace and show ways to achieve a better world for everybody involved.”[vii]
Craftivism includes all forms of fiber and needle arts – from knitting and crocheting to embroidery and quilting and more – from the use of quilts encoded with messages about the underground railroad and its resurgence as a medium for resistance during the Civil Rights movement to the AIDS memorial quilt,[viii] from suffragists’ embroidered banners for votes for women to the embroidered arpilleras of women in Chile to document human rights abuses during Pinochet’s regime. But the craft that is currently engaging so many is knitting. Knitting has featured prominently in anti-war resistance, such as the aforementioned CodePink banner. During WWI and II, knitting was central to resistance workers who knit secret messages into scarves and mittens and sweaters, using knit and purl stitches to represent dots and dashes in Morse Code, or dropping stitches in strategic places to represent German train activity. Women knit themselves into webs during anti-nuclear protests at Greenham Common in the 1980s and decorated the perimeter fence around the air base with ribbons and knit items. The British “Cast Off Knitting Club” knit grenade purses to protest the Iraq War and in the US Starhawk and fellow protestors created a yarn web around the Pentagon.
The Tempestry Project
Knitting has been used as a form of protest for countless other causes as well. Suffragists in the US knit, sewed, and embroidered banners with declarations of women’s right to vote. The “Tempestry” project was begun in 2016 in response to concerns that the incoming Trump administration would minimize climate data. Participants knit ‘temperature scarves’ with specific color-coding to record climate change data in various places in the US.[ix] The “Liberty Crochet Mural” – consisting of 40 individual crocheted squares assembled into a 17ft x 11ft yarn mural — celebrates women’s reproductive autonomy and freedom to choose. In the “Welcome Blanket” project — a response to the first Trump administration’s proposed 2,000-mile wall along the United States–Mexico border, Los Angeles artist Jayne Zweiman and dozens of other fiber artists knit, sewed, crocheted, and wove 3,500,640 yards of blankets to welcome immigrants.[x] And the Minnesota MTI hat is not the only anti-ICE knitting project. In Portland, Tracy Wright formed “Knitters Against Fascism,” which designed and promoted the Portland frog hat and conducts “knit-ins” outside the Portland ICE facility.[xi]
MTI hat in production
In Part II, more on knitting resistance and feminism, gentle protest, and community building – tomorrow
Laware, Margaret L. “Circling the Missiles and Staining Them Red: Feminist Rhetorical Invention and Strategies of Resistance at the Women’s Peace Camp at Greenham Common.” NWSAJournal, Vol. 16, No. 3 (Autumn, 2004), pp. 18-41.
[iv] The “pussy hat” was inspired as a protest against Trump’s infamous statement in a 2005 tape, “When you’re a star, they let you do it. Grab them by the pussy. You can do anything.”
[v] The term “craftivism” is usually attributed to Betsy Greer, but she actually coined the term when after she mentioned a connection between craft and activism, “Buzz,” one of the women in her knitting circle, said, “You could call it craftivism.” Greer then posted it on her online journal in 2000, and in 2003 bought domain named craftivism.com, which has become a worldwide network of craftivists.
[viii] Evidence suggests that quilt patterns such as the “Log Cabin” or “Flying Geese” may have been used in the Underground Railroad to provide coded messages to guide enslaved people to freedom. Women in the Civil Rights movement organized quilting circles as a form of resistance. The quilts made during the Civil Rights movement were often sold to raise funds for the movement. The AIDS memorial quilt originated in San Francisco in 1985 to memorialize those lost to AIDS. Gert McMullin, the ‘mother’ of the quilt, sewed the first stitch and since then 50,000 panels have been added, honoring more than 110,000 individuals. Weighing 54, it is thought to be the largest community art project ever created. It has raised more than $3 million dollars for AIDS services. Other famous resistance quilts include The Border Wall Quilt Project, a collection of 8” x 16” quilt pieces expressing concern about the border wall and the Broken Treaty quilts, created by Gina Adams, with texts taken from treaties to demonstrate the broken promises and injustices to indigenous peoples.
[x] The project quickly exceeded its goal and aims to encircle the globe in 36,521 handmade pieces. 8,000 have been collected so far. To learn more or participate, see Welcome Blanket.
[xi] The proceeds from the sale of the pattern have raised $500 for local food shelves.
On the eve of International Women’s Day 2026, the NCRI Women’s Committee presents its Annual Report 2026, offering a recap of events in 2025 as related to women’s rights in Iran.
Moderator’s Note: This post has been brought to you in cooperation with the NCRI women’s committee. NCRI stands for the National Council of Resistance of Iran. You can learn more information as well as see this original article by clicking by link below. A description of their Council can be found at the end of this post. As an introduction, a NCRI representative sent us the following statement about the war.
STATEMENT: I would like to mention that the Iranian Resistance — which established a government-in-exile years ago — has long advocated a clear position: no to war, no to appeasement of the mullahs, but a third option — regime change by the Iranian people and their organized resistance.
Mrs. Maryam Rajavi, the President-elect of the Resistance and an internationally recognized figure, has outlined this vision in her Ten-Point Plan. I am sharing the link below, as it reflects the roadmap of the Iranian Resistance. Maryam Rajavi’s Ten-Point Plan for the future of Iran
In any case, we are prepared to determine the future of our own country. We kindly ask you to help reflect the voice of the Iranian Resistance, a movement notably led by women ,so that this alternative can be more widely heard.
At the No Kings rally on October 18th, Anishinaabe elder Ricky DeFoe affirmed to the gathered crowd that “the natural response to oppression, ignorance, evil, and mystification is wide-awake resistance.” Such resistance, he claimed, calls for an “ethic of risk.” I was immediately struck by his use of the term, paralleling feminist theologian Susan Welch’s A Feminist Ethic of Risk.[i]Returning home, I picked up my copy and found many of the same points DeFoe had articulated.[ii] Both asserted that an ethic of risk recognizes that “to stop resisting, even when success is unimaginable, is to die,” and by this they meant not only the threat of physical death, but also “the death of the imagination, the death of the ability to care.”[iii]
My students are taking their final exams this week, which means I will be spending the week frantically, but attentively grading in order to make our grade submission deadline next week. End of semester grading is a mountain of careful criticism we educators scale one step at a time, with deliberateness, towards an ultimate goal of student success (if not in our classes, then in the next, or in life, relationships, etc.). Thus, I often find myself returning to the question: what am I hoping to create in what I say and write, and in how I critique?
One of the goals of feminist pedagogies is to help us prevent recreating the domination of kyrio-patriarchy in classroom spaces. While activism is not the same thing as education, and strategies of resistance are different than pedagogy in important ways, the concern for careful critique is warranted in both praxes. What do we create in how we critique, resist, and protest? What do we recreate, wittingly or no? I have found myself concerned with this since the election of Trump, DT (cause I can only write that name so many times), to the presidency. Continue reading “From the Archives: Careful Criticism: Resisting Hetero-Patriarchy while Resisting Trump by Sara Frykenberg”
ICE has been doing mass round-ups of anyone who looks like “the other.” The people cheered. “This is my country,” they shouted to the deportees. “Go back where you came from.” The people are flush with excitement thinking this is what we voted for, meanwhile ignoring that they came from someplace too. We know this is a publicity stunt. How? Dr. Phil tagged along on one of round-ups. Newly minted secretary Kristi Noem also took her role in the spotlight attending one in NYC and saying dehumanizing words I will not repeat here.
We’ve seen this playbook before. Creating chaos, disorientation and suffering for political points, TV or other publicity ratings. It doesn’t end well – EVER!
The NY Times had a report of how deportees were treated in a dehumanizing manner, being held on a broken plane in the Amazonian heat with no AC, people shackled, children were on board. There are always people available to treat other people as less than human. “I was just doing my job.” “I was only following orders.”
We’ve seen this playbook before. It doesn’t end well – EVER!
In the first ten days of the Trump administration, when his sycophants are purring and praising, private corporate execs are rolling over and doing his bidding, and even many of his opponents in Congress have been somewhat muted in their response to his actions, three women – Phyllis Fong, Judge Loren AliKhan, and Bishop Mariann Edgar Budde — have been audacious in their visible and vocal resistance.
Phyllis Fong
On Friday, January 24th, just four days after taking office, Trump fired seventeen Inspector Generals, the federal watchdogs over government agencies. Among these was Phyllis Fong, the Inspector General of the US Department of Agriculture. But Ms. Fong refused the firing, citing the position of the Council of the Inspectors General on Integrity and Efficiency that these firings “’did not comply with the requirements set out in law and therefore are ineffective at this time.’”[i] Having served in the USDA for twenty-two years under four presidents, she returned defiantly to her office on Monday morning, only to be escorted out by federal security agents.
Some years ago, womanist theologian Karen Baker–Fletcher asked about ancestors following a lecture I gave on the body and nature. I have since come to realize that ancestors are a missing link between the two: we cannot speak adequately of embodiment and interdependence in the web of life without recognizing the ancestors whose lives made ours possible. Our mothers quite literally gave us our bodies. All of our ancestors gave us their genes. Care and callousness with origins going back longer than conscious memory was imprinted on the psyches of our parents and grandparents and transmitted to us. All of our ancestors give us connections to place. While many black people in America can recite oral histories that begin with slavery in the United States, I come from a family where stories of origin for the most part were not valued or told. Both of my father’s parents lost their fathers when they were very young, and my father, who was raised Catholic at a time when Catholics were discriminated against, preferred to think of our family as “American now.” Like the hero of the film Lost in America, most members of my family dreamed of “melting right into that pot.” In the process we lost stories we need to help us to understand ourselves and the complex realities that “becoming American” involved.
In Part 1 of this series on labelling, I highlighted the difference between naming and labelling, and the search for a personal label as ‘participation ticket’ for life.
In Part 2 on professional and spiritual identity, I looked at what we can learn from the autoethnographic practice of disclosing various selves in research situations. I also discussed the effects of Christianity on the suppression of pagan traditions in northwestern Europe, and nature-based spirituality as part of our generic spiritual DNA.
Today I share a few final reflections including what groups celebrate their differences with ‘prides and games’, and which ones remain invisible? What are the effects of woke ideology on fear of expression and loss of voices, and an invitation for embodied presence as one characteristic of our shared humanity.
This post continues from Part 1, where I situated this essay as a reflection on Xochitl Alvizo’s article Human, Just Human. There, I questioned the difference between the power of naming versus the pressure to label. I then described my search for a personal identifier as ‘participation ticket’ to life. This feels important nowadays to join the conversation and not be dismissed by default. However, I wondered whether looking for things that set us apart emphasises otherness rather than shared humanity.
Today, I question what can we learn from autoethnography about the many selves we bring to different professional situations and how they might hide more than they reveal. I also describe the challenges of naming nature-based practices in a geographical area where 2000 years of Christianity forced our pagan traditions underground.
My students are taking their final exams this week, which means I will be spending the week frantically, but attentively grading in order to make our grade submission deadline next week. End of semester grading is a mountain of careful criticism we educators scale one step at a time, with deliberateness, towards an ultimate goal of student success (if not in our classes, then in the next, or in life, relationships, etc.). Thus, I often find myself returning to the question: what am I hoping to create in what I say and write, and in how I critique?
Feminism and Religion 