Androgyny . . . or Humanity?

In one of my college classes, we did a gender-role activity. We were each given some blue and some pink stickers, and we were to stick one on the back of each student in the class, depending on whether we thought they were feminine (pink sticker) or masculine (blue sticker). At the end of the exercise, I had an exactly equal number of pink and blue stickers on my back, indicating that the class viewed me as both masculine and feminine. I took great pride in this impression of androgyny that I apparently conveyed. I didn’t utterly reject femininity, but I did enjoy challenging gender roles and flouted them whenever possible.

My mother, too, was a mix of feminine and masculine. She got her hair done and made herself new dresses. I remember some of her dresses, both store-bought and handmade, and she also had an extensive collection of costume jewelry, much of which I still have. But for everyday activities, I remember her mostly wearing jeans, shorts, t-shirts and cotton tunics. In fact, she typically bought men’s jeans, as she claimed that they were better made than women’s. She wore little or no cosmetics on most days, but sometimes put on makeup when she dressed up. I particularly remember a frosty pink lipstick that she was fond of wearing that perfectly matched one of her necklaces. But she might then top this outfit with one of her men’s hats.

In some ways, she had a significant masculine streak. She was no shrinking violet, demure and quiet. She was assertive, straightforward, and unafraid to speak her mind. She belched without apology, saying “you get to enjoy your meal twice.” Her laugh was loud enough to embarrass me when we were together in public. (But then, adolescents are embarrassed by almost anything, so this may not mean much.) She loved all kinds of physical activity and enjoyed being fit and strong. She took us hiking and camping and wasn’t afraid of getting dirty. She even pulled the ticks off of us afterwards without squeamishness and taught us how to kill them. She was not ashamed of her sexual desires and felt entitled to sexual pleasure. She seemed to get along better with men, and most of her close friends were men.

But at the same time, so much of what she did was quintessentially feminine work. Her letters are full of references to decorating her living spaces: making curtains, refinishing furniture and hardwood floors, wallpapering and painting. She was even paid for some wallpapering odd jobs, so she must have been quite expert at it. Even in college she talked about decorating her dorm room, but she seemed to really throw herself into the work of homemaking after getting married, enthusiastically redoing first their house in Chicago and then in Piscataway. I don’t remember many of her decorating projects, and I suspect that her passion for these “nesting” activities waned somewhat after my parents’ divorce. I do remember her doing over the bathroom in our Highland Park townhouse, though. It all started with a brightly colored, striped shower curtain. It must have reminded my mother of a circus tent, because the next thing I knew, she was painting balloons on the wall. Phrases like “Free Beer” and “Test Your Strength” were carefully outlined and painted. I remember her tracing the letters with stencils, lining them up precisely. The whole bathroom was circus-themed when she was done. I thought this room was wonderful; it was playful and fun and unique. We could bathe under the big top every day!

She cooked and sewed and gardened and put up preserves from the garden. I remember the dinner parties she and my father had, and I have no doubt that she did a great deal of cooking and planning for these soirees. Yet even here, her feminine and masculine qualities seem to blend seamlessly together. Take this story of a dinner party she and my father had while they were living in Piscataway:

We’ve just suffered another natural disaster. We had extremely bad rains last weekend . . . and on Friday in the middle of a dinner party for 10 I discovered the basement filling up . . . straight from the bottom . . . weel[sic], what could I do but change into jeans and ask the guests to be patient while I tried to fix up a pipe attachment to my new pump just attached to the sink in order to tie it into the sewer line which we just had installed for a mere $590! Don’t bother to understand the last sentence since, as a solution to the rising water, it barely rippled the surface (so to speak). So the dinner party went on and all had a good time. Afterwards the water was still there and coming, so we had to turn off the furnace (you know what that means – no heat, no hot water) On Sat. afternoon I finally got a stronger pump from a rental place and it and mine worked valiantly thru the night so on Sunday we could have installed a new furnace transformer, and on Monday the plumber could realign the plumbing I fiddled with, and on Tues. the dryer man could figure out why the dryer worked but didn’t dry. Unrelated to all this, the Volvo decided it needed a new battery . . . ! Ah so, some weeks are like that.

Nancy Driessel Stearns in a letter to her parents (Feb. 7, 1973)

I don’t think my mother went out of her way to flout gender roles. She wasn’t on a mission to overturn the system of gender norms. After all, the toys she got us as children were often conventionally gendered (a train set for my brother, a dollhouse for me), and she seemed to have no fear of embracing her own femininity. I think she just refused to be confined to the narrow slice of life traditionally allowed to women. She did what she wanted and what was needed – what seemed sensible, what was set before her – without worrying much about whether it was feminine or not. The dinner party story is a perfect example – the basement was flooding, so she needed to try to fix it. She didn’t fret about whether the hostess should be wearing jeans or whether it’s acceptable for a woman to do plumbing repair. She didn’t assume that her husband would take care of such things. She just waded in (literally) and did it. And then she came back up, served the dinner she had prepared, and got on with the party. Not feminine, not masculine. Just human. Just her.


Nancy Driessel Stearns, date and place unknown

Sewing and other creative pursuits

My mother’s sewing machine sat on the dining room table. I can see it there, quite clearly, with a basket of mending in the corner behind the table and a project-in-progress next to the machine. When my mother died, she left behind an unfinished suit, the pattern pieces of grey and pink knit carefully cut but not yet assembled. She sewed quite well, as I recall. I have one of the dresses she made for herself: a floor-length, sleeveless, dropped-waist dress in an vibrantly swirled knit fabric. I wore it from time to time in college, and always loved the fabric, although it didn’t flatter my figure as well as hers. When we were younger, she must have done quite a bit of sewing. In her letters to her parents, she mentions making curtains, deck chair covers, and clothes for herself and for us. Indeed, curtains seem to have been a perennial project, recurring often in the letters – curtains for the apartment, for the house, for the office. She apparently used the remnants to make jumpers for me as a toddler, so my outfits must have matched the curtains. I really can’t remember if she particularly liked sewing, but she certainly took pride in her work.

I remember my mother showing me how to thread the sewing machine, which I found to be a very challenging task at first. I kept forgetting how to do it, and she had to explain it to me again each time I used the machine. I don’t remember if we sewed anything together, though. I have vivid memories of sewing with my maternal grandmother, who taught me the basics of garment sewing and guided me through my first quilting project. I was taught knitting by my step-mother (although I couldn’t cast on and never did much besides a scarf or two) and hand embroidery by her mother. Indeed, while I have many memories of making things in my childhood and adolescence, few of them include my mother directly. I remember drawing at the kitchen table and making colored sand landscapes in glass jars. I tie-dyed t-shirts one year for my friends, although the results were rather disappointing. I made a Mother’s Day card with glue-and-glitter in Girl Scouts; I remember the Scout leader making a sarcastic remark about my excessive use of glue. I sewed Christmas ornaments to sell for Junior Achievement. My brother and I made hooked rugs from kits filled with cut pieces of yarn, and wove dreadful hotpads with stretchy, polyester loops. I made necklaces strung from glass beads and pencil toppers with craft fur and googly eyes. I created countless finger woven belts and scarves, yarn dolls, and pom-poms. I remember the projects, but I don’t remember my mother teaching me how to make them or making them with me.

I wish I could say that I learned to sew (or crochet or embroider or make jewelry) from my mother. It would feel special to know that every time I made something, I could thank my mother for the skill she passed along to me. But while I may not have memories of chummy mother-daughter bonding over crafts, I have to assume that my mother fostered and supported my desire to create. She must have bought the supplies, at least when I was very young, and she tolerated the mess and disorder I undoubtably left behind with each project. When my brother and I were choosing the colors for our hooked rugs, she was standing behind us, ready to pay for our yarn. I remember her going with me to the bead shop and wearing the necklace I made for her (a mixture of green and gold beads with a stylized bird pendant).

And where did all those books come from – the Altair design coloring books, the craft books for children – several of which still reside on my bookshelf? Surely some of them were purchased by my mother. I remember that she bought us a paper airplane book and enjoyed the launch of each aerial creation (even the less successful ones); she might have even made a few of her own. I suspect, too, that she did guide me through some of these projects, as there must have been some adult supervision when we melted the wax to make Swiss cheese candles.

Perhaps I remember the creations as mine, not hers, because she encouraged my independence and ownership of the project, even as she helped. I remember sitting at the kitchen table making paper chains from green and red construction paper, which we then draped on our Christmas tree. My mother showed us how to make the first links in the chain, but we made the rest of them on our own.

My mother provided a rich context that supported my explorations in various handcrafts. She never belittled my creations or crushed my spirit, and I grew up with pride in what I made. She showed me by example – with her sewing machine and art supplies and with her inventive playfulness – that creativity is part of everyday life, not just the purview of artists. So maybe I can’t say that my mother is the one who taught me to sew, but I think she gave me something even more vital. She nurtured my drive to make things and gave me access to the world of possibility within me. If there was something I wanted to do, my mother gave me whatever she could to help me on my journey, cheering me along the way. It was, in part, her love and support that gave me the boundless optimism that I still carry with me today as I embark on a new project. And so what if she never taught me sewing or knitting or crochet . . . I can see her influence in everything I create.