Swords and needles

relations between embroidery and war

Abstract

This paper aims to reflect on the relationship between embroidery and war, taking as a starting point the gender relations that permeate the work with textiles and the military service. If applied arts, especially embroidery, have been considered over time as a symbol of ideal femininity, militarism was one of the responsible for forging an idea of stereotypical masculinity. However, not everything occurs according to social expectations of gender. The idea that women did not engage in wars, although often erased by historiography, is not proven. The absolute distance between men and the textile arts is also untenable. Based on a connection between all these subjects, this paper explores the history of embroidery, art and war, analyzing situations in which embroidery was used as a weapon of war by women; in which military men used embroidery as a form of expression for their war experiences; and in which artists, questioning the horrors of war and barbarity, used embroidery and clothing to create works of art.