Barbara G. Walker

Barbara G. Walker (born July 2, 1930, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania) is a U.S. author and feminist. She is an influential knitting expert and the author of several classic encyclopedic knitting references, despite "not taking to it at all" when she first learned in college.[1][2] Other topics she has written about are religion, cultural anthropology, spirituality, and mythology from the viewpoint of pre-Indo-European neolithic matriarchies.

Books

Knitting

In the 1960s and 1970s, Walker authored several volumes of knitting references which have become landmarks for their comprehensiveness and clarity.[3] Her Knitting Treasury series documents over a thousand different knitting stitches. Other books considered mosaic knitting, for producing multicolored designs while knitting only one color per row, and constructing knitted garments from the top down rather than the usual bottom-up method used in Western knitting tradition. Most of Walker's best-known knitting books have been reprinted, and starting in the mid-1990s, she has published new knitting books.

Feminism and skepticism

Walker writes about the problems with mainstream religion and how these problems have contributed to patriarchal societies and sexism.[4][2] In The Skeptical Feminist: Discovering the Virgin, Mother, and Crone, she writes about her belief that there is no god. However, she believes that people, and women in particular, can use the image of the goddess in their day-to-day lives. Walker often uses the imagery of the Mother Goddess to discuss neolithic matriarchies. Her book Woman's Rituals: A Sourcebook is an attempt to show how she puts her "meditation techniques" into practice, and is meant as a guide for other women who wish to do the same.

Criticism

The Woman's Encyclopedia of Myths and Secrets has been criticized for being based on the idea of the "Great Mother" by male writers like Robert Graves and Erich Neumann for re-writing myths so they would support the theory of a "Great Goddess".[5]

Personal life

Walker studied journalism at the University of Pennsylvania, then worked for the Washington Star in Washington, D.C. While serving on a local hotline helping battered women and pregnant teens in the mid-1970s, she became interested in feminism. Walker continued a personal study of comparative religions and feminist issues after she graduated[2] which led to her writing The Woman's Encyclopedia of Myths and Secrets (1983).[4]

Walker describes herself as an atheist. The American Humanist Association named her "Humanist Heroine" in 1993, and in 1995 she received the "Women Making Herstory" award from the New Jersey NOW.[4]

Bibliography

KNITTING BOOKS


NEO-PAGAN FEMINIST WORKS


NOVELS AND SHORT STORIES

Other works

See also

References

  1. ↑ Malcolm, T (Fall 2007). "Knitting's old guard speaks out". Vogue Knitting. 25 (2): 68–84.
  2. 1 2 3 Druchunas, Donna (January 11, 2009). "Barbara G. Walker, The Skeptical Feminist". skepchic.org. Retrieved 29 April 2015.
  3. ↑ Gardner, Kay; Shayne, Ann (2006). Mason-Dixon Knitting: The Curious Knitter's Guide. Potter Craft. p. 115. ISBN 0-307-23605-6.
  4. 1 2 3 "Humanist Profile: Barbara G. Walker". NOW NJ. National Organization for Women of New Jersey (NOW-NJ). January 16, 2005. Retrieved 29 April 2015.
  5. ↑ Diane Purkiss, Women's Rewriting of Myth, in Carolyne Larrington (ed), The Feminist Companion to Mythology, London, 1992, p. 444: "Given these constraints, it's surprising at first to discover that twentieth-century women writers and artists constantly strive to engage with and re-figure women's representation in classical myth, and that a particular group of them have found inspiration in Graves and Neumann for their efforts (Sjöö, 1990; Orenstein, 1982; Stein, 1989; Walker, 1985, 1986; Daly, 1978; ...) ... If the projects of Graves and Neumann are in thrall to a masculinist representation of woman, why have so many women appropriated their theories? Perhaps certain feminist 'misread' or re-read these texts productively to formulate a position from which to write and speak, by taking the Jungians' essentialist propositions for truths about the repression of woman's nature by patriarchy. They could cast themselves as the bearers of secret feminine knowledge actually unavailable to male writers. However, this means that radical feminist claims of utter separatism are invalid, since their theories are predicated not on stories produced thousands of years ago by women, but on a masculine discourse of myth. In Donna Haraway's influential terms, these women may wish to be goddesses, but they are cyborgs all the same (Haraway, 1989)."

External links

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