Queering the Subversive Stitch: Men and the Culture of Needlework

In Queering the Subversive Stitch, Joseph McBrinn uses Queer Theory to address the history of men's relationship with needlecrafts, to 'queer' the narratives and contest widely-held assumptions that perpetuate misogynistic and homophobic ideas.Thirty years after Rozsika Parker published her seminal work on embroidery and the making of the feminine, McBrinn argues that, in fact, men have engaged with needlework throughout history, yet such activities have become stigmatized over the past two hundred years, even shameful. As a result, needlework can be - and often is - used by men as a means of deviance and subversion, many historical and contemporary examples of which are explored in this book. From Ernest Thesiger's public embroidering that shocked society in interwar London, to David Wojnarowicz sewing his mouth shut in 1980s New York to draw attention to the censorship of gay artists and art about AIDS, McBrinn illustrates the importance of needlework produced by men in understanding history, identity, emotions and agency.