The Patient Battle

It alwhen…

For several thousands of years, women were often seen as inferior to men. Currently, our modern-day society still chooses to participate in this patriarchal doctrine that has been subjecting women to numerous inequalities and injustices for as long as one can remember. Although society (mainly women) has slowly tore apart our male-dominated system, we, as a collective, have still barely scratched the surface. Our society still turns a blind eye to all the prejudices that suppress women. Women are forced to wage war against their oppressors and fight for their given rights as equal citizens. Women must shake society to its core in order to make any significant impact. But it is an extremely difficult feat, due to our chauvinist government. Men, who still sit at the throne of our society, have chosen to put themselves in a position where they can “grant” women the rights to their own bodies, but all the while they can also choose to strip us of them. For instance, in Row versus Wade, the male-dominated government made it legal to allow women their individual rights for abortion- an amazing and unnecessary difficult conquest. To this day, the male-dominated (and religious) society have tried to take that right away, forcing women to fight ten times harder for what is rightfully theirs.

“The Patient Battle”, is a collection of garments that depict and reference the on-going battle between women, combatting for their absolute rights, and the chauvinist patriarchal society who suppress them. I chose the word patientto exemplify the strong-willed power of women who are continuously fighting, knowing that it is a long upward battle to sanctuary. For the collection, I chose to create more feminine militaristic-style garments to highlight the cross-section of femininity and power, while maintaining the utilitarian nature of war garments.

The Patient Battle was completed in the Fall of 2018 in a Cornell University Creative Patternmaking course. The following outfit consists of a military-style heavy-weight cotton twill jacket that was hand painted with acrylic paints. The two-piece suit is composed of medium-weight cotton sateen. The top has a faux alligator skin appliqué top-stitched on the shoulders.