“We Will Make Meaning Out of This”: Women's Cultural Responses to the Red River Valley Flood

Abstract

Recent work on gender relations in disasters focuses largely on women's material experiences and vulnerabilities. This paper draws on cultural studies theory to interrogate gender symbolically in the context of a major U.S. flood. Based on analysis of cultural artifacts and “texts” as well as interviews conducted for a larger study of women's work in the 1997 Red River Valley flood, the author argues that women particularly employ grassroots popular culture to interpret disastrous events. A close reading of two flood quilts illustrates how interpersonal networks and traditional quilting skills helped women express gender-specific experiences and feelings, and convey an otherwise neglected ecofeminist critique of disaster vulnerability. The author concludes that women's cultural responses to disasters afford a neglected angle of vision on human responses to catastrophe.