Pouring Out, Pouring In: Mapping Women's Work
An Exert from a Conversation with Ailie Rutherford and Caroline Gausden
Ailie Rutherford
Artist Ailie Rutherford has been working with Glasgow Women’s Library (GWL)[1] to visualise the complex nature of work and care for many women. The Pouring Out, Pouring In exhibition shared prints and other outcomes from the Mapping Women's Work workshop series at GWL. Building on a University of Glasgow study, detailed below, the women involved have mapped out their multiple paid and unpaid roles, thinking together about how a more equitable economic system might look. The results and visualisations of their collective thinking were exhibited at the GWL between 27th October 2023 to 20th January 2024.
The work was funded by the Nuffield Foundation an independent charitable trust with a mission to advance social well-being. It funds research that informs social policy, primarily in education, welfare, and justice. The Nuffield Foundation is the founder and co-funder of the Nuffield Council on Bioethics, the Ada Lovelace Institute and the Nuffield Family Justice Observatory. The Foundation has funded this project, but the views expressed are those of the authors and not necessarily the Foundation.
The University of Glasgow project, Women in multiple low-paid employment: pathways between work, care and health' (2020-2024)[2] is the first to study the nature and extent of women's multiple low paid employment (MLPE) in the UK. It examines the relationships between MLPE, caring responsibilities and health and well-being. Using mixed methods, it includes the analysis of three large-scale UK representative survey datasets, and in-depth interviews (105) with women who are in multiple low-paid employment by their own definition.
Glasgow Women’s Library (GWL) is the only Accredited Museum in the UK dedicated to women’s lives, histories and achievements, with a Lending Library, archive collections, innovative exhibitions programme, events and learning opportunities.
Excerpt from a conversation between Caroline Gausden, curator at Glasgow Women’s Library, Louise Lawson, researcher and Ailie Rutherford, project artist. [3]
Caroline
Ailie, your work with the Feminist Exchange Network (FEN) made you a good fit for a project that seeks to critically understand women's work, particularly where it is multiple, low paid and consequently involving a complicated juggling act. Can you say a little bit more about what motivates you to look at these areas of economics and labour in your artistic practice?
Ailie
My work with FEN[4] (a women-led collective I initiated in South Glasgow) is centred on looking at how feminist economic theory relates to the lived experiences of women and other marginalised genders. The work began in 2015 born from a need to better understand the economic doctrine that dominates our lives, in order to conceptualise alternatives. In a lot of ways, it’s work that is fuelled by both rage and hopefulness – as well as thinking critically about the way things are, there’s a hopefulness that we can make things better.
Feminist economics begins by recognising that the whole capitalist economy is built on this concept of a rational, autonomous man. Centuries of macho thinking have left us with an economy that values violence and exploitation over everything else. Alongside this, there's an assumption that anyone identifying as a woman is naturally meant to be a caregiver, destined for endless undervalued work. This doesn't just create unfair and unrealistic gender norms but also devalues crucial work done by people of all genders: caring, community building, creative projects, fighting for justice - basically, everything that maintains and sustains us. So it’s no wonder so many women find themselves stuck, as Louise says “working for nothing.”
While we continue to work within a system that devalues feminised work, the need to keep fighting for change feels more urgent than ever.
Caroline
Yes! So how did this translate practically? What did you and project participants do together?
Ailie
The block print mapping process we used in the workshops I initially designed with groups of women in Govanhill, Glasgow during a residency. We co-designed a set of symbols to visualise and value the work women were doing - to understand its strength, the networks women are constantly building to support their undervalued labour – recognising what works, and thinking about what could be different. These symbols have evolved over time as the conversations grew. During the women’s library workshops, the women added a symbol for 'enough' using gold ink – to convey enough love, enough pay, feeling good enough, and putting a limit on unpaid labour. It’s a process designed to shift our perspective on the economy and our place within it.
Many of the women who came to the workshops at Glasgow Women’s Library talked of their passion for the work they do, the fierce love they have for their work and the things they care for, the constantly creative ways they navigate a system stacked against us as women. It’s this passion that keeps us going against the odds, continuing to creatively juggle and organise and make the almost impossible keep on happening.
Conversations with workshop participants often circled back to imagining a better system - like sharing resources equally or having a universal basic income and how those simple systems could lead us to some profound changes. The collaborative maps, crafted by women working together at round tables, outline how we could live and work together differently.
Caroline
For me the maps do create a different language and one that feels inspiring in places, can you tell me a little bit more about the conversations that fed into this process of mapping and reimagining? We have had FEN’s mobile library in our space – I was wondering if any resources from there proved to be particularly relevant to the conversations?
Ailie
The resources from the FEN library played a crucial role in placing our conversations within a broader political context. The FEN mobile library, initially launched at Swap Market (a non-monetary exchange project we ran from 2018-2020), began with the collection of books that explored diverse economic models, community networks, and alternatives to the conventional capitalist framework. As the project evolved, our book collection expanded to encompass works that bridge feminism with decolonisation, climate justice, and environmental activism.
Throughout the workshops here at the women’s library, certain books became touchstones, with quotes from these books finding their way onto their maps. Particularly relevant to our discussions were books such as 'The Care Manifesto' by The Care Collective, 'Labours Of Love' by Madeleine Bunting, 'Feminism, Interrupted: Disrupting Power' by Lola Olufemi, 'The Care We Dream Of' by Zena Sharman and 'Our Work Is Everywhere' by Syan Rose as our conversations moved into the intersections of gender inequalities with disability, neurodiversity, race and class.
A significant number of workshop participants openly shared their experiences as neurodiverse women and women with disabilities. This shed light on the concept of self-care being an extra layer of work—especially for those with disabilities or neurodiverse traits. Take the scenario of the added effort required to align with a system built around a specific kind of logic, often termed as "neurotypicality." A recurring theme that emerged from these discussions was the constant struggle many women face, navigating a system that wasn't created for us.
See the image gallery below for examples of Pouring Out, Pouring In: Mapping Women's Work" by artist Ailie Rutherford and workshop participants commissioned by Glasgow Women's Library, 2023
Pouring Out, Pouring In: Mapping Women's Work" by Ailie Rutherford and Claire McGinnis / Jackie McMaster / Lorna Tevit / Natsumi Sakamoto. Commissioned by Glasgow Women's Library, 2023
Notes
[1] Glasgow Women’s Library https://womenslibrary.org.uk/
[2]Women in Multiple Low-Paid Employment: Pathways between Work, Care And Health.
[3] Ailie Rutherford, Caroline Gausden and Louise Lawson (2024) Pouring Out, Pouring In: Mapping Women’s Work. Glasgow Women’s Library
https://ailierutherford.com/assets/img/POURING_OUT_POURING_IN_Pdf_Download.pdf
[4] women and other marginalised genders inclusive of transgender and intersex women