The Shoelace Metaphor

In January of 2018, Felicia Savage Friedman and Amanda K Gross collaborated on a workshop for Pittsburgh’s Summit Against Racism (now called Pittsburgh Racial Justice Summit). The workshop was called “The Wicked Webs of Racism, Patriarchy, and Capitalism” and was about the historical roots and present-day fruits of those intersecting oppressions.

Some of the white women in the room were struggling to understand the relationship between their personal experiences of sexism and their complicity as white people in upholding racism. This was something Amanda had been grappling with over the past few years, too.

Amanda had been turning over fiber art metaphors in her mind for some time. So when a young white woman educator confessed to struggling with her relationship to both sexism and racism, Amanda shared a concept she had been mulling over — one which would become known as the Shoelace Metaphor, a visual and experiential way to conceptualize the interlocking layers of the Wicked Webs of Racism, Patriarchy, and Capitalism over time (or more accurately, Patriarchy, Capitalism, and Racism).