Women Killing It: Visual Artist And Author, Katrina Majkut, On Feminism And Western Wedding Traditions
Written by Eryn Johnson
“[The wedding] sets a framework for how you’re going to conduct the rest of your lives together.”
In this episode of the Women Killing It! podcast, host Sally Hubbard introduces us to Katrina Majkut, a visual artist and writer who made the leap from equities research to creating meaningful works. Based in New York, Katrina is dedicated to understanding how social tradition impacts civil rights through writing, embroidery and painting with a focus on feminism and western wedding traditions.
Katrina, whose art is featured in the library at The National Museum of Women in the Arts in DC, has been listed as 1 of 4 international artists starting a new chapter in feminist art by Mic Media and published her first non-fiction book – The Adventures and Discoveries of a Feminist Bride: What No One Tells You Before You Say I Do – in March 2018.
“There’s this Harvard Business study that looks at actions within life moments, and it doesn’t matter how educated, how feminist you are. When you hit a life marker, you tend to revert to really traditional gender roles.”
In this episode, Katrina shares what inspired her journey into this work, how she educates people about weddings and offers egalitarian solutions to them, and why the excuse of – “it’s just tradition” can be harmful when it comes to weddings.
Katrina feels that equitable wedding planning and ceremony can lay the foundation for a more equitable marriage down the road. She and Sally discuss how not having an equal division of labor at home affects the gender pay gap, other options besides changing your name, and choice feminism.
“I’m very excited everyone’s marching in the women’s march, they’re supporting Planned Parenthood, they’re doing all these different things. But if they don’t practice what they preach at home, that sense of equality in the public sphere is going to be that much harder to achieve. And so, yeah, I think we have to rethink what it is we do in our personal lives.”
Part of Katrina’s work as a visual artist is cross-stitch embroidery, an art form that is still really gendered. She talks about why she does embroidery work around women’s health and the body, and why this art form isn’t embraced in the art world even today. She uses her art to bring awareness to what women need for their health, including non-binary and trans women.