Woman Overboard

wood, work coverall, pantyhose, recycled polyester, donated yarn

"Man overboard!" is an exclamation given aboard a vessel to indicate that a member of the crew or a passenger has fallen off of the ship into the water and is in need of immediate rescue. Whoever sees the person's fall is to shout, "Man overboard!" and the call is then to be reported once by every crewman within earshot, even if they have not seen the victim fall, until everyone on deck has heard and given the same call. This ensures that all other crewmen have been alerted to the situation and notifies the officers of the need to act immediately to save the victim.

What happens when a woman falls overboard?

Women make up less than 15% of active duty Coast Guard members. I was one of that 15% for over 7 years. I worked on ships and wore coveralls like these in the nature of my work. The coveralls were supposed to be genderless or conceal much of what makes up a woman’s body, but wearing coveralls or men’s uniforms did little to protect me from misogyny, sexual harassment, and sexual assault.

How does one navigate this? What is the cumulative impact of this on the body? I thought working with pantyhose, a classic symbol of femininity, would be an interesting medium to explore that dialogue. Pantyhose are both strong and fragile. They will stretch incredibly far until they rip and tear and then they’re thrown out and a fresh new pair is acquired. They enclose but due to their sheerness also reveal. Stuffing them with polyester fill created flesh-like forms, phallic in nature, that I at first affixed to the wall in my process. I cut areas of the forms with a razor blade, tearing them with a sharp object was quick, easy. Then I sutured some of the openings back together with donated green yarn from my next door neighbor. In the ripping and repairing process I was thinking about all the ways we are hurt that accumulate, how effortlessly these pile up, how long it takes to repair or try to repair them, and who is part of the reparative process.

In this sculpture’s final stage, I removed the filled pantyhose from the wall and Zach (my spouse) made a wood frame to support the work jumpsuit which we affixed from the ceiling. I attached the pantyhose from the chest and stomach of the coveralls that weep down like soft fleshy stalactites, another small pile accumulating on the floor beneath suggesting rot and passage of time. The coveralls suspended from the ceiling are stiff and bodiless, who occupied them? I wanted to convey erasure, emptiness, and disposability, aspects I experienced as I transitioned out of the Coast Guard into the civilian world. Small infractions on the soul amassing until it created a large calcified mass, this weight that is carried. I wanted the audience to bear witness to this. Woman Overboard.

What stories and experiences do you, the viewer, carry? How can we work to bring awareness or change towards equity and safety in the workplace?