MSHERESIES 3: AMNIOTECHNICS by Rietlanden Women’s Office

Rietlanden Women's Office publishes MsHeresies, a series about collaborative graphic design practices and the ornamental as a form of work critique.

"This issue of MsHeresies republishes the essay "Amniotechnics" by feminist theorist Sophie Lewis alongside material from Triple Jeopardy, a publication made by the Third World Women's Alliance.

The essay talks about reproductive labor from a queer, Marxist point of view. It is about anti-work, pregnancy, water protection, and the meaning of borders — geographic as well as bodily ones.

Surrogacy or Sophie Lewis's Full Surrogacy is the central concept of the text. Whereas she describes surrogacy (commercial or not) as the practice of arranging a pregnancy in order to construct and deliver a baby that is "someone else's," full surrogacy is a somewhat utopian and extended concept: It's an expression of solidarity with the evolving desires of gestational workers, from the point of view of a struggle against work. It names a struggle that, by redistributing the burden of that labor, dissolves the distinction between reproducers and non-reproducers, mothers, and non-mothers, altogether.

Triple Jeopardy was published between 197I and 1975 by the Third World Women's Alliance — a revolutionary feminist and socialist organisation active mainly on the East and West Coasts of the United States. Triple Jeopardy was pioneering in its intersectional analysis and the organization aimed at ending capitalism, racism, and sexism. It was founded by Frances M. Beal who also became the editor of Triple Jeopardy.

The visual essay in this third issue of MsHeresies is the result of looking at Iriple Jeopardy through the lens of graphic design and how it was collaboratively made. In our practical research we have been specifically interested in the work and friendship of Frances M. Beal and art director Christine Choy, and parts of the conversations we ve had with them about Triple Jeopardy are typeset on the center spread.

We are grateful for the influences this feminist collaboration and Sophie's text have had on our vocabulary, thoughts, and ways of designing together."

– RWO