AbstractArtist Andrea Desző’s embroideries, inspired by the Romanian traditional sampler, belong to the material turn in cultural and feminist studies. Based on a comparison with first-wave feminist ideas in Charlotte Perkins Gillman’s Women and Economics, this analysis interrogates what embroidery—as a form of discourse—tells about the little-known Eastern-European woman’s condition. In the region significantly different from Western Europe in both postcolonialist and post-Marxist analyses, these artifacts reveal the ambivalent condition of women situated at the intersection of tradition, feminist thought, and Marxist practice, after Marxist-led governments had provided women with a workplace and equality, at least in theory. Additional informationNotes on contributorsAdriana Cordali GradeaAdriana Gradea is a PhD candidate in English studies at Illinois State University, specializing in rhetoric and cultural theory. She graduated from “Romulus Ladea” Visual Arts High School in Cluj-Napoca, Romania. She has a BA from “Babeş-Bolyai” University, Cluj-Napoca, Romania, a Graduate Certificate in Advanced International Studies from The Johns Hopkins University in Bologna, Italy, and an MA in English from Bradley University. Her research and teaching interests are in feminist and visual rhetorics, as well as Marxism, postcolonialism, and posttotalitarian approaches.