Barbara G. Walker

Barbara G. Walker
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Barbara G. Walker (born July 2, 1930, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania) is a U.S. author and feminist. She writes about religion, cultural anthropology, spirituality, and mythology from the viewpoint of Pre-Indo-European neolithic matriarchies. She often uses the imagery of the Mother Goddess to discuss these Neolithic Matriarchies. Her most important book is The Woman's Encyclopedia of Myths and Secrets (1983). She also is an influential knitting expert and the author of several classic encyclopedic knitting references.

Barbara G. Walker describes herself as an atheist. In the book, The Skeptical Feminist: Discovering the Virgin, Mother, and Crone, she writes about her belief that there is no deity. However, she believes that people, and woman in particular, can use the image of the Goddess in their day-to-day lives. Her book Woman's Rituals: A Sourcebook is an attempt to show how she puts her "meditation techniques" into practice, and is meant as a guide for other women to do the same thing.

In the 1960s and 1970s, she authored several volumes of knitting references which have become landmarks for their comprehensiveness and clarity.[citation needed] Her knitting treasury series documents over a thousand different knitting stitches. Other books considered mosaic knitting, for producing multicolored designs while knitting only one color per row, and constructing knitted garments from the top-down rather than the usual bottom-up method used in western knitting tradition. Her legacy continues with the reprinting of most of her knitting books, starting in the mid-1990s, as well as the publication of new contributions to the knitting literature.

Barbara G. Walker studied journalism at the University of Pennsylvania and began working for the Washington Star in Washington, D.C. While serving on a local hotline in the mid 1970s, helping battered women and pregnant teens, she became interested in feminism. The American Humanist Association named her "Humanist Heroine" in 1993, and in 1995 she received the "Women Making Herstory" award from the New Jersey NOW.