The Weaving of the Intersectional Threads (Or should I say knitting)

So, I knit, and many people are surprised by that, because it is often thought to be something that young people don’t do. And I always wondered why people are so surprised by my hobby. I find that most people who are surprised by it say, “my grandma used to knit,” or “my mom always knit,” but from the sounds of it never bothered to learn for themselves. Why learn something that takes up so much free time, and can be expensive, when you could just buy it in a store? Personally, I think that the love and time that you have to put into a project can be really satisfying when you see the finished product, plus it is really relaxing to mindlessly knit while thinking, or even watching TV.

If Grandma’s knit, what is the normal age group for people who knit then? Probably retirement age, because they have more time to sit around and do crafts, and hobbies instead of working a fulltime job. What other intersectional categories do people who knit fit into? I would say that mostly women, who grew up in the depression and world war two era. Along with it being passed down from mother to daughter, I might be wrong, but most of the women I see knit (which aren’t too many) are of European descent and are white.  When I googled it apparently was, “The first dateable hunk of knitting found in Europe is from Spain (the Spain that was, at the time, held by Arabic peoples), in a tomb that was sealed up in 1275, slap in the middle of the darkest of the Dark Ages,” which means that it was invented by the Arabic people probably! But as I explored the site the author wrote that, “A quick cruise of the Oxford Unabridged English Dictionary also reveals that the term 'to knit' wasn't added to English until the 1400s”. So, if this is true, then I as a young white woman have an accepted hobby, whereas a person of color might be seen as strange if they pick up some knitting needles. And although I would say that the knitting community is open to anyone who loves to knit, there aren’t very many men who do it.

The intersectional belief that people are being oppressed in many ways, such as not being shown in media, or only being shown as a joke. Or justifying the stereotyping of certain groups of people, when they are really diverse is exactly what intersectional oppression is. I may not experience it a lot, because people don’t harass me for knitting, but if a man were to knit in public I’m sure he would not be shown the same curtesy as I am.  I would say, just try to be understanding of people who have hobbies that are ‘out of the ordinary’ and try to be kind.

URL:  http://knitty.com/ISSUEspring06/FEAThistory101.html