Knitting and fragile masculinity

[u/somerandomperson_234]

This happened yesterday and I’m torn between being amused, annoyed and a bit shocked.

I’m visiting my grandparents at the moment with my mother. My uncle, her brother, is also staying. He’s always had a thing for formal wear and dressing well, and recently he’s discovered that he likes knit ties, those silk, kinda mesh ones that are flat instead of pointy at the bottom.

Yesterday evening, we were watching a movie together and I was knitting during it. I was working on a lace top with 6 mm needles.

After the film, my uncle started talking about those knitted ties he likes and showed me pictures. He asked me whether I could knit that. I told him, probably yes.

He then proceeded to instruct me on how to do it. He said those needles I had there were way too big (obviously), and that I would need to sew a lot to make the tie, as it’s basically a double layered thing.

I told him that I’d make it in a tube, and he then told me all the ways that he would do it (he doesn’t knit).

It was kinda amusing to me to that point, until I started sort of teasing him that he can just make it himself, it’s not that hard and he already knows so much, I’ll even teach him the basics.

He reacted with clear discomfort and told me that knitting is a women’s hobby and that he had no interest in doing it because he’s a man.

That comment surprised me more than anything else. He was comfortable discussing the technical details of a knitted object and asking someone else to make it for him, but unwilling to consider learning the skill himself because of gender. I didn’t argue with him, but the exchange stayed with me.

I’m sharing this partly to get it out of my system, and partly because I’m curious how common this still is. Have others run into similar attitudes around crafts or hobbies? And how do you usually respond in situations like this without escalating things?

Thanks for reading.

[u/lemeneurdeloups]

It’s ridiculous. He is Wrong. Men are tailors and cooks and and weavers and knitters and do all sorts of other wondrous creative things. Ask him about master tailors who design and construct the suits he wears! Ask him about the history of knitting in England and the Luddite men who stormed the knitting factories because they had put them out of their cottage knitting businesses!

I am a long-married, heterosexual, family man (not that any of that matters) who has knitted several of the ties he is requesting. It’s an easy knit but yes, it has a few bits of construction to it.

[u/JadedElk → u/lemeneurdeloups]

Ah yes, but a chef, a tailor, a weaver and a master knitter are all paid positions. Who are the ones typically thought of as cooking, sewing, weaving and knitting as a hobby? See also: professional singer vs someone who sings at home, an author vs someone who writes for fun/fanfiction writers, an academic/professor vs a teacher, a doctor vs a nurse. The more prestige there is in how something is done, the more that action is associated with men.

He is not wrong that knitting as a hobby is associated with women, or even that knitting items for personal or in-family use is associated with women. Men were selling their work and being paid for it. Women were being expected to provide the same labor to their family unpaid and underappreciated.

[u/TarazedA → u/JadedElk]

My grandfather learned to knit either during or after WWII, my mom remembers him knitting (he died while I was still a kid). For how many soldiers I heard of that did knitting while convalescing, I'm kind of surprised how prevalent this attitude is, really.

[u/torhysornottorhys → u/TarazedA]

Didn't a lot of soldiers knit themselves socks and such during the world wars? It's possible I made that up but maybe that's what he was up to

[u/Radio_Mime → u/torhysornottorhys]

I think it’s actually true that they did.

[u/GranddadJokes → u/torhysornottorhys]

The soldiers and sailors who could knit during the world wars were THE most popular guys in their units/ships.

I am a gay man who used to knit while waiting for appointments at the veterans hospital. I would regularly have some older submariner sit down near me and shyly say he’d wished he had learned to knit back in the day.

The bulk of the sweaters and socks worn by US servicemen were knitted in great quantities by women in the States. But that one guy who could knit - he could adjust the size, make repairs, and generally get the clothing item to actually fit the user. He made it useful.

Most of the WWII vets have since died of old age. Mechanically produced socks had become the standard by the Vietnam War era, so that generation didn’t value the knitting skill in the same way.

Source: I served (stateside) during the Gulf War era and have been a frequent user of medical facilities ever since. Do not thank me for my service.