Free-Range Knitter (11 page)

You could have knocked me over with a feather. Don’t get me wrong: I think any parent who makes any sacrifice for his or her child is a good person. I think what he did does make him a really good dad. I just think that we live in a society where because of our low standards, men who give up a night of hockey to care for their own kids are great guys, and women who sacrifice a year or two (or ten) of their careers are simply doing what’s expected of them, and their gift of time to their family isn’t discussed in the park at all. Frankly, that pisses me off.

There are examples everywhere. We hear people refer to men “helping” with the housework as though women bear the primary responsibly for it, or going home to “babysit” their own
children. (Tip: If you never get paid, it’s parenting.) Think over how many times in your life you’ve heard a woman say, “I know that some men are like that, but not my Bob. He helps with the housework a lot. He’s terrific.” Then everyone nods and agrees. Bob’s a good guy, and he is. There’s no doubt in my mind that Bob, and a lot of guys like him, would live up to our expectations if we raised them, especially if we did so collectively. There’s only so much we can expect men to do to improve their contributions if we heap praise on them by the boatload every time they do something that we do all the time. We’re the ones who are telling them that it’s enough. We’re the ones telling them that we’re so thrilled that they’re doing this little bit to break down the rules about the domains of women and men that they are impressed and proud about their contributions already.

Ken is not to be blamed for any of this, of course. He’s a lovely man, a fine knitter, and when women fall on him, singing his praises about his ability to do things that women do all the time without getting any accolades at all, he cops to it. He doesn’t buy what they’re selling, that it’s more special when a man does it, that it’s wonderful and validating for women to see a man do something traditionally considered feminine, and he sees the injustice of how it all works. He’s on my side, and he’s the closest thing to a feminist male that you can get, and he’s properly insulted by how impressed they are that a man would summon up the brain cells to knit. He knows that he’s being held to a different standard, that it’s easier for him to be impressive because he happened to be born with
his reproductive organs on the outside rather than the inside of his body.

These are old stories, and I don’t know what the answer is, but I do know this: Offering men accolades and waxing lyrical when they do the things that women have been accomplishing forever (and usually all at the same time), like parenting, housework, or knitting, even if they are doing more than other men, doesn’t do either gender any favors, make the work women do any more valuable, or do anything to help diplomatic relations between the genders. I can tell you that I spent eighteen years at home with my kids, and not once did anyone come up to me and tell me it was fantastic that I had given up not just my pastimes but my job to do it, told me I was a really great person for taking the time to clean the toilet, or told me that it was simply amazing that I was knitting, and although I do think it’s grand when a man does those things (mostly because I think it’s grand when a woman does those things, too), I increasingly think we need to even up a bit, so here’s what I’m thinking.

The next time you see a man knitting, try to treat him like he’s not exceeding your expectations or walking on water, even if you are really impressed and sort of have to fake it.

Remember, if you can do it, so can he.

I am not a stupid woman. That’s not to say that I think I’m a genius or that I’m smarter than anyone else, but I know that I am not stupid. I’ve raised children without seeming to do them any permanent harm, and I passed my classes in school. I read books. I’ve even written books. I cook good meals without regularly setting the kitchen afire, and I can drive a car. I make decent conversation at parties. I figured out my new coffee maker, and I can even work my computer most days, as long as you don’t want me to do anything really fussy or explain how the damn thing works. By all the standards given me by the culture I live in, I am smart enough.

I don’t tell you this because I have low self-esteem and I need you to know; I tell you this because I often run into people who look at how much time I spend knitting, watch the enormous pleasure I take from such a seemingly simple activity, and conclude that I must be equally simple to be so thoroughly
amused by such a thing. Generally speaking, these people are too well brought up to mention my dim nature publicly, but I watch their eyes when I take out my knitting, and I see them do the math. No matter what I was doing before I took out my knitting, even if I had been discussing physics or comparative religion, the minute I pull the stuff out of my bag a look flashes over their visages, and I can tell that part of them just thought it. No matter what they thought of me before, what some of them think now is that if sticks and string are all I need to amuse myself, then I must be very easy to amuse. (I’ve commented before on how incredibly ironic I find it that they think I’m dim for doing something they themselves cannot do, but that’s an argument about perception and their own problems, and we’ll gloss over it for today.)

Their concept of me and my attendant acumen is only cemented if the darlings happen to see my stash or if they find out what I paid for it. If you’re up for a bit of fun and would like to test this theory, show someone a handpainted skein of yarn and tell them it was twenty-five dollars and that you are going to make a pair of socks out of it. Almost every time, they’ll look like you’re crazier than a bag of wet weasels and shake their heads sadly (or discreetly) about your lack of intelligence. Some of these dear souls, the ones with poor self-control or less than stellar behavior, some of them will even try to help you understand the error of your ways, pointing out that socks can be had for a dollar a pair with almost no effort at all. (As an
aside, I’ve never understood what they hope to gain from this. They tell me that as if they expect me to exclaim, “Really? Are you serious? Why didn’t someone tell me before now? Do you know how much time it takes to make a pair of socks? Oh, woe is me, the hours I have wasted. Thank you, thank you, sir, for telling me this and freeing me from my wretched hours of sock-knitting labor. Please, please, I beg of you. Take me to this mysterious ‘Wal-Mart’ where I too can obtain these cheap socks!”)

When I was a younger knitter, and a knitter with less experience, this used to get to me. There are so many people who don’t understand my relationship with knitting that I used to get overwhelmed. As I was growing up, my grandfather used to have a theory. He used to tell me that if one person thinks you’re wrong, you can still be right. If two people think you’re wrong, you might want to check your facts and the basis for your argument, but if three or more people think you’re wrong? You probably are, and you shouldn’t let your pride get in the way of seeing that.

Clearly Grampa wasn’t a knitter, for if he was then he would have seen that there an exception must be made for activities as widely misunderstood as this one. The culture I live in is chock full of people who think I’m wasting time when I’m knitting. In fact, the culture I live in thinks that watching TV with a bag of chips is a lot more valid—or certainly easier to understand. (Demonstrating that I knit while watching TV and eating a bag of chips hasn’t helped me fit in any better.) Nobody wants to
stop me from knitting, not many people even care that I’m knitting, but precious few of them think that my knitting is a demonstration of my intelligence or general canny common sense. Perhaps it’s a leftover from antiquated beliefs about women and the work they do (especially since men who knit aren’t generally regarded as dim—merely effeminate), or perhaps their distaste springs from a general misunderstanding about what’s really happening when we knit.

I could explain to them about how knitting uses both hemispheres of the brain at once, I could explain that knitting instructions are a code that we decipher, I could even tell them that knitting has reading and math and can be so complex that it would make them weep, but instead, I think I will tell them about Turkish rugs.

In most early religions, Christianity and Judaism included, women were forbidden to receive religious education. The easiest way to make sure that didn’t happen was to make sure they were illiterate or to discourage literacy. (That way, they couldn’t get an education even if they were sneaky.) Communication though, is a human need, and human nature will always find a way. The knotted rugs woven by Islamic women in Turkey are a wonderful example.

Each beautiful rug is covered with a series of traditional geometric and repeating motifs, taught from one generation to the next, mother to daughter. As women grow older and their hands become too tired to tie knots and weave the carpets, they
become the spinners, helping to provide the yarn needed. As they spin, they teach the younger women and girls the patterns. It seems antiquated, pastoral, and even, much like my knitting, dreadfully simple. All the women take part in the work somehow. Some of them excel, for sure, but the work is so straightforward that few women in the community would be considered too dim to do it. It would be easy to look upon these women and see exactly what some see when I take out my wool and sticks. Women, ordinary women, engaged in an ordinary pastime. The patterns are established. The knots get tied the same way each time. The work appears manual, mundane, and, to our modern eyes, sometimes even a little stupid.

There are faster and easier ways to get carpets. Sure, they are making very special carpets, just as I may be making very special socks, but generally speaking, it is not considered an intelligent way to get carpet. The intelligent way is the commercial way. Big commercial looms churning out acres of sturdy, serviceable carpet that can be scrubbed and installed. The intelligent way doesn’t make the best carpet. It makes the most efficient carpet. People might acknowledge that hand knotting, like hand knitting, makes beautiful objects; it does not make efficient objects and is therefore a less intelligent operation.

Here’s what they don’t know about the simple, mundane women knotting the rugs. They are reading and writing. The human will find a way, and no human is truly illiterate. The motifs and patterns are a language, and anyone who knows that
language can read the story the weaver tells. A stylized goddess with her hands on her hips is a motherhood symbol and usually shows that the weaver has given birth to a son. An image of a chest or bag may show the weaver is wishing for marriage and a dowry, lines that represent hairbands show the weaver has married, and a figure may represent a person who is being memorialized and is often woven in a carpet that tells the story of the loss of a child. The sort of border put on may indicate the age of the woman or her children. Stars are life, ravens can be death, a dragon sweeping around might mean the rains were good.

Each carpet bears the story, the wishes, and the hopes that each weaver has, and each motif is passed on in the only written language the women know. Banned from reading and writing the language of their culture, they have written a language of their own. Each carpet is a meaningful, powerful story, each line of knots almost a journal of all that she says and thinks. It is as though these women are writing their lives down, teaching each other their stories, and telling all of us what has happened to them while they were here. These stories persist long after the women are gone, since a well-made carpet can last for many, many, many years. It is a powerful and compelling thing, an incredible and heartening story, and what does it look like?

It looks like a woman playing with some wool. Making knots and creating an item that could be made more efficiently by a machine or obtained more cheaply at a Wal-Mart.

As I have said, I am not a stupid woman. I know how I look when I pull out my knitting. I know what they are thinking when I pull out my wool and what will be some very expensive socks when I am done. I don’t care. I’m making a pair of socks that will be on my daughter’s feet when she goes to college. I’m making a hat my brother will wear to work. I’m knitting a sweater to warm my husband and a bonnet for a baby who has just arrived and is much loved. I’m telling my story … and I don’t care if I look stupid or inefficient. I know what I’m doing. It’s not my problem if they don’t.

Imagine this: You and I are sitting together on a park bench, and we are having a lovely time, knitting and chatting, maybe we have coffee and some chocolate. It’s lovely. I spread my knitting in progress out on my lap to admire it, you know, the way knitters do, and I smooth my hand over it and give it a little pat just like it’s a rare or treasured pet. Then, something catches my eye, and I lean forward to take a better look at the sweater, and suddenly you can see what I see. There’s a massive mistake. You inhale sharply; this is going to be bad. This is one of those ugly mistakes that can shorten a knitter’s lifespan. You slowly look up at me, prepared to help me through this awful moment, and much to your surprise, I break out in an enormous smile of sheer joy and exclaim:

Having been the knitter who has made a mistake of that magnitude, I think that if I ever heard a knitter say that, I’d either get up and move, consider talking about her in unflattering terms after she left, or, even though I’m a nonviolent person, I think I’d momentarily consider knocking her off the bench in an attempt to smack the stupid right off the poor unfortunate. I can’t see any way that anyone sane would talk that way about a knitting mistake and having to reknit something, but if you think about it, that’s sort of a contradiction.