Island of Misfit Patterns

I have a rant. Yes, I know, what else is new? I have nothing against men knitting. I think its nice. Just like I think its nice that some women knit. However, I am fed up with the whole “Wow, a man who knits! That’s so wonderful!” theme going on.

The Chicago Tribune writes a story about how fabulous it is that these middle school/high school boys dare to take a knitting class. Guys show up on a knitting list, and declares that he is a man who, *gasps*, knits, and all the members run over and shower praise and wonder and attention and gushing out of all sense of proportion. Men talk about how _horrible_ it is to go into a yarn shop with the SO, and have the yarn shop employees talk to his girlfriend first.

They have to have their own classes, their own forum spaces, because you know, us little women just don’t understand. Dude. Join the club. In fact, I’m _happy_ that for the first time in your life, you have gone into a store and not been immediately served while your own SO is ignored. You want to know the number of times that I’ve gone into a computer store and had a guy talk to my boyfriend instead of me? How about car salesmen? Mechanics? And have it continue even after you make clear that _you_ are the subject matter expert, not your SO?

I find it hysterical that the treatment (in fact, the much worse treatment) that women have had to deal with for, well, since we were allowed out of the house on our own causes such consternation and outrage in the heart of these men. Oh, dear, a yarn shop owner assumed he didn’t knit. The horrors.

Then, let’s talk about the women. You know, the women who gush and pet and adore the men who knit. As if the very fact that a man would knit now truly validates the time they spend on their own, knitting. As if nothing is important unless a man is doing it, and if a man is doing it, then nothing may stand in his way. These are the same women who see nothing wrong with having to sneak yarn purchases past their husbands (and even seem to think its just _hysterical_ to talk about it, or are oh so grateful that a man would “babysit” their own children to let them out of the house to go to a Stich N Bitch.

If a guy wants to knit, then cool. Go knit. It’s too bad if you have to ask for attention the first or second time you go into a yarn shop. Don’t expect me to praise you as if you just solved the Middle East crisis and stopped global warming, all in an afternoon. (Of course, not all men are like that, blahblahblah, but still. Geez.)