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Oh, right! Now I remember! I knit and work on weird projects because I'm being peer pressured into it by Laura Bush and the American propaganda machine, and because I'm so scared and fragile and anti-feminist that I can't bear...

Oh, right! Now I remember! I knit and work on weird projects because I'm being peer pressured into it by Laura Bush and the American propaganda machine, and because I'm so scared and fragile and anti-feminist that I can't bear to venture out into the cold, wide world without protection.

To be fair, I'm sure that the Bush Administration would love to portray the rising interest in the so-called domestic arts as a Return to Family Values, a reversion to the heavenly order where women embrace their duty to stay at home to raise the kiddies and bake pot roasts, the governmental Father knowing best, and so on.

Except that, um, that's not the case. I'm not knitting myself into a hole. I'm not retreating from the public sphere. It's called having hobbies, and it sure beats opiating myself with network TV.

I'm still trying to figure out how the hell Jameson made the bizarre and stunning leaps of "logic" in that article. I'm very, very, very tempted to click on the email link at the end and write her a reply. Huzzah to your post!
"Nesting urge," my foot. It's called being bored and finding something useful and fun to do with my time.

I read something in the last Bitch that was along similar lines. (That article lumped creating in with cleaning- ugh!)
Knitting has been on the rise for years! Witness Monica Lewinski starting a line of knitting bags- I think that was 3 years ago.
And yeah, I am with you on not watching this war on tv. The saturation of coverage is perverse, and we will never know what is really happening there, no matter how much time we devote to watching tv.

right on! i embroider and bake not because i'm scared, but because i enjoy it! and yes, it does beat tv... by a long shot...

Fuckin' A.

Pre-made store-bought stuff is generally lower quality and overpriced. Fashions come and go; the things I like aren't even on sale half the time. I'm not giving in to peer pressure, I'm resisting it.

great concise reaction to bitchy stupid newspaper woman. i got a bit more wordy in mine -- it was late, i was tired, and on it went! :)

I think Jameson has fallen in with the Virgina Slims School of Feminism. She equates being able to buy things with financial freedom - nevermind that many women who practice "retail therapy" end up enslaved to consumer debt. I wrote her a ranty little email, too, but I think the person who said "they're just hobbies" put the whole thing in perspective. Thanks for the link!

amen!
i wanted to answer her saying something along the lines of what you said, but it was late and all i could think of was: "Sistah, PLEASE! Are you on crack?"
: )

I actually agree that hard times make for people turning increasingly to craft. But why is that such a bad thing? It's a way of getting control over your immediate environment, and it sure beats retail therapy.

AND, I would point at the American economy, not the geopolitical situation. Remember the crafting, diy boom of the seventies? That had nothing to do with political conservatism or fear (well, maybe a little fear, those were difficult times), but I would relate it directly to the economy, and on a more positive note, valuing what one could produce, as opposed to what one could buy.

There's nothing wrong with getting a handle on contemporary life one macrame planter at a time. That woman is a twit.