Knitting In Public

I went out of my way to be seen knitting in public: in schools, in offices, in public vehicles. Strangers would approach me and watch me work. They would ask what I was doing--they knew what crochet was, but had no concept of what knitting was. They called my knitting crochet (gantsilyo). Women, especially, would ask my permission to touch and fondle my work, particularly when I was using fancy yarn they'd never seen before.

Of course people laughed at me. That was the point. I let them--until they got tired laughing and took a harder look at what I was really doing.

In the decade of the 80s, when I was learning how to knit, the majority of women in the Philippines refused to do domestic, "women's", work. This was a result of the mounting waves of feminism in the country, some of it authentic, most of it postured. Every girl's dream was to have a career outside the home. This became evident even while the girls were still in school--they refused to do projects such as knitting, crochet, and sewing, and designated these tasks to their maids. The art of needlecraft was abandoned in the name of women's lib. Alas, most of the girls ended up as secretaries and filing clerks with broken dreams. Quite a few working mothers were perplexed when their children grew up dysfunctional.

At the time, I figured that if women were keen on shunning knitting, then it wouldn't be wrong for me to take over and succeed.

I think, that is why I knitted in public. I still do. It's a social statement.