Why is everyone gushing over Tom Daley knitting?

He’s not causing harm by knitting. He is causing harm by buying into surrogacy.

It's not really cute. It's just knitting.

Tom. Why does my autocucumber always correct tom to tomorrow?

I'm having a really hard time seeing the 'where's the harm?' perspective when every critical reference to TD's surrogacy involvement and advocacy has been deleted. I really don't know what to say to those of you cooing over the nice man knitting in that context. But by all means tut at me for being narrow minded or whatever.

Tomorrow knitting in his crying women PJs

I’m sure he is a very inspiring person, I cannot get over the exploitation and the harm changing surrogacy laws could have on UK women. He seems nice and people look up to him, it is a concern for me the influence he could have.

I’m amazed he’s only been knittinf since last March and can incorporate patterns in the knit! I couldn’t get the hang of knitinf at all and can only crochet basic things

I never said there was any harm to young men going on, although the more positive publicity he gets the more he can push his surrogacy agenda if he wishes too.

The deletions on this thread! We’re not allowed to express how we feel about the exploitation of women, the intentional traumatising of mothers and babies by separating them without the reasonable cause of child protection and the commodification of humanity by turning babies into consumer products now?!

I doubt he’s challenging gender stereotypes for the benefit of women though, it’s something he enjoys and he’s being praised for so nothing revolutionary going on.

I disagree, if the women's swimming team was sitting knitting there would be a lot of media attention because it's associated with the elderly now

I’ve been knitting in public (on my commute) for years no-one’s ever called me cute.

Where are my plaudits, damnit?! I demand my adoring public!

Perhaps I'll see it tomorrow when I'm less fucked off

No you won’t

Nobody is waving it away though. This polarisation where everyone is either all good or all bad is going to ruin us.

I would really appreciate it if you stopped suggesting that mentioning TD's attitudes to women in the context of him 'challenging sexist stereotypes' is polarizing anything. It's not.

My Grampy was a keen knitter and crocheter. He knitted all his own socks, vests and jumpers and crochet me, my sister and cousins ponchos. I had to teach myself to crochet because he died before I got interested in it and my Granny couldn’t do it. She taught me how to knit, though.

I don’t particularly like Tom Daley’s views on a lot of things, however I am in awe of his talent with a knitting needle.

Didn’t fishermen traditionally knit and sew? Handy for mending sails and nets. Also a good hobby to keep hands busy - we have some beautifully carved carpentry that an ancestor made whilst on the waves.

Besides... www.edinburghnews.scotsman.com/news/people/heartwarming-photos-talented-edinburgh-security-guard-knitting-boots-premature-children-643274

I contributed to the conversation on this thread too, which was specifically about the undoubted overblown excitement for TD knitting that I've seen in other places. This thread wasn't asking 'what do you think of TD knitting?' Tbh, if it was, I'd have probably ignored it because I don't think it's a big deal, but the question was about the reaction to it, and as such, I think the context of TD's wider attitudes is relevant.

I don't have a purity test for 'challenging gender stereotypes'. I have a huge soft spot for Sally Challen's sons, Jack Appleby, heck even Harry Styles. I just don't think renting women and buying babies is something that can or should be waved away because men knitting is a bit unusual. I think the behavioral stereotypes are far more important to challenge, and I make no apology for saying so. It would be no good for women at all if lots of men took up stereotypically 'feminine' hobbies while retaining their staggering sense of entitlement, as TD has done.

I’m not celebrating it as a massive leap forward in women’s rights or anything. I came on a thread specifically about knitting, and talked about how it’s always nice to see a traditionally masculine-coded man doing something usually seen as “feminine”. That’s all. I’m not fawning all over him, I’m not saying it cancels out all of the other shit, I merely contributed to the conversation in the thread.

It’s fairly tiring if we can’t talk about something specific any more without having to caveat it with “well of course I care about being GC, surrogacy, FGM, breast cancer, suicide attempt rates etc etc”; and even then there would probably be someone come along saying “well you didn’t mention ovarian cancer, don’t you care about that?”

Yy - exactly.

Look, I'm out of sorts, because the level of sexist bullshittery on the BBC and elsewhere is jaw dropping at the moment

Totally agree with you there. I've just 10 mins ago registered a complaint with those BBC arseholes on that very matter. Thing is, if saying "Yay, look - knitting is great for everyone, including young men!" were actually doing something to promote TD, I wouldn't say it, knowing what I now know about the surrogacy. It's just that I can see why people want to point out a well-known young male person knitting.