"Cast Off - Diversity wars are raging in the knitting world'

[AncientLights]

I've kept the title from the article in the print version of The Spectator 28 Sept, as I can't improve on it.

It's the most astonishing piece - well, astonishing and yet horribly familiar to us here. I'll summarise as it's not the done thing to do a big c&p job and would also be a kick in the financial teeth of the Speccy, who have done so much, via James Kirkup, to publicise the illogicality of the trans movement.

There is a knitter called Nathan Taylor whose online name is 'Sockmatician' - he sounds an interesting character, shall I say. Sockmatician seems to have cause huge offence (and here I will quote as it's so bonkers) by posting 'a poem on Instagram about 'diversknitty' in which he boasted it was a year since he had founded this hashtag, and asked that people use it kindly, rather than attacking one another'. Seems Taylor was committing violence against Bipoc (black & indigenous people of colour, it says here) by telling them how to make their arguments about inclusion, tone policing from a white man - utterly unacceptable.

The war started & raged on. Sockmatation has MH problems, was hospitalised, messages from his husband held no sway. Things got really bad with the yarn festival: yarn producers & other knitting personalities (who knew?) couldn't believe Sockmatition hadn't been uninvited, someone was glad she hadn't been able to attend after all as she'd have been unable to teach her session knowing he was down the hall. Unsupported allegations online about an assault. His patterns have been dropped from two books, one of which was the first official Harry Potter knitting book - the cover was reshot to remove Sockmatition's work. His business has suffered a 75% drop in sales.

There's a similar story about a Kate Davies who is based in the Scottish Highlands. She wouldn't join in denouncing people for their 'transgressions', so she's been attacked, too.

I read it thinking it must be an allegory but have come to the conclusion it's genuine. It is total, stark-staring madness and I can only keep saying to myself and to anyone else who will listen 'How on earth have we come to this?'

I read this too and was utterly astonished. I found it so hard to believe, thought it must be a send up, but no...brings home how hard it must be for outsiders to believe the attacks on the GC and the rights of women.

Horribly familiar, yes. And proof that it is a sweeping trend for a new intolerance. If your belief isn't the same as my belief, and if you do not prove this belief in everything you do and say, you are a bigot and we have every right to destroy you utterly. Charming.

I'm a knitter & crocheter & what's going on is awful.

There was a particular woman of colour who didn't get a stand at Yarndale & all hell broke loose about her being discriminated against.

So, I went to look at her Etsy shop. Full of really shit looking products. I wouldn't have given her stall either

Sadly that is all perfectly true. I have removed myself, and remain thnakful I always use a pseudnonym, for such sites.

The Cult of Identity is seeping into absolutely everything and is absolutely wrecking all online social interactions.

The Art of Being Offended is very, very strong in some! I often wonder what they are like in real life!

Unbelievable. Although some comments under the Spectator article (not the left eating the left ones) made me smile

Its not just knitting, all female and gay spaces are under attack - the embroidery world has also been targeted with demands of compliance.
(I'm not going to mention the most famously targeted account as she will just get hassled again by watchers who police this forum, but she creates gorgeous pieces that include depictions of female anatomy.)

I was on a couple of fb groups with her in... Fucking shameful what was done / attempted to her artwork. Some people are utterly unhingrd

Your phrase 'the embroidery world has also been targeted with demands of compliance' Inebriati strikes me as something I wouldn't have heard even, what? two or three years ago. But I do find it strangely comforting that it's actually a really huge range of people who are being targeted like this. When the uprising comes there will be more of us than the opposing faction ever guessed.

Knitting & embroidery as subversive acts - time for me to get crafting.

crack on

www.atlasobscura.com/articles/knitting-spies-wwi-wwii

www.telegraph.co.uk/news/9009004/British-prisoner-of-War-stitched-hidden-anti-Hitler-message-into-Nazi-quilt.html

It's absolutely insane. I didn't know about this chap but I did hear about Kate Davies. Davies used to work in academia but had to retire after a stroke left her disabled. That didn't stop any of these blood thirsty virtue signallers from doing everything they could to destroy the business she built up. Can you imagine that, trying to destroy the livelhood of a disabled woman. Yarn shops were pulling her books from the shelves saying that they wanted their shops to be 'safe places'. What sort of person who walks in to a yarn shop and has a panic attack because they see a book by the author they don't like.

I see no lessons have been learned and curiously their new victim is also disabled through serious illness. Is it overly cynical to wonder if they're deliberately going after the low hanging fruit? People whose personal health potentiall means they have less resources to deal with a dedicated smear campaign intent on destroying their reputations and careers.

I can't believe Kate Davies has been targeted, she always seemed a gentle soull, but I had noticed the TWAW mantra appearing in the social media of another Scottish based knitwear designer I used to follow and checked in with recently. More of her posts seem to be about diversity than knitwear these days and it is no longer somewhere to escape all the angst. Being woke rarely seems to improve people's mood does it?

I'm really upset to hear Kate Davies has been targeted in this way. I vaguely knew her back in her academic days (as a pp noted, she had to leave academia due to her stroke) and she is a formidably intelligent and decent woman who in no way deserves this. These people are utter arseholes who will never be satisfied until ever last person bar themselves is on their knees begging for forgiveness for whatever invented crime the woke police have trumped up that week.

HerFemaleness
Is it overly cynical to wonder if they're deliberately going after the low hanging fruit?
It might be that vulnerable people are the ones who end up in articles because they're the ones on which the bullying has serious effects. It's something I've often thought about the militant Woke - their ostracism and censorship is usually only successful when the victim is vulnerable; anyone well-established or otherwise resilient will survive. If any of them really gave a toss about fairness or equity they'd see this.

I went down a rabbit hole after reading this thread and found 3 articles on Quillette which gave a good overview of the whole story.

This toxic call out culture is sickening. People seem to be forgetting how to be human. It's a fight to be the most oppressed and to pile on anyone who makes the slightest wrong move. There is an anger and bitterness inside people that cannot be doing them any good, never mind the people they attack. I don't know if the political climate fuels it but it makes me feel very pessimistic about the future. It's a terrifying side of social media.

I went down a rabbit hole after reading this thread and found 3 articles on Quillette which gave a good overview of the whole story.

Was one of them this one?

quillette.com/2019/06/07/instagrams-diversity-wars-revisited/

If you follow Jesse Singal on twitter you'll know it's exactly the same in YA writer culture. It's so interminable I can't remember (follow?) the exact story but from a quick google I think this is a starting point:
jessesingal.substack.com/p/ya-twitters-victims-and-critics-speak

quillette.com/2019/07/28/knittings-infinity-war-part-iii-showdown-at-yarningham/

Another from Quillette.

I follow Kate Davies’ blog. It’s lovely and I can’t imagine her being discriminatory in a million years.

I think i’ll hunt Kate and the Sock guy down on the Internet ... and BUY SOMETHING OF THEIRS

Fucking hell - it's like witch burnings or something.

There is something very unsettling about a culture where people feel validated by tearing down those who they feel don't publically demonstrate their agreement with their cult.

It's like the poppies thing on steroids.

Reminds me of the babywearing cultural appropriation row- being white I found it very difficult to navigate and won't defend Didymos, but the level of vitriol, calls for wraps to be burned etc in the babywearing community took my breath away.

I can't seem to find Sockmatician's offending poem / post about being nice to each other - can anyone post it?

I slightly recall some of this from when Trump supporters got banned from some sort of massive internet community which I’d never heard of not being into knitting and all.

Who would have thought knitting would become some sort of crazy culture war? I don’t want to take the piss out of knitters but thought it was just some kind of innocent pastime gradually falling out of fashion where the youth fail to replace the older generation.

When something as mundane as knitting becomes prone to ridiculous politics we are truly fucked but I suppose anything niche is more likely ripe for it as there’s less middle ground to constrain the nut jobs.

I don’t know what to think. I initially found it funny and laughed it off but I’d be naive it will just be limited to knitting

That was Ravelry Caucho

What is missing in people's lives that make them do this? It's so bloody tiresome as well as utterly sinister but it's mostly just a massive waste of energy.

When I was 30 we moved to a new area and I hoped the local knit night would be a good way to meet new friends. Nope, it was like the linked articles - constantly expected virtue signalling and God help you if you wanted a chit chat. I lasted 4 weeks before finding better uses of my time. The wool shop has since shut down.

Poor Kate never had a chance against these bullies. They're so invested in being "right" they've forgotten how to be decent.

I’ve possibly bought rather more Kate Davies than I would have done since this all happened. And those of other fibre artists who are not buying into the frenzy.