Pronoun policing in hobby groups

[MissScarletInTheBallroom]

I'm in a Facebook group for embroiderers. I don't do much myself (turns out it's harder than it looks!) but I like seeing other people's creations.

Anyway, the gender wars are raging.

Every so often someone posts a political pattern they've stitched, usually something to do with trans rights, and the comments are an even split between allies cheering them on and other people asking to keep the discussion related to embroidery and away from politics.

This morning someone posted a general message, not related to an embroidery they had done, calling others out for starting posts with, "Hey ladies!" or similar, saying that not everyone in the group is a woman, and signing off "from this enby".

The comments were the usual shit show that I have come to expect, with half the commenters saying, "stop ramming your special identity down our throats, we don't care" and the other half bemoaning the transphobia in the group.

But what I noticed was that several people posted to thank the person who had posted the comment and saying that they were also not women, and every single one of them was either a female person who identified as non binary, or a trans man. I did not spot one single natal male in the group.

It struck me as odd to pipe up and say, "Hey, thank you, there are men in this group too!" if the only men in the group are female.

I want to say that embroidery clearly is a very gendered activity, but weirdly it looks like more of a sexed activity, if the only people doing it are female, but identify as a range of different genders.

Anyway, that's my random thought for the day.

@MarieDeGournay
I might start a pussy hat in green, white and purple and wear it to the ballot box (national elections in Germany in February, and I don't know who to vote for).

You get it with men too - trans identification seems to be particularly high in certain interest groups that are very heavily male-dominated. Perhaps people whose interests are so gender-stereotypical that they rarely even interact with the opposite sex are particularly likely to come up with an imaginary version of what that sex is actually like, and thence to identify into it.

I’m sure this is a major influence. Not surprising if girls don’t relish the prospect of growing up female these days. Too bad the trans world is an even more dangerous place.

I went to a quilting exhibition at a museum a few years ago and was impressed by one that was hand made by an injured soldier in a war before that, maybe Crimea or Boer. It was made out of the fabric they had to hand, so basically bits of uniform. The accompanying blurb said that it was common for injured men to be encouraged to do sewing like this. I don’t know whether that was from the perspective of avoiding the devil making work for idle hands, or whether there was a recognition even then that crafts could be therapeutic and help the mind heal while the body recovers.

I would be interested in knowing more about when fibre crafts became so stereotypically female to the point your manhood was questioned if you participated. I’m guessing that it happened after WW2 when modern gender stereotypes seemed to bake in to British society

Girls on the whole have better fine motor skills*, but I'm not sure if that continues into adulthood.

*I've just had a quick look and the studies I've found are very small samples, but all support this assertion. Happy to hear others if anyone knows of larger ones!

journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0176556

However, sewing is a very useful skill and I've made sure I taught my son how to sew.

This little, tiny, study suggests it's our dainty little tiny lady fingers:

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/2307635/

More on big/little fingers:

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/232434698_Do_Women_Really_Excel_over_Men_in_Manual_Dexterity

There was an eye-opening thread some years ago about the number of hobbies and activities that have been disrupted through the efforts of various activists or people with a personal agenda. Ravelry is in there along with this:

I used to go to a yoga class where an older guy used to go. He liked to cross dress which isn't a problem in itself at all but his outfits became increasingly inappropriate for yoga.
The last straw was when I spent a session behind him wearing a black negligé, fishnet tights and no underpants.

www.mumsnet.com/talk/_chat/4186758-arseholes-who-ve-ruined-groups-and-hobbies

That is exactly how I feel about it. I can sympathise with teen girls who are just struggling to find a way of opting out of all the shit that comes with being female, but I do find myself irritated by grown women doing this and the implication that I must somehow be willingly "girly" because I am not choosing to identify as NB.

Women who identify as men want to punch down on women who just are existing and don't want to be discriminated against.

Thus the hierarchy becomes
Men
Transwomen
Transmen
Women

And certainly not more equal nor gender neutral / non discriminatory. It's just making the dynamics worse and somehow legitimising the punching down as being acceptable because 'some females do it too'.

It's bonkers.

TBH I don't personally know any transmen, but I wasn't aware of them 'punching down' - they obviously reject their own woman-ness for their own reasons🙄 but are they particularly nasty towards women in general?
Genuine question, because it hasn't come to my attention before that they might be.

I assumed the 'punching down' was in a more general societal sense, rather than specifically wanting women to suffer - by trying to opt out of female oppression it makes it worse for those of us who are still in it, not less because it makes it look like we're there because we want to be (why don't you just identify out then if you don't like it).

Internalised misogyny is a thing.

Oh, I find this so depressing. Trans ideology has ruined so much!

@MissScarletInTheBallroom can I ask - can you tell if these women on the facebook group are in the UK or all over the world?

(I want to feel like it's more of an issue in other countries, although judging by what's gone on with the UK Women's March fb groups, I'm not so sure)/

Most of them seem to be in the US.

My description of them going over to the Dark Side is only partly in jest. Like others, I sympathise with teenagers wanting an opt out, but find adults continuing with the 'not like other women' line tedious at best, and the implicit assumption from a few that they can't be a REAL scholar (or whatever) and a woman at the same time is deeply shitty.

@MissScarletInTheBallroom in a way that's a relief. Some of them are totally bonkers for this stuff over there!

Link from @RethinkingLife corrected:
https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/_chat/4186758-arseholes-who-ve-ruined-groups-and-hobbies

The bolded words were messing it up.

Do Ravelry still have loads of 'packer patterns' available on there? I left at that point.

The last straw was when I spent a session behind him wearing a black negligé, fishnet tights and no underpants.

oh dear god, arsehole literally not just metaphorically

I'm so glad everyone in the craft group I go to is female and civilised and given to wearing clothes.

I know of one well known (in those circles!) male cross stitcher (I was at school with him so I know he’s definitely always been a him too).

But yeah, why does it have to be at the centre of everything they do? If someone started a thread on my decluttering group saying “hi guys, I’ve been clearing out my mug cupboard” my first thought would NOT be to correct their use of “guys” and complain that I was being excluded and/or triggered by their fucking post. They all need to grow up.

Fucking hell!! I have led a sheltered life. My Ravelry life is spent looking at hats, Christmas decorations and soft toys. And packers to me meant Green Bay Packers. No more. Shudder.

but to answer your question, yes they do still have them. Flipping knitted willies!!!

Ask her to explain all about what being an enby means. Nod and smile sympathetically, then say your gran had conservative ideas about gender once but then she realised that women can have short hair/be Mathematicians/not wear make up, etc etc.

Because that’s all it is: an inability to understand that women don’t have to conform to stereotypes. They won’t admit it, but it is. I’ve never heard a coherent explanation of what an enby is that doesn’t rely on stereotypes or an inability to comprehend that women can think, act and feel in millions of different ways.

I've been following the press given to a very heavily male dominated cycling forum (hardly a surprise) which has been warning of closure after the provisions of the Online Safety Act start kicking in (that would be a separate thread). The administrator is an enby, and there have been complaints when his (oops) pronouns aren't honoured. Needless to say the Guardian/Observer, for one, made a swift correction.

One of my late uncles was in the Navy during ww2 and he did exquisite embroidery during the periods when nothing was happening, as did many of his fellow sailors.