Not all masculinity is toxic. Especially in the fiber arts community I have met lots of men, both trans and cis, who remind me that just being male is not the problem. The problem is trying to navigate entrenched male gender roles in our society. I was raised in a time when “Real Men Don’t Eat Quiche” was a bestseller. It was written as a satire, but it reflected real attitudes. I lived through the era of “metrosexual” derision: those big-city men and their feminized ways. And of course it hasn’t gone away. The MAGA movement is largely a backlash to the real progress I’ve seen over the decades with women and queer folks being more visible and more visibly in charge. The young people I meet have much more awareness and much healthier attitudes toward gender issues than my generation (although there’s a worrisome trend around young male incels who haven’t adopted those messages).
The fiber arts community is largely a really great place to be a man, as long as you are willing to listen and contribute but not take over. When I first got into this business 15 years ago, it seemed like an overly large percentage of celebrated designers were men. That’s less and less true. It can be disorienting for some guys to be part of something where they are a curiosity and sometimes attract the kind of attention they don’t want. (Sometimes there’s an assumption that male crafters are less proficient, or an assumption about their sexuality. Sometimes there’s even objectification. It can be real weird, but it can also be truly educational in understanding what women have to go through every day.) There are some great men’s knitting retreats around the country that foster good fun and support. I like to think of crochet and knitting as green flags–I’ve met a couple of problematic male crafters over the years, but compared to the general population? Stitching men are actively working against ingrained gender expectations, and that’s a good thing.
One reason I like knitting in public is that it shows the world a different side of masculinity. And, by the way, I love quiche too.