Fun and Easy Craft Project: How the Women's Lib Movement has Ruined Women

I have been looking around at the new fashions for fall and have noticed the following short-coming: There are hardly any hand-knit lace accents on this season’s sweaters, jackets or dresses. Not to be deterred, I have come up with a solution; I’m going to knit my own! So you can all join me in my embellished apparel, I have included the pattern.[1]

Cast on 15 stitches, knit 1 row.
Row 1: k2, yo, k2tog, k1, yo, k2tog, k1, skp, yo, k1, k2tog, yo, k2.
Row 2 and all even rows: *k3, p3, repeat from *, end k3.
Row 3: k2, yo, k2tog, k1, yo, k2tog, k1, skp, yo, k1, k2tog, yo, k2.
Row 5: k2, yo, k2tog, k2, yo, k3tog, yo, k2, k2tog, yo, k2.
Row 7: k2, yo, (k2tog) twice, yo, k3, yo, (k2tog) twice, yo, k2.
Row 9: k2, yo, k2tog, k1, yo, k2tog, k1, skp, yo, k1, k2tog, yo, k2.
Repeat rows 1-10 for pattern.

Perhaps we will gather together in a small space without climate control and work together! I’ll bring the knitting silk we’ll desperately need. Also, you’ll note that I’ve reproduced the pattern in a small font size so we must squint to read it. That way we can pretend we don’t have the convenience of high watt light bulbs. Don’t worry if you’re not sure what the letters stand for, I don’t either. But I’m certain that trial and error will produce the yards and yards of lace we’ll need to trim our modest, floor-length skirts. I expect have my lace finished sometime before Christmas, 2075.

Just to put this in context, in the Victorian Era, we would have squeezed this knitting project between getting up at dawn, sewing our own clothes on the brand new pedal-powered treadle sewing machine, raising babies, some nominal farm-work (like retrieving eggs from chickens), and raising babies. Thank God we didn’t have to worry about making informed decisions at the polls or we might have run out of time to make all that lace.

The point is, Victorian women did it all: they ran successful households, raised families—don’t tell me that’s less work than a full time job—and still had time to make lace. Also, these women could understand that pattern without ever going to an institution of higher education. So what’s changed since the 1860’s? We became educated. We became enfranchised. We became employed. We became liberated.

But are we more intelligent? More useful? Better off? The answer is a resounding NO! I want suffrage, sure. And I believe an educated population should choose its leaders, so I’m happy to be in school. But I’d trade a job and “liberation” for the ability to read that pattern any day.

When the FemMaj claims to represent women, remember this: they don’t represent me.



[1]T his is by far the simplest pattern I found in an extensive (4 minute) search of the “internet,” another resource unavailable to Victorian women.