Men with Balls Issue #24

These knitters prove that sticks aren’t just for chicks

By Stacey Dugan
Published: June 1st, 2005 | 2:42pm

This is not another article going on about how “offbeat,” “unconventional,” or “progressive” it is for men to knit. Dan Vera, co-founder of MenKnit.net, an online resource and forum for male knitters, can explain why those assertions are quite simply unfounded: Knitting is traditionally a men’s craft, according to the research he’s compiled.

“Most historians agree,” reads the history page of MenKnit.net, “that knitting probably began with men … it grew out of the knitting of fishing nets.” Only in the last century or so has American society begun to view knitting as a women’s craft.

“Men have always knitted, but in general I don’t think most of us have a good handle on our gender history — how domesticity, masculinity, and femininity have been constructed over time,” Vera says. “I think for [male knitters] who come to the Web site, [that history] is really validation for something they love doing.”

Evan Maxon, founder of the San Francisco men’s knitting group, Dicks With Sticks, has a slightly different perspective, based less on historical legacy but similarly focused on building a forward-thinking community. “I have to thank our sisters in knitting because I think most guys knit by virtue of knowing a woman who knits,” Maxon says. “But as [men’s] knitting groups grow, there’s going to be more men learning to knit from other men.”

With knitting at the forefront of the progressive DIY movement, more men are learning the craft every day. But there are also a host of guys out there who’ve been privately knitting for years, weary of society’s assumptions about knitting, gender, and sexuality. Maxon says it’s important for men to bridge knitting at home with social and public knitting, but that transition is sometimes challenging. “Co-workers might think men who knit are ‘weird’ or ‘creepy,’” he says. “And many people associate men knitting with homosexuality.”

Knitting groups can be as comforting and cathartic as they are sociable and fun. MenKnit.net is a response to the slew of men’s knitting groups popping up across the country, an effort to weave a wider cyber networking community from these independent strands. The Web site provides forums for talking shop and sharing knitting-related stories, as well as a comprehensive how-to guide for those looking to start groups of their own.

Maxon says groups are the best place to partake in the “camaraderie of knitting” while dissembling gender stereotypes. But Maxon is quick to note that men’s knitting groups generally have an open-door policy toward interested women. “It’s great to have a space where you know you’re welcome and you don’t have to worry about someone looking at you strangely,” he says. “But it’s also about not being exclusionary at all.”