Stitch N Bitch Analysis

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In 2003 Debbie Stoller’s book “Stitch 'n Bitch” came out, causing a surge in interest in knitting and embroidery. «Betty Friedan and other like-minded feminists had overlooked an important of knitting when they viewed it simply as part of women’s societal obligation to serve everyone around them- they have forgotten that knitting served the knitter as well». [стоит проверить точное написание цитаты] As a result of the book’s roaring success, communities appeared across the country for people to knit and communicate. «Why wasn’t knitting receiving as much respect as any other hobby? Why was it still so looked down on? It seemed to me that the main difference between knitting and, say, fishing or woodworking or basketball, was that knitting had …show more content…

In fact, they were being anti-feminist, since they seemed to think that only those things that men did, or had done, were worthwhile». According to Stoller, one of the main successes of feminism became its own failure. The writer sees an internal contradiction in the idea that women knit because they are forced to do so by a patriarchal society. If on the other hand they find pleasure in knitting, then this activity gives her a chance both to compete with men in traditionally male areas and at the same time to fulfill the female roles of a housewife and a mother. In theory a woman can be anyone and do what she likes best, but society still assesses her, focusing on the male model of success. At the same time, no one releases a woman from the necessity to perform the duties traditionally attributed to her. In the context of the variety of roles assigned to her, the recipes for success and the constant pressure of the ideal images broadcast by media, the successful modern postfeminist femininity appears to be a competitive, complex and at the end of the day utterly unrealizable

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