Domesticity

I'm in a state of enforced domesticity this evening - discovered as I was heading out to the KTog that I no longer had a purse. . So I've had a jolly evening cancelling cards... Thankfully I'd put my one and only credit card in a secret place; and was even able to remember which secret place; and even more fortuitously the PIN hadn't changed with the new card. So I'm OK for cash, and so on; but GAH!!! It's also made me re-think going to Ally Pally this weekend...

I'm just hoping someone does actually hand the purse in - the rest of the stuff in it is useless, but there are so many library cards, and passes, and people's business cards... And then the stupid things you end up carrying around in your purse, like your favourite needle for running-in-ends, and cute foreign coins... Anyway, by the time I'd got it all sorted out, it was way past time I could get any form of transport to KTog... so DOUBLEGAH!!!

I was already in an irate frame of mind, having listened to the segment of Woman's Hour where Jenny Murray and Kate Saunders apparently attempted to pin Yarnstorm against the wall and beat the crap out of her. Fortunately, she's made of sterner stuff and acquitted herself beautifully... and evidently things seemed friendlier right up close given her post today...

I'd be the first to say that although I'm an avid reader of her blog, Yarnstorm's particular form of domesticity isn't for me - if I baked cakes a couple of times a week, my house would look like Miss Haversham's wedding feast, because I don't like eating them; but oh; the tulips... And her photos are gorgeous, and doubtless the book is, too... I haven't seen a copy, but I'll seek one out now.

It's interesting how much of a nerve she touched on Woman's Hour, though. And what a degree of prejudice she unleashed... from the idea of the breadwinner coming home and, finding out his wife (italics mine) had spent the day embroidering, would say 'get a job'; to the repeated use of the word "insidious" to describe Yarnstorm's book...

I think the perceived threat from Yarnstorm was her sheer existence, as a woman who has had fulfilling jobs but is able to enjoy this sort of domestic activity... But while dissing Yarnstorm, both Jenny Murray and Kate Saunders managed to express a lot of contempt towards all people who enjoy the activity of craft.

I am disappointed that we're still having to fight this battle. If what I did in my evenings was photography, or fine art, or fell-running, Woman's Hour would be interested in me.... If I were a woman in a less developed country spinning, knitting and running a small Internet shop while holding down a full-time job, Woman's Hour would be interested in me. If I do the latter in a developed country, Woman's Hour thinks of me as a dilettante who is, in some way, wasting her time while attempting to corrupt other people into the same mindset...

Way to go, Woman's Hour. We have battles to fight, still... It's a shame we seem to be squabbling among ourselves.