Combat Knitters

[psocoptera]

This article (Washington Post, you may need BugMeNot to see it) about deployed knitters in Afghanistan was kind of cool, but it was very clear that the Combat Knitters are *women* of various ages and specialties. Which struck me as statistically unlikely - there must be way more men than women deployed in Afghanistan, and I know about as many men who knit as women. So are men in the military too anxious about their machismo to admit to the WAPost that they knit? (Or maybe the knitters I know are really un-representative of the greater knitting public?)

Comments

[tirerim.livejournal.com]

Speaking as a male knitter, I strongly suspect that the knitters you (and I) know are really un-representative of the knitting public. :-) In particular, while I often see other people knitting in public, I'm not sure I've ever seen a man knitting in public who I didn't already know. It's possible that there are a large number of closeted male knitters out there, but it seems less likely.

[psocoptera.livejournal.com]

Huh, alright then.

I really like it here in my bubble of less-rigid gender norms.

[ursula]

Men who knit are rarer (the journalist would have been all over a man knitting, if he or she had found one-- we witnessed this phenomenon in Knitwits at Swat).

[psocoptera.livejournal.com]

Heh. Good point.

[amyprime.livejournal.com]

I first read "deployed knitters" as people who had been sent to Afghanistan for knitting purposes.

[psocoptera.livejournal.com]

Heh, that would be awesome.

[jaipur.livejournal.com]

hee! Yeah, I was trying to figure out why there would be a need for knitters in a warzone...

[cereph.livejournal.com]

I first thought "combat knitters" was going to be some sort of knitting competition of combative knitting duels.