This does (somewhat) relate to wool I swear... just had to comment on it the amount of times I have been told its so “feminine” and “domestic” that I like to spin and knit.
I find myself constantly occupying extreme (and oppositional) binaries, in attempts to chip away their rough walls. The realm of spinning and farming is such a place for me. Spinning and knitting are seen so connected to the domestic scene, a domestic art associated with the “female”. Farming is manual labor and involves lots of dirt so it must be a “man’s” job (though it hasn’t always been this way and things are now changing!). The gender assumptions people make separate these two areas, missing out on what could be a holistic mindset that encompasses both, free from the gender binary. It seems silly that artistic creation is seen so separate from the manual labor of farming. What is farming without creation? Farming is fostering life giving plants and designing growing systems and arrangements that help them. And within the homesteaders lifestyle there are many points that beg artistic input and ingenuity. The processing of many farm products, such as a sheep’s fleece, takes artistic incentive. Just like garlic braiding, or stringing peppers to dry. Or you could look at it the other way around, that spinning is a manual labor. But I think it is too simple to try and shove occupations into our social binary we seem so addicted to. Instead we farmers/ gardeners/ spinners/ felters/ knitters/ fiber creators should recognize that through uniting farming with the creation that stems from the fiber farm products there is the great potential of queering the binary of occupation. And if you find yourself unable to free your mind from the gender binary, think again- what is more “manly” than wrestling sheep, shaving them, and making the clothes on your back out of their hair?
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