Survey About Handcrafts and Feminism

I thought y’all might give this young lady some inter­est­ing input.

Any replies should go to Heather, whose email address is xgirlwonderx@bust.com . I’m hap­py to read your replies here, but if you don’t email them to her they won’t do her any good or get into her paper.

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For my senior wom­en’s stud­ies project, I’ve been explor­ing the recent reclaim­ing of tra­di­tion­al­ly female crafts by young fem­i­nists, and look­ing at whether or not there is some­thing fem­i­nist about it, or if in actu­al­i­ty it’s hurt­ing the fem­i­nist move­ment & set­ting it back.

For the sec­ond part, I’m look­ing for peo­ple who par­tic­i­pate in these tra­di­tion­al­ly female crafts (ie, sewing, knit­ting, cro­chet­ing, etc etc etc) to answer some ques­tions. There aren’t many, and it would be a huge huge help!

these are the ques­tions — please copy them into an email and then email answers and any­thing else you have to say about the sub­ject to me at xgirlwonderx@bust.com .

Also, if you’d like to read the first part of the paper before answer­ing, email me first.

Thanks!
Heather

Please explain each answer thoroughly!
1) Name/age/gender

2) Do you iden­ti­fy as a feminist?

3) What kinds of typ­i­cal­ly female domes­tic crafts do you engage in? (knit­ting, cro­chet­ing, sewing, etc.)

4) What made you take inter­est in these things?

5) What are your pur­pos­es in doing them? (recre­ation, to be more inde­pen­dent from the mass cul­ture, social activ­i­ty, etc)

6) Do you con­sid­er the reclaim­ing of these things a fem­i­nist act? Why or why not?
–Also, had it ever occurred to you before that doing some­thing like sewing or knit­ting could be con­sid­ered a fem­i­nist act? 

7) Would you say the pop­u­lar resur­gence of these domes­tic crafts is good for fem­i­nists and the fem­i­nist move­ment in gen­er­al, or bad?
–Also, do you think the new image of young fem­i­nists being eager to do both domes­tic crafts and some­times even domes­tic work being put forth by pop­u­lar fem­i­nist mag­a­zines like Bust is dangerous? 

8) Many crit­ics say that it’s fine and well for young fem­i­nists to be inter­est­ed in these things, but that there is noth­ing excep­tion­al­ly fem­i­nist about them, as the cul­ture at large real­ly has no prob­lem with women doing these tra­di­tion­al­ly female things. They also cite call­ing these things fem­i­nist as harm­ful. What’s your reac­tion to this?

Please please please add any­thing you’d like and expand on any idea here. Thank you soooo much!