Thursday, November 1, 2012

Gendered Quilting

My seasonal job ended along with October, and this is leaving me with more time on my hands for quilting and blogging (and job hunting and thesis preparing, of course). 

Which brings me to gendered quilting.  I've been thinking about this for a while, and it keeps coming up in the blogs I follow and in my real life.  I see quilts made in pairs, with a "boy" quilt and a "girl" quilt.  I see books and patterns published, like Geared for Guys.  There are babies coming along in my family and in my friends' families, and that leads into all the discussions of what colors and designs to pick out.  Pink is for girls, blue is for boys, yellow and green are neutral or "safe."  And I'm fed up. 

Maybe this is my hippie California upbringing coming out, or maybe it's my women's college feminism, but I firmly believe - and I don't think it's that radical - that boys will not be scarred by wearing/using something with flowers or pink, and girls should be encouraged to wear/use things with dinosaurs and trucks.  I followed the blog hop for Geared for Guys back when it came out, and it seems to me that there are plenty of women that would love those patterns - they were generally more minimalist than manly. 

I don't know that I can achieve anything on my own on this issue, but now I at least feel like I've spoken my piece on it.  There's a baby coming up that I'm starting to think about making things for - gender not known yet - and I'm thinking about spaceships and helicopters.  

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