Women’s organization of leisure groups can be a strategy of resistance to power
structures of social institutions. For women who have families and careers, balancing those
demands and finding time for leisure can be particularly difficult. As Shaw says, “The specific
gendered constraints on women’s leisure mean that simply claiming entitlement to personal or
self-determined leisure can be seen to represent a form of resistance against the sometimes
constraining roles of wife, mother, or girlfriend” (2005:2). When one’s choice of leisure activity
is something which is quiet and portable, many are relegated to throwing a project into their
purse for those few moments in the day when they find themselves without something to do:
waiting in line, sitting in traffic, in the waiting room at the doctor’s office. Further, because the
activity can be done solo, carving out time specifically for the purpose of that activity is difficult:
the timer for the oven goes off; a child needs help with homework; the laundry needs to be
folded. In Green’s words, “Time synchronization and time fragmentation dominate most
women’s lives, which has led to them taking ‘snatched’ spaces for leisure and enjoyment, rather
than planned activities” (1998:171). By removing themselves from the domestic setting and
participating in the activity in a social group removed from the home and the family, these
women are able to put time and effort into their projects, as well as stepping back from their lives
for a few hours and allowing themselves a deep breath. Women in my study knitting group
claim that the social time is wonderful, but so is the opportunity to have someone else make them
dinner and bring them tea and dessert. In a sense, it is this stepping back, this removal from the
domestic setting which details their resistance.
Lila Abu-Lughod (1990) made particularly important contributions with her research on
instances of resistance. An important distinction Abu-Lughod makes is that, although resistance
is typically associated with the powerless, resistance is indicative of having some source of
informalpower. She also makes a distinction between resistance on a larger scale and everyday
resistance. This distinction is evident, for example, in the difference of a peasant revolution and
Abu-Lughod’s women who resist through the singing of songs that vocalize objections to
marrying certain men. My research focuses on the everyday resistance of women who knit.
Abu-Lughod’s research is particularly useful in that it focuses on women’s talk as an important
place of resistance. This is tied to my research, as women’s talk during knitting groups
exemplifies the ways in which leisure can be tied with resistance.
Most knitting groups are comprised by women predominantly, and my research group is
not an exception. As such, the group becomes an important place to analyze and understand
women’s talk. For Eileen Green, gender as a social construct can be analyzed more clearly when
one takes into consideration the fact that “although the majority of women obviously spend a
great deal of time developing and maintaining friendships and other types of close relationships
with both men and women, it is often within women-only contexts that specific opportunities for
resistance to gender stereotyped roles and images occur” (1998:176). Homosocial spaces allow
for resistance in ways that may be more constrained in a heterosocial space.
While topics are not always so blatantly sexual, bawdy jokes find their way in more often
than not. Women who are professionals and mothers use this opportunity to uncensor
themselves. As a women’s group, the space is a safe place for the women to talk about topics
which they may not discuss otherwise. Green argues, “Women-only company affords women
the chance to ‘let their hair down’ and ‘behave badly’, i.e. outside the limits of ‘normal,
asked what the typical threads of conversation tended to revolve around. Most did not mention
sex as a common theme, and yet, when talking about the group dynamics or the group’s sense of
humor, sexual jokes were often referenced as something to which new members may have a
difficult time adjusting.
Knitting is a leisure activity which not only gives them time for relaxation and the
enjoyment of the process, but it is also, in a sense, a ticket to an all-girls’ club, one where they
are able to let loose for a few hours at the end of a tiresome week. The Friday night gatherings
become somewhat of a release then, a time when the daily pressures of social roles and
obligations can be shrugged off, and the members can take comfort in spending purely social
time with women who are their friends.