I'm Pissed...

Firstly, I'll apologize for the title of the post. I normally try to limit profanity on my blog (I save that for my closest friends, lucky them), but in this case, I feel it's entirely justified (and rather sad in that I called "pissed" profanity.... must work on using more piquant profanity for the future).

Secondly, I'll apologize for the lack of organization and probable tangents, random thoughts and lack of a point (along with my poor punctuation that is normally a part of my blog) that will be littered throughout this post...

This post is about knitting and more specifically a Cease and Desist letter (found in this article by the Gawker... the Ravelry link requires an account) that was sent to Ravelry last month ordering Ravelry to discontinue using the term "Ravelympics" for a competition which began with the Bejing Olympics in 2008 and continued with the Vancouver Olympics in 2010. This year would have marked the third "Ravelympics". An event where knitters from around the world enter competitions within Ravelry to better our skills while promoting, through camaraderie and friendly competition, the elite of the athletic world. Many of us feel that this is our way to also compete in the spirit of the Olympic Games and many more have only started watching the Olympics because they've joined the Ravelympics.

Apparently though, the USOC (United States Olympic Committee) feels that our event denigrates serious athletes . The following is a quotation directly from the letter:

"The USOC is responsible for preserving the Olympic Movement and its ideals within the United States.  Part of that responsibility is to ensure that Olympic trademarks, imagery and terminology are protected and given the appropriate respect.  We believe using the name “Ravelympics” for a competition that involves an afghan marathon, scarf hockey and sweater triathlon, among others, tends to denigrate the true nature of the Olympic Games.  In a sense, it is disrespectful to our country’s finest athletes and fails to recognize or appreciate their hard work."

This has set the knitting world on fire. Twitter is trending #ravelympics and knitting bloggers and other fibre artists are up in arms stating that they will boycott both the games AND the USOC sponsors (I won't be... I watch sports every two years.. Sumer and Winter Olympics... It's the only time I appreciate sports and I've loved the Olympics since before I started knitting.....) We, as knitters, are not necessarily angered about the trademark issue, if this is truly a matter of copyright and trademark issues, we can change the name of our games, but we do take offence to both the wording of the letter and the attack and insult to our chosen way to honour the Olympics and all it stands for. 

"For many, the Olympics represent the pinnacle of their sporting career.  Over more than a century, the Olympic Games have brought athletes around the world together to compete in an event that has come to mean much more than just a competition between the world’s best athletes.  The Olympic Games represent ideals that go beyond sport to encompass culture and education, tolerance and respect, world peace and harmony." (another quote from the letter... I didn't realize that knitting was so anti-"culture, education, tolerance, respect, world peace and harmony".... Those millions of knitters who craft for charity (including the Special Olympics!) are pure evil)

 And here is my first tangent.....

WHY is the world "Olympic" (and any derivations of the word) even trademarked??? I think that is on par with Trademarking the word "traffic jam" or "sports day" or enumerable other as events that have occurred throughout history. The actual Olympic games (Ie: London 2012, Vancouver 2010 etc. well as all images used for the Olympics) I understand... Those are specific events and images that belong to the Olympic committee of whichever country is organizing and the IOC,  but the original Olympics were created in Ancient Greece and the term "Olympic" is used world-wide for anything from mountain ranges to restaurants to sizes of swimming pools to yoghurt etc. According to this article: The USOC was granted the trademark in 1978 congressional act to take down the GAY Olympics. That isn't the last time the USOC has worked to make an organization change their name. If you google USOC and trademark, you can find everything from the Ferret Olympics being forced to be changed to Ferret Agility Trails to the Caveman style Ugh-lympics (here is a good article about a bunch of forced changes). There is no point other than WTF to the above statement... I'm not a lawyer and have no experience in such matters, but it seems to me to be a matter of common sense that the word "Olympics" should not be trademarkable  (I know it's not a word), but that all images and specific games should be. 

and back to why I'm pissed off..... I ruminated over the reason for my anger all of yesterday afternoon and evening, when it occurred to me, that the reason that I'm REALLY pissed off is because, once again...... I feel undervalued as a woman, a stay-at-home-mother and a fibre artist/crafter. That letter, insulting something in which I find enormous value and satisfaction as a human being, is the proverbial last straw.

1)  Women still do not have equal pay for equal work and that's if we can even get the promotion in the first place (How many CEOs are women??). Women can not even say the word "vagina" without getting a smack down and you can bet your ass that if a man had stood up and said a male version of the same thing, but replaced "vagina" with "penis" the entire male portion of the senate would have stood up and clapped...... 

2) As a stay at home mother, I also feel extremely undervalued. My choice (which, thanks to the hard work of stronger, better women before me, I can say is a CHOICE not an expectation), to stay at home to raise my children is not seen as real work. It is neither valued by the government, future employers (let's see how easily I get a good paying job when I enter the workforce after 20 years of staying at home),  nor by many working parents (and there are many other working parents who do value parenting regardless of how it's done and do a fantastic job in their own roles as breadwinners and parents.... it's all about choice and I don't give a crap about what your choice is, as long as you respect mine). I volunteer at both my children's schools enough to know this last statement is true... It is the parent volunteer who ensures that Mommy & Daddy have nice presents for occasions... It is the parent volunteer who ensures that children can go on field trips or is enriched in the classroom... it is the parent volunteer who ensures that the children have special lunch days and sports days and graduations and awards ceremonies and dances and knit club.... It is parent council (run by both working and SAHMs) who provides funding for smart boards and iPods and cameras for the classrooms and other "extras" not provided by the school board (that most other parents are not even AWARE are NOT provided by the school board... I know I didn't know before I became involved). It is the parent volunteers who run fundraising events for said council and the schools (and I know there are tons of working parents who take time off their jobs to volunteer and thank goodness they do,  but the vast majority of the volunteers are the SAHMs). I have been shocked by some of the comments I've heard said by some working parents. "I don't have to worry about potty training/manners/social skills etc. because the DAY HOME/school will do it for me".... "My child isn't learning to read and it's all the school/teacher's fault"  ..... " I send my child to school to do "insert learning/behavioural item here" so I don't have to"...... I have also been (for a very short time) a day home where my time was not valued I was treated very poorly by my "employer" because I clearly had nothing better to do than to take care of their child for 10 hrs a day for $40 (including food). What I do as a stay-at-home parent IS valuable, both to my own family and to yours.... don't put me down because of it and recognize that I also give kudos to those parents who work outside the home and are still fabulous parents... again, it's about choice and mine is just as valid as yours.

3) And finally, I feel undervalued as a fibre artist & crafter. Non-knitters often make comments like "I don't have time to knit" (how much TV do you watch?? That's when I knit) or "I don't have the patience to learn" (I wouldn't say patience is my own strongest character strength and if my then six year old ADHD son can knit a hat for himself...  you really have no excuse... be honest and say you don't WANT to learn). I have often been asked to knit something on commission and have been offered the generous amount of $50 if I would please knit "that sweater/gloves/hat/scarf/shawl you are wearing" and when informed that I can't even buy the yarn for that amount... well, people's expressions are pretty transparent .... The Yarn Harlot has done several posts about the undervaluing of the perceived "women's work" crafts,  knitting in particular (and how we undervalue ourselves as knitters in the guise of "Knitters are nice") and she is a far better writer than I, so I will quote her from this post:

"This is an interesting thing to do, considering that we so often complain that we aren't taken seriously as artists or skilled people, and that knitting remains largely undervalued. (We're back to the excellent larger question about women in general again, but I'm resisting.) This desire to make everything we do seem easy, our uncomfortableness with the recognition of our talents, it's a unique approach. Do you think this is something other people do with their skills? Do lawyers say "It was nothing"? Nope. They say "That's $250 an hour. It took me a long time to learn how to do this." How about National League Hockey players? No way. They cop to working out and practicing hours and hours a day. Artists don't say "It was easy." they tell you how they got there, and then because they have respect for their efforts...so do we."

And this blog post sums it up even better.. seriously, go read it.... I was going to get some quotes, but the whole post is worth reading.... 

Basically, the point of this whole post is that it doesn't seem to matter how far I think we've come as a society with our attitudes towards women.... All it takes is one Man (intentional capitalization) writing a legal document to remind me that we have a lot further to go yet...... 

as a final note... it is not my intention in any way to disparage working parents. I hope I was clear about that in my number 2 (ha! potty humour is always fun). There are just as many SAH parents who are crappy as  there are working parents, but I know you aren't one of them...... 

Edited to add: The USOC has apologized for giving offence....