In defense of the sanctimonious women's studies set || First feminist blog on the internet

Rosey Grier’s Needlepoint for Men

Lauren

Emily sent me this link forever ago, and it’s such a cute slideshow that I can’t believe I haven’t posted it yet.

For those of you who don’t know, Rosey Grier was a professional football player for the Giants and the Rams. Bonus points for having Pam Grier as a cousin. He was apparently well-known at the time for his hobbies of needlepoint and macrame, obviously notable for their lack of the expected athletic machismo. I have nothing else to say about this except that Rosey Grier is my hero for the day.

Queer it up, Mary.

16 thoughts on Rosey Grier’s Needlepoint for Men

  2. A friend of mine from Boston says that among her progressive friends, there has been a recent fad for knitting among the guys — in an ostentatious, “my masculinity cannot be threatened” way. Anyone observed the phenomenon first-hand?

  3. One of my all-time favorite memories came when I was about 8, and my brother’s Boy Scout troop had a garage sale to raise money for something. The boys got bored after 30 seconds or so, and my mom had been teaching me to needlepoint a bookmark on a piece of plastic canvas, so she decided to test the needlepointing waters with the troop. Sure enough, after half an hour, there were half a dozen 10 year-old boys sitting on the front lawn, needlepointing their names onto bookmarks. Awww.

  4. Thomas, my boyfriend picked up the needles for a long while one night and knitted part of a scarf in garter stitch. It involved a lot of cursing and bitching, but I think he actually liked it.

  5. I did a fair bit of needlepoint in 2nd and 3rd grade (my mom was heavily into needlepoint) and I remember Rosey Greer being a pretty good response when I received the inevitable needling (sorry, pun intended).

    To respond to Thomas, I have done a small bit of knitting as an adult — a few things in college and then again a few months ago when our family found ourselves in a living situation without TV and computer. I don’t think I was doing it to “prove” anything, but, given how sex-stereotyped some activities remain, it is also not possible to be unaware that one is doing something outside of usual norms.

  6. I design my own latch hook patterns, and have been attempting to adapt it to needlepoint. I guess I’m queerin’ it up, too! I, however, have no famous cousins.

  7. Rosie was a devastating defensive player, part of the famous Fearsome Foursome for the Los Angeles Rams. The others were Deacon Jones, Lamar Luny and Merlin Olsen. Don’t know much about Lamar but Deacon Jones and (especially) Merlin Olsen are known as surprisingly gentle men for the trade they pursued.

    Rosie was with Robery Kennedy in 1968 as he was shot in the Ambassador Hotel, and tackled Sirhan Sirhan. You can hear on a radio tape the correspondent yelling “Get the gun Rosie. Get the gun!”. Yep, Rosie had charged a man wielding a gun and batted him to the ground. Too late though, which he has always regretted.

    With Rosie as an example, doing counted cross-stitch as a 245 pound teenage offensive lineman wasn’t that radical.

  8. That’s so awesome. I especially like the pictures of the kids doing needlepoint at the end. Boys need more macho guys in their lives encouraging them to do gentle things.

  9. I seem to recall Greer on an episode of the Brady Bunch getting behind boys doing non-macho things. Any fans remember that?

  10. I crocheted a winter hat a few years ago. I don’t think I was trying to prove anything; I just wanted a hat.

    If Rudbeckia Hirta is reading this, I’m wondering if 8 increases per round is the right amount for flatness. That’s what I wound up doing, but I arrived at it just by trial and error.

  11. I’m learning to knit. Or more acccurately was learning. My sister gave me her old copy of Stitch ‘n Bitch Too busy with other stuff this the summer, but plan on returning to it this fall.

    I get very bored being idle. I can’t sit still for 5 minutes unless I’m doing something. Knitting is ideal busy work. Basically I want to knit little hats and mittens for the kid.

    I’m not ready to do it in public and become a role-model. The last thing I want is some busybody to snicker or comment on how wonderful it is that I knit or some other stupidty.

  16. I’ve been knitting for a while now. It’s not really a statement so much as something to do – I’ve always liked nice knit clothes (hats, socks, etc) but never really been willing to pay for them. The ironic thing is that often enough I’ll end up paying *more* for the yarn, but at least I have more of a sense of ownership.

    Also, it’s one of the few manual crafts that I seem almost unable to completely bugger up.

Comments are currently closed.