The revolution will be knitted and purled

Even though I joined the My Sisters Knitter Knitalong to finish off UFOs and I had the specific aim of not casting on anything new, I made something new last week.

Any guesses?

It’s a lower case letter ‘e’ which will be used in a protest banner.

When this campaign popped up in my twitter feed I felt compelled to volunteer. Getting my knitting needles out to do something to show that I don’t want Tony Abbott as our prime minister seemed like the logical thing to do.
Even though mostly my knitting is made with love and care, this was made with spite.

The pozible page sums it up better than I can.

“One day after the Aus media went ape-shit over a pic of Gillard knitting, claiming it undermined her tough image, the Government caved & booted her out of office.
When these media dinosaurs say that knitting cannot go hand in hand with strength, what they are really saying is that anything associated with women, & by extension women themselves, cannot be strong.

WE’RE GONNA SHOW ‘EM HOW TOUGH & DETERMINED KNITTERS CAN BE!

If Abbott is elected he’ll tumble gender equality reforms back to the dark ages, misogyny will be legitimised & women will wind up sticking their knitting needles into their uteruses. To prevent that happening, we’re sticking them in some wool & crafting two rad protest banners.”

This is a man who talks about “women of calibre” (thinks “binders of women”).
His sister is gay and yet he still opposes gay marriage.
He directly opposed RU486 making it almost cost prohibitive for anyone outside of a capital city to have an abortion.
Sanitary pads and tampons are STILL taxed as luxury items.

I’m not super-duper knowledgeable about Australian Politics. But what I do know, makes me scared to be a woman in a Tony Abbott Australia.

If you do have some change to spare, they will take donations from $2.
A protest may not always be effective, but sometimes it’s all we’ve got.