Sticking it to the Man...with DPNs

...and by The Man, I mean a cisgender misogynist Deputy Mayor...

Why is it, that in 2017, we still have to protest this sort of poor behaviour by our public servants?  

Just in case you were not aware, Toronto's Deputy Mayor, Denzil Minnan-Wong, recently went on record and publicly insulted the city's out-going City Planner Jennifer Keesmaat, by telling her she should stick to her knitting.

http://www.blogto.com/city/2017/09/toronto-councillor-tells-colleague-she-should-stick-knitting/ 

Yes, yes... I have heard of the idiom... I have not been living under a rock all these years.  And I have seen the comments on Twitter defending Minnan-Wong's use of the phrase, how it's not necessarily sexist and yadda yadda blah blah blah... But if you have been listening to the remarks that leak out of our Deputy Mayor's mouth on a regular basis, one feels comfortable with the suggestion that he used the comment "stick to her knitting" as an impact filled insult, and not a clever use of the English language.  He dispatched a remark which I'm sure he thought was a clever quip delivered with a fine amount of swagger... but in actuality, he uttered a knee-jerk response that proved him to be nothing less than a real jerk.  

Nevertheless... we persisted.

This past Friday, a battalion of us knitters met down at Toronto City Hall to call out our Deputy Mayor's patriarchal, chauvinistic vulgarity. Clearly he intended to insult his colleague. He told her to stick to her knitting, implying she should keep her head down... be passive... don't be a visionary.  Clearly this man knows nothing about knitting. N.O.T.H.I.N.G. 

Our fearless leader, Beryl Tsang, prepared a three page list of demands (see Beryl, all those years of proposal writing has certainly come in handy!) 

 

The press showed up. Councillors joined us. We made our point.

The CBC reporter asked me why I decided to come down, and I told him the truth.  I have a son. I have a daughter.  They know how to treat their peers with respect.  They know that being part of a strong community requires a strong commitment to shared responsibility, as well as civility.  My children are learning to become leaders. In Hebrew we say "dugma" - one should act as a mentor and set an example for others.  Our Deputy Mayor is in a position of power.  Lest he forget, his community granted him this opportunity of power. He MUST always act and speak with "dugma".    

Later on that day, I suggested to Beryl that considering we have both managed to raise decent young men... who just happen to have awesome knitting skills, perhaps we should offer to teach Mr. Minnan-Wong? Granted, I would need anti-nausea meds in order to get through that lesson -- but if she thought it could help the poor soul, I might be willing to give it the good ole knitters' try!  Regrettably, Beryl informed me the Deputy Mayor was a lost cause; irredeemable.

Favourite moments: 

• The City Councillors who joined us (as well as their staff - some of whom brought their knitting, I should add)... 
• The Security Guard who was assigned to us knitting rabble; he loved us and kept asking us if we had any spare Merino -- his wife is a knitter.
• The Mayor accidentally crossed our path (the Deputy Mayor did not)
•  Meeting like minded people who were equally outraged and took the time out of their day to make it known that it is not okay for our Deputy Mayor to act like a petulant child, and his weak apology was too little, too late.

Photo credits go to Errol Young as well as a few from the Twitterverse.

 

And then Mayor Tory showed up. Here he is trying to figure out how to get out of the 'stitch-u-ation'