Crafting Gender/Crafting Boundaries: Reimagining "Authentic" Gender Performance in Feminized Activities

This research explores the potential for subversive crafting to challenge notions of masculine and feminine through leisure activities. Through interviews with 19 men and women engaged in subversive cross-stitching this research explored three questions focused on the power of subversive crafting by men and women to potentially undo gender, if men’s forays into feminized leisure activities act as a catalyst for stalled progress on gender equity, and does the gender of the crafter matter in what elements are employed to “subversive” ends. Findings show that men and women employ feminized and masculinized elements of culture in different ways, with women’s willingness to subvert femininity constrained due to the crafting legacy of learning from earlier generations of female family members