55: Evolving Electricity & What’s “Women’s Work”?

Episode notes

How did eels evolve electricity? And when is “women’s work” neither women’s nor work?

Images we Talk About:
Socks
More Socks
Thimble
Bag
Crochet Art

Timestamps:
(00:00:00) Intro
(00:03:26) Evolving Electricity
(00:51:13) “Women’s Work”
(01:38:46) Outro

We also learn about:

Happy moisturizer to all who celebrate, Ella’s just here for moral support, when did they put batteries in eels, someone’s just statically charging these eels, what did we call electric eels before electricity? why would we think lightning and a fish are the same thing? the necrotizing torpedo and the torpor eel, Aristotle was a shite time traveler, “in all of humanity, if people think they can pout it up their asshole they will”, Allessandro Volta what a convenient name, electric fish gave us the battery not the other way around, the electric organ, when did electricity evolve? electric organ discharge, electrogenesis, it’s not an eel! get in line with the other animals that need their names fixed, 90% of an eel is electric organ, what does it feel like? turning fish to stone, shocks can function like a neurotoxin, the electric doublet can make fish twitch, Ella has a revelation, the physics is the biology, it’s all electric baby, magnetic animals 2 electric boogaloo, the domestic arts, This Woman’s Work, it was never always women’s work, old socks, but what does this have to do with men?? Ella predicts the British stealing a sock, male knitting guilds, knitting fishermen makes perfect sense, knitting was “compatible” with many kinds of life, mechanized knitting made it feminized,   of course it’s always intersectionality, you know what’s appropriate for a woman is to do this thing we don’t need anymore, being demoted as an art form, “male art vs female craft”, Caroline’s just doing this topic to show their crochet is art, weaponizing the male ego to bring back knitting, bequeathing a valuable and symbolic thimble, Tom gets emotional over a salacious thimble, if that’s not art what is, also I can’t believe you actually read all these thanks <3 – Tom, spinning bees to defy the British and seize the means of production, “Artists’ Suffrage League”, Faith Wilding and Harmony Hammond, craftivism, it’s not “women’s work” it’s “everyone’s art”.

Sources:
The Amazing Paper: The Torpedo Effect in Medicine
Atlantic on Electric Eels
Aristotle on Electric Eels
Greg Gbur on Electric Eels and Physics
Piccolino’s Great Paper on the History of Volta’s Experimentation
National Zoo Electric Eel Facts
NYTimes on Electric Eel Shocks
Tremendous Eel Behavior Writeup from Kenneth Catania
Reuters on Electric Eel Evolution
Science Paper on Electric Eel Evolution
Amber Plante on Electric Cells
Electric Bacteria
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Melissa Hilliard Potter Talk
V&A: The history of hand-knitting
The Crafty Gentleman: The History of Knitting
This Is Gendered: Knitting
“2012 Paper: Knitting as Dissent: Female Resistance in America Since the
Revolutionary War”
Cooper Hewitt: A Revolution In Stockings
Brooklyn Museum: Women’s Work
Art Margins: Recrafting Futures: Feminist Practices of Material Engagement
V&A Blog: ‘A Stitch in Time: Home Sewing Before 1900’
NGV: The Power of ‘Women’s Work’: Craftivism
PBS: Stitch by Stitch, A Brief History of Knitting and Activism
University of Bath: #BreakTheBias: Is knitting a feminist issue?
Harpy: The Art of Embroidery
2014 Paper: Craftivism: The Role of Feminism in Craft Activism
The Daily Utah Chronical: Lien: Female Rebellion and Why Craft Matters
2016 Paper: Quiet Activism and the New Amateur