Dawn Brocco's Life & Design Blog

OK, fire in my gut - what is it with women and sharing?

Do we really NOT understand that until we value ourselves and our fellow women's abilities, talents and *marketable skills*, we do NOT lift ourselves up from being second class earners in the world??

I know the *sharing* bit is typically a female thing, but it keeps what are mostly, the female arts, like knitting, from being acknowledged as valuable, in the marketplace.

No-one will pay what goods and services are worth if they're given away for free. Pattern sharing is saying that a designer's work, her or his JOB, what she or he pays her bills with, is not worth anything.

Men aren't the only ones keeping us down, we keep *ourselves* down and then balk at how much less we earn in the world for our knowledge and abilities!

It begins with how much we value ourselves AND our fellow women. It is this simple and yet there are many of us that just don't want to get it.

Geez. You can't scan and print out yarn. You actually have to go and buy yarn to knit a design with, so it has value, and the yarn manufacturer gets paid for their work in making that yarn AND the yarn shop or discount store gets paid for selling you that yarn.

BUT God forbid you're a designer and instead of manufacturing yarn, you manufacture designs in the form of words. Words have no value? The hours of design work have no value? Not worth the few bucks it takes to buy it? Our talent and labor should be public property? From our brains to your home, gratis?