While Knitting

In March my knitting will appear at an exhibition at Hantverksstallet -where I´m a member. I have spent some time planning what to make for this occasion, then I
made up my mind, bought a lot of tempting Rowan Pure Wool DK in all the colours that caught my fancy and now I´m knitting. But I´m not going to show it here yet.

Yesterday I went into a bookstore and found this:

"Norrtullsligan" has been on my reading-list for some time and of course I bought it. And started it on the way home from work. Often when I read books considered to be "classics", I get disappointed. After all that has been said about them, after all the films and tv-series, the poor books have a hard work to live up to their reputation. This book is a Swedish classic. It´s written in 1908 by Elin Wägner (Wikipedia-link), feminist, writer and a fighter for woman´s suffrage.

"Nortullsligan" is, in short, about the life of some office-girls in Stockholm in the beginning of the twentieth century, about their hopes and fears, their lack of money and possibilities. They are paid 1/4 of the male wages, are not allowed to vote, but have to pay tax- of course! They are fighting to make the ends meet, are dreaming of meeting Mr Right, but feel loneliness and ill health waiting round the corner. And their attempt to fight for their rights are crushed with easiness.

The book is very good, it´s hard to put it down - this is a classic that actually hasn´t got the attention it deserves! While reading I realize that if I had been born at that time, I possibly could have been one of these girls. I also realize, that while my situation is so enormusly better than the average office-girl of 1908, the maxime "Equal pay for equal work" certainly isn´t in force yet! Not in my office, anyway!