Thanks! I've seen a few women online, unhappy that men sometimes enter what they view as a woman's hobby and space, especially if they then make a business out of it (which I can understand), but in my personal life, among all my friends, former classmates, coworkers, the people I've met at a handful of yarn festivals, Stitches SoCal, the 26 stores I visited in 2018 on the LA Yarn Crawl, and the several more I've been to around the US (NJ, MT, CA, CO, FL), and in Joann and Michaels, absolutely everyone has treated me wonderfully. I've been kind of surprised by it, tbh.
I expected at least some playful joking around (which I'd love - my sense of humor means I love to be taken down a peg), but even guys from high school who were only into sports, who I was sure would roll their eyes and avoid me after I took up knitting and crochet have either quietly followed me on Instagram, where I only talk about fiber art stuff, or privately messaged me, or more often commented publicly to me how cool they think it is. One guy, who has something to do with shooting or directing smaller films, wrote to me to say he thought it was great, and he always wanted to learn how, and thought it would be a great skill to have.
For my part, I've tried to tell guys how much they'd love it, because it ticks a lot of guy boxes - think of how many men build railroads in their basement, or do intricate woodworking, or metalworking, or paint minifigs for their DnD campaigns for hours - we love going off somewhere and staring at something in our hands for hours, and ending up with a finished project. Well, that's knitting! They're all just too afraid of being seen knitting. I'm sure of that.
Meanwhile, I've knit in airports, on planes, waiting at the carwash for my car, and I always get smiles, at least from the ladies. I'm pretty sure I saw a teen girl sneak a pic of me knitting in the airport once, too :) I've had a few women strike up conversations with me because of it, but I also had a little old man walking slowly past me to his seat on the plane lean down and point at what I was knitting and say "I do that, too!"
It also changed my social media entirely. I've always been a hobbyist - woodworking, electronics, programming, metal machining, etc - and have had a lifetime of forums full of guys, comments by guys, questions from guys, but the moment I got into fiber arts, all the women in my life came out of nowhere, and filled my socials with conversation, and requests! It's been great. I've also spent enormous amounts of time, because of this hobby, in the company of only women, at knitting groups, at my Knitted Knockers meetup, on yarn crawls, for hours in yarn shops, and it's been really eye opening. I've learned so much more about how women feel about things, what they love, what they hate, what inspires them, and I've found it's lead to a lot of small, positive changes in my life, and interactions.
My mom even said before, and again yesterday on the phone that she liked knitting for me (she doesn't do any fiber stuff, but she's an amazing wreath and centerpiece designer, cook, baker, and decorator in general), because I'm "alone too much" (guilty - world class loner), and all she ever heard from this hobby was how often I was out in the world, surrounded by people.