In fact, the issue is not women who don’t know how to solve this sort
of problem, but that MOST folks today of EITHER sex have NO
experience with making/growing/fixing ANYTHING. Students are AMAZED
that someone can actually make something themselves. We as a society
(speaking of most developed world societies here) tend to be so far
separated from those who actually make/grow/fix that it almost seems
like magic to many…
And unfortunately our schools are moving farther away from including
this sort of learning as standard. We seem to, as a society, look
down on anything tied to “manual labor”, and that is just SO wrong
IMHO!!!
I tried to take shop in high school many eons ago, and was told that
I was on college track, and could not take shop. A huge
disappointment to me. My Dad grew up on a subsistence farm, and had
to learn to do everything. thankfully he taught enough of that to me
to trigger my interest in making. My favorite class in grad school
was a wood shop class I got to take lol!
I’m the fix it/make it person in my family - do NOT ask my husband
to fix anything! Please! He has even called me late at night when
I’m traveling, to ask how to get the remote to work again after he
dropped it and the batteries fell out. no joke!
This is NOT a gender issue, but a lack of education issue!
I have gone after all the training I can get, and still feel a HUGE
lack of knowledge of how to make things (parts, tools, etc.) that I
feel I SHOULD be able to make, but lack the knowledge and exposure
to know how to go about it.
To the person who pulled gender into this - I’ll bet you don’t know
how to fit a pattern for a dress, sew an invisible seam, make pleats
and buttonholes, spin yarn, make yeast bread from scratch. and I
could go on. It is not gender - it is what you have been exposed to,
what you have had the fortune to be able to learn. Some of us know
one set of things, some another. Instead of denigrating those who
don’t know what you know, teach us - that is, after all, what this
list is for.
Beth Wicker
Three Cats and a Dog Design Studio