Evolving gender roles in our societies

Yea Oli they still do need us don't they

I cannot help but wonder if elements of gender questions are not innate, rather than learned.

There are toddlers who seem to have "gender issues" so early in life...and under such diverse circumstances...perhaps this gender issue really is nothing more than a "born with" identity marker.

Perhaps trying to tweak it as we do...is like trying to make a left-handed person perform with his/her right hand.

Any thoughts on that?

I was on a long trip once, and my wife at home wanted some appliance fixed on the wall, so she tried to do it herself. She used the power drill but didn't know that she had to tighten the head (English term?) really well.

When I came back, there was a hole as large as a quarter in the wall. "Your drill doesn't work", she said. I asked about the process, and informed her that she was very lucky, since she could have sent the bit spinning around at high speed in the general direction of her (unprotected) eyes... She hasn't touched the drill ever since.

Similarly, when I try to do, say, the vacuum cleaning, she finds it poorly done. So we concluded that some degree of specialization in home chores is good. I like to do the cloth wash and ironing. Once in a while I'll cook but it can be hazardous...

I agree. Much more in innate than we are ready to contemplate in a PC frame of mind.

It can somewhat be affected by upbringing too, though I get the innateness thing Frank is referring to, somewhat. I should have paid attention to my own early interests myself. A moderate part of my youth was spent house hunting, as we moved a lot and sometimes things were financially ok (let's look at houses) and sometimes financially abysmal, but in the ok time, I liked the house looking and doodled with plans, which were probably pathetic, but I was interested in what room went where at, say, nine or ten. I think, no, am sure, I got this from my father. He liked carpentry, and had somehow been involved in house building just before I was born - not the contractor, probably a busybody owner. So I still have a bookcase he made for me, oh so long ago, but better, I wasn't adverse to that sort of thing myself. I'm no great shakes at it, but am not particularly afraid of tools. As I age though, I'm afraid of food processors, only slightly kidding.

Eventually studied landscape architecture, which naturally involves a lot of architecture, and I've done some house design in a firm I worked a long time for. But, backing off, I more drafted someone else's house design then but I learned a lot. Wiring a house myself, no, but building outdoor structures to withstand some earthquakes, sure - have designed hundreds and built some myself.

I'm not otherwise very tomboyish. Still like dresses and earrings and jeans and tee shirts. I think I'm a case of having visual interest across the spectrum, and lucky in that I had one parent shy and doing all women's things of her generation (born 1901), and the other parent telling me I could do anything I wanted (like being a doctor, etc.)

I'll add that a formative time, my early teens, we lived for a few years at my aunt's house, and my father being off at work (or off looking for work), I was there with my mother and aunt who seemed heavily interested in grocery shopping and laundromats and slimming parlors and family disputes, and I grew bored out of my tree. Ironic that I now enjoy grocery stores. Anyway, I read a lot, and that was sort of across the board, what was there in the library, which opened up the world. I eventually was awaiting buying seventeen magazine, and glamor mag, and mademoiselle ... and sports illustrated.

So, what, I think parental interests can affect you in lots of ways.

No doubt whatever that parental interests...and parental influences...impact strongly. So do peer pressures to "conform."

Luckily, you seem to be your own person.

And that is the way it should be...each being their "own person"...and not necessarily "she being her own woman" or "he being his own man"...because that kind of thing involves judgement from the outside about maleness or femaleness.

In any case, no one should ever have to suffer indignities of any kind just because of gender...or how one handles gender.

Let everyone BE. Celebrate the diversity...rather than allow it to be the cause of dissension...which is the direction in which we are heading.

To expand on the feminist slogan of not too long ago: We have, indeed, come a long way, baby!

One more thing - I didn't have many toys as a kid, but some. I had some dolls over the years, a raggedy anne, a doll named Sally who wet (yes!), some giant doll (this was New York) I named Marilyn, a Toni doll, should have saved it, didn't like it, worth a lot now. And some blocks.

Yes, I've often wondered whether mechanical curiosity is male-inborn

…..or whether it has to do with the customary early toys

Well I for one support women's right to grow a moustache.

Hey, Frank, we agree.

That's another whole subject, which you probably know about. The need for females always get rid of a natural moustache, underarm hair, and so on. Hey, if you live long enough, those may diminish. Not to mention Frieda Kahlo and her eyebrow insistence.

Luckily, I only have one curly white hair on my chin that shows up depending on the light and can be tweezed once you see it. Which leaves room for appreciation of a sort of wrecked face; in my case, I don't mind. My head of hair is more grey/silver than it used to be but still has a fair amount of brown and I'm approaching a hundred. Kidding but not by much. But that white hair showed up a long time ago. Probably the name of a book.. one white hair.

Faces, another whole story. There was this interesting Guardian series of several years worth of interviews on the well regarded re how they feel/felt about aging. Interesting. Titled something about looking in the mirror..

I read over a lot of time almost the whole series. I wish they'd just publish that in sequence, very annoying that they don't. Anyway, my mem of it was not that women were much more vain, but probably somewhat.

Don't get me wrong, my wife ain't scared at anything, but she lacks the technical skills, which can be dangerous. I was taught by my father and other men how to do a number of simple stuff in masonery and carpentry. My mother taught me the ironing shirts thing when I needed it i.e. around 18, and how to cook a few basic dishes.

My point is: household chores take some skills. It's a natural thing for a couple -- whether hetero or homo -- to divide the chores by specialty, based on skills and personal interest. It can be a division of labor that is totally different from the classic gender roles, but it makes sense to specialize a bit rather than apportion the work by week days or do everything together.

That too is changing. Magazines like Esquire or Q have all sort of cloth and beauty product adds, like their feminine equivalent.

Yup. And it feels great!

Nancy works a full time job...I work 2 days a week. So I am home most of the time...and I try to do as much of the house work as possible. Today, for instance, I did the kitchen and living room. Complete clean-up...mopped the kitchen; did the range; put away any stuff that had been left on the counters; and did some clean-up on the refrigerator. In the living room it was dusting and picking up all the cat toys...and vacuuming.

Place looked perfect for when she came home...and she loved it.

I cook every night...full dinners. My family owned eateries...so my bothers, sister and I all are all pretty good cooks.

I used to do the wash...but Nancy made the mistake of telling me I was not doing the prep work properly...and the weekly wash became her Saturday chore. I do no ironing...but most of my stuff is wash and wear casual.

Frankly, what we here call "house work" is enjoyable for me...relaxing and not really a chore. We have a big piece of property...and tending to the outside can be a bit of work...but even that I consider interesting and reasonable exercise.

I can handle almost all carpentry, electrical, and plumbing work...except for the really heavy/advanced stuff. I used to go onto the roof and do the wood-burning stove chimney sweep...but last year we decided I probably would not bounce well if I fell...and that job is being farmed out from this point on.

Nancy can barely tell a phillips head screw driver from a slot one...but I sometimes test her with a challenge. Last year, I let her cut a couple of things with a chainsaw...but I did lots of safety prep work before letting her handle the tool.

She's cool.

Thanks for a very cogent and personal post.

Would you say that landscape architecture as a profession is "male-dominated"? If yes, did you find it hard to fit in?

Edit: a bit of a cliché question but I am actually curious of how that may feel...

That's a difference in that I got to be or needed to be fixing up a house early in life. I had a fixup day with lunch where none of the guests had the first clue how to fix a window, back when I had to rent or sell my mother's house. First I had a clue about class gap.

I gave away my skill saw last I moved not too long ago, as I had gotten less sure. Well it's a different thing, as I learned new stuff in the landarch world. Most of us, fairly equal distribution in classes, the interest being design, knew or learned how to do stuff. Some of the guys were already contractors, but some of the women became architects or contractors.

I think a woman like your wife would have been fine if she had known about drills, might have liked finding studs... (smiles).

My wife (MBA) would like to study architecture. She doesn't really think she can do it, at core. She's prototypical girly -- a girly feminist, I think only the French have them -- and I like that BTW but math and generally the technical side of things scares her. Maybe landscape architecture is less technical? She's a good gardener and a good worker, no nonsense but not sense of dimensions, forces, pressures, etc. either. Once caught her hitting with a hammer at a pressure cooker, hot and UNDER PRESSURE, because the cover had a tiny leak she wanted to correct...

Had the steel cracked, the thing would have exploded in her gracious face.
Luckily it was not some Chinese junk.

I just screwed the cover tighter... and told her never to hit again at the pressure cooker. But it's not intuitive in her.

One thing leads to another for sure. The abolitionist movement helped pave the way for women's suffrage movement . It brought issues of equality into the forefront and prompted civil rights movement . It's amazing to think women haven't been voting for very long.