marketing of masculinity

I made a gigantic leather keychain in 8th grade shop that I used through college and still have in a drawer. I also wore the sweatpants I made in 8th grade shop up into college because I had run out of fabric on them so three panels were navy blue and the back left panel was white and I thought they were awesome.

My school district made no bones about putting vocational classes in the poorest schools - there wasn't even the option of taking shop (or home ec or metal shop or anything else) in my high school.

Now a friend is teaching in one of those schools and can't get $500 from the district to start a lit mag for her creative writing and English students.

Dan, in HS:

http://image.orientaltrading.com/otcimg/31_126.jpg

Just out of curiosity, how did you people who know how to change a tire learn?

my dad showed me once or twice when the family car had a flat. i've never changed a tire on my own though.

My uncle showed me how to change a car tire when I got a flat. I've done it once since then. The satisfaction of being like "daaaamn I changed that tire good a ding-dang-doo" was outweighed by how much of a pain in the ass it is to do. Changing a bike tire OTOH is highly satisfying (and an irritatingly frequent necessity in this land of goatheads).

Yeah, if you did band in junior high, then you just did band all year. If not, then you had a quarter each of art, music, home ec, and shop.

but when i had to do work around the house for him

What does this mean? I had basic chores like cleaning bathrooms, vacuuming, etc.

Btw, I was thinking about this thread this morning because my car died over the weekend and so this morning I called to get it towed to the shop. On the phone, the mechanic said, "Do me a favor, open the hood on your car so the tow-truck driver knows which car is yours." I said sure, went out to the car, pulled the ring below the emergency brake that's supposed to pop the hood, heard a pop, and then went around to lift it up ... except I couldn't figure out where I was supposed to lift. Nothing seemed to be budging. Was it frozen shut? Was there some latch I had to unfasten? I didn't know. So I just didn't do anything about it, and I stood outside the car and waved to the tow truck when it approached. For a while, I still feared that the tow-truck guy was going to ask me to lift the hood and I'd be all embarrassed, but it didn't happen.

it's interesting, my mom is old-fashioned and needs dad to do all the stereotypically manly-man stuff, but my parents didn't raise me with a "men do THIS, women do THIS, women don't do THIS" attitude. i learned all that gender expectation stuff from television and well-meaning educators.

ha yeah there's a little lever under the hood you have to find!

What does this mean? I had basic chores like cleaning bathrooms, vacuuming, etc.

i had to clean bathrooms and stuff but that was for my Mom. i mean like yard work, mowing the lawn, picking up brush, clipping hedges, weeding.

did you try running your hand under the hood?

jaymc have you really never opened the hood of your car? that is like. . . staggering to me

xxp I seemed to recall that was the case, but this time the hood wasn't even propped open an inch for me to find it.

i mean like yard work, mowing the lawn, picking up brush, clipping hedges, weeding.

Oh, I just mowed the lawn.

It is lame of me to say, but it is sometimes advantageous for me that I am a woman & that car fixing is such a gendered activity. When I had a car, if it ever quit working in the middle of the road, I just had to stand outside the car & look sad & v quickly some guy would help push it to the side of the road, jump start it, etc. Sometimes I will see guys with cars that have quit working in traffic & I realize they just have to struggle with it without quick help.

how do you put in new wiper fluid and check oil? or do you just...not do it

^^^^^

jaymc have you really never opened the hood of your car? that is like. . . staggering to me

I'm pretty sure I have. But not often enough to know what the issue was this time.

how do you put in new wiper fluid and check oil? or do you just...not do it

That's what Jiffy Lube is for.

dude, you should know how to open the hood of your car.

wow, dude

i got a new car a month or two ago. i popped the hood so a) if i had to pop it in the situation like you described, i'd have some idea how it worked on that car, and wouldn't embarrass myself, and b) so i knew vaguely where the washer fluid nozzle was, so i wouldn't freeze my ass off looking for it in the winter when the juice ran out, as is likely to happen.

http://daddytypes.com/archive/beprepared_cover.jpg

dude, you should know how to open the hood of your car.

Hey, I thought I did know. Maybe if you were there with me this morning, you could've told me what I was doing wrong.

yes that is a jpg from "daddytypes.com"

Nothing seemed to be budging. Was it frozen shut? Was there some latch I had to unfasten? I didn't know. So I just didn't do anything about it, and I stood outside the car and waved to the tow truck when it approached.

The bolded part is what you were doing wrong? I'm not trying to pick on you, but giving up here seems like your first misstep.

there's probably a brief section in your owner's manual about how to open the hood

also gas goes in the gas tank, and the things you drive on are called wheels

^^sorry

It is lame of me to say, but it is sometimes advantageous for me that I am a woman & that car fixing is such a gendered activity. When I had a car, if it ever quit working in the middle of the road, I just had to stand outside the car & look sad & v quickly some guy would help push it to the side of the road, jump start it, etc. Sometimes I will see guys with cars that have quit working in traffic & I realize they just have to struggle with it without quick help.

i don't drive but i've seen enough horror movies and police procedurals to know that "female alone with broken-down car" is a total creep magnet. i would be terrified to accept help from a man who offered.

when it's cold, or if the car is getting old, the hood won't "jump" up when you pull the release. you might have to get your fingers under there and pull it up to have enough room to feel around for the latch.

"so this is a car, huh?"

when it's cold, or if the car is getting old, the hood won't "jump" up when you pull the release. you might have to get your fingers under there and pull it up to have enough room to feel around for the latch.

that's what SHE said

"The Hood Won't Jump (feat. Ice Cube)"

xxpost
also sometimes you have to grease the hood and massage it some in order to get it to "jump" up

get bent it was always in full daylight & in busy traffic – lots of onlookers means maybe less likelihood of doing a crime + mad desire to quickly end the embarrassing situation of having your car stalled out in the middle of a busy road. I wld also imagine their motive was to stop an irritating block in traffic.

Basically in the Midwest if you went into labor and needed to go to the hospital you could just stand in the road and the next person who passed would probably drop everything they were doing to drive you there. And the hospital is probably 30 miles away, so that's not a small deal.

The bolded part is what you were doing wrong? I'm not trying to pick on you, but giving up here seems like your first misstep.

OK, look: I went out, ran my hands under the hood, tried to pull it up, no dice. I went back in the car, pulled on the ring again (this time harder), then went back out and tried again. My fingers got pinched under the grill. I put gloves on and tried again. Nothing. I went back in the car, pulled on the ring again (even harder and in multiple directions). I went back out, looked to see if there was someplace else on the edge of the hood that it was meant to be lifted from. I couldn't identify one. Meanwhile, it was fucking freezing outside, so I went back in the car and waited and tried to figure out what to do. I then reasoned that I didn't *really* need to lift the hood because I could just wait for the tow-truck guy to call and then stand outside to wave to him as he approached. So that's what I did. You're right, though: I probably should've consulted the owner's manual. That didn't occur to me. I'll do that next time.

ok, cool. sorry about yr car dude--car stuff sucks!

jaymc staying remarkably civil

i think it's remarkable that he bothered to justify himself so much

we should prob start calling him names now

Yeah, I know, most of my posts on this thread are just cruising for it, which is why I said a few days ago that I probably shouldn't be posting here at all. :/

if it makes you feel any better, i'm really bad at registering my car and paying fees and getting tags and shit because my dad always did it for me and i never learned growing up

^^^ my registration is 4 months overdue now

I'm very good at registration but terrible at inspection. When we got our car, our inspection sticker was for June; it is currently for December.

if it makes you feel any better, i'm really bad at registering my car and paying fees and getting tags and shit because my dad always did it for me and i never learned growing up

i'm this way with figuring out my taxes -- my dad's a financial whiz + way better at math than i am.

btw any tx cops read this, you can find me at 123 fake st. next to the taco cabana

oh it is inspection for me, not registration.

at the combination pizza shack and taco cabana

my buddy at work had a long-expired reg and wound up paying about $1000 bucks in towing, tickets, and registry fees while losing the better part of a week trying to get his car un-impounded.

terrible at inspection

thank you jesse ventura!

It is lame of me to say, but it is sometimes advantageous for me that I am a woman & that car fixing is such a gendered activity.
--just a moonful of sugar (Abbott)

...it is similarly advantageous to shifty mechanics.