marketing of masculinity

thats ok cause the old guys are driving a stolen cadillac and theyve just massacred everyone in the diner

during the world War II / Cold War era, the stakes were such that people just HAD to have a certain toughness that isn't necessary today

Haven't made my way through the whole thread yet to see if this is expanded upon, but this is something I've given a lot of thought to. The idea of being rough and rugged and manly made sense when there was utility to it, when it could be used in the service of some opposing force. But, c'mon. Most people (in the US, at least) lead pretty damn cush lives. Every time I see some bro striking a hardman pose walking through, say, Lincoln Park, I can't help but feel really sorry for the dude. Overt machismo strikes me as a generally outmoded and obsolete state of being unless you live in some crime-ridden neighborhood or you're in the military or something.

Oh, and another thing while I'm on the subject, and which may go hand-in-hand with the rootless and senseless masochism of today: where once you may have had a patronizing style of misogyny that infantalized women, today you have a burgeoning sadistic misogyny which objectifies women (see: most porn, which seems to be having an increasingly and frighteningly huge effect on sexual mores across the board these days).

Link is NSFW, but they have full lad mags from the 40s - 70s here:

http://www.vintagegirliemags.com

It's amusing to see how many of them resemble the same thing found in comic books years later

never even had to take shop class in junior high, since I was in band

how did this even make sense

like that is the most perplexing school board decision I have ever seen

some schools exempt you from other requirements for doing band!

not that weird imo. kids in accelerated science skipped shop and home ec in my school.

I guess I just wonder sometimes if the people who are all "suck it up" about practical stuff like this had parents who emphasized it.

My dad never did, but when i had to do work around the house for him, it was done the right way or i would hear about it, and i think this helped a lot?

my dad didn't emphasize it that much but he knows how to do a lot of stuff & is curious about things so it rubbed off. not on my brother though, he has no clue how to change a tire, i'm sure.

i had to *beg* my dad to teach me how to change oil though ^_^

got my first f in metal shop

yeah my dad is totally like that too--except he hates working with others so

I made a box wrong

i got a B probably in shop

i got a C in home ec, mostly because i fucked up this sewing project (a stuffed animal) pretty bad

i loved shop, i wish we had it every year. but i could NOT sew. my teacher made fun of me. who cares though, her class was useless and dumb

some schools exempt you from other requirements for doing band!

But usually those requirements are somewhat analogous to the skill set band would satisfy (like, for example, choir or a basic music class, or an art class).

In 8th grade, my school district made you take a full year of phy ed for a full year, split semesters of industrial arts and home ec, and a music/arts class that could include be band and/or choir. You didn't get the option to start skipping any of these classes until high school, and even there you had to take phy ed freshman year and at least one class out of the other general areas.

she was this round lady with a perm. my stitches were too huge so i had little pockets and she said "what is this? a hidey-hole?" i will never forget. xpost

oh she totally made fun of me. i don't care, though. if i need to learn how to sew i will get a book

i can knit now

yeah i mean my capacity for concentration on tiny skilled tasks has increased a lot since those days

my dad was way handy and super into fixing up cars and stuff like that, and so were my two older brothers, but i never had the least bit of interest in anything like that as a kid. (also, weirdly, my dad and brothers were never into sports, but i was).

nowadays i have more of an appreciation for that stuff, both for sheer practical value as well as thinking that it might be fun to tinker around with stuff or fuck around with home improvement projects...but when it comes down to it, i still don't have the requisite desire to take up those sorts of activities in any substantive manner

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.