Some thoughts on gender

I have noticed some tendencies when I talk about renovating my house that have got me thinking. People seem pretty universally surprised when I tell them I am renovating a house and blogging it when they meet me in person. I am a 42 year old woman, 5 feet 1 inch tall. No one would be shocked that I changed a sink out by myself if I was a man, no one would be impressed. I am proud of learning new skills, but very sad that women are not taught these things from the beginning alongside their brothers. (As a side note, people are shocked when men are good at cooking and baby care, and that is the other side of the same coin)

I admit I am a little unusual, my mother did a lot of home improvement on her own, some good, some not so good. I was trained in art handling, including the moving of large sculptures in my mid 20s. In doing so I broke through some mental, sociological and physical barriers.  My whole life men did the heavy lifting. That is what we know as girls, we hand the jar to our dad or brother to open. We let them mow the lawn and fix the sink. When they fix the car or build a deck our fathers taught our brothers how to use the tools, how to cut the wood. For centuries that is just how it was.  It is not surprising that we have internalized these tendencies, all of us.

So there are issues related to gender I wish to address in my next few blog posts:

Education: Most women are not taught how to use tools, we are not taught the vocabulary to know what to look for.
Size: We do tend to be smaller, less muscular, but 99% of home repair does not require brute strength.
Expectations: Women are treated differently, talked to differently. This is a barrier to learning.
Our own minds: The other factors take away our self confidence in the ability to do the things. We get tired of fighting.  


As I mostly know my own experiences, I will mostly address those. And I want people to know that while there is a great deal of frustration, and some people have really pissed me off, I do not in anyway think all people are sexist or that there is some huge conspiracy. Socialization starts early and is very very powerful. It is in our media, our families, our language and our own minds. These stereotypes and tendencies date back centuries and cross continents. There are always exceptions, there are always heroes and villains to any story. There are women who are master carpenters, men who can barely change a light bulb.  

My wish is to address these things and the roots of it and help people find confidence to learn more, to do more. I would like people to ask questions and frankly be impressed anytime someone learns new skills and accomplishes new things.

However, I am mostly addressing women, because we start from far behind men in learning to fix things, replace things, upgrade things. As a result we spend far more on repairs, get tricked into buying useless crap, get ripped off by contractors or designers. 

What started me on this path? My kitchen faucet exploded. Poof! It started spraying water all over and I had NO IDEA WHAT TO DO. I think I might have been able to shut off the water but was lost after that step, I had no idea what happened and I called a plumber.  $400 later there was a new faucet.

Later I was at Home Depot and saw that the faucet I paid $400 for was a $50 faucet. I lost $350 because I did not know how to do a VERY simple repair. And I ended up replacing that faucet because it was awful and I wanted a nice one (10 years later I still have the nice one by the way, I brought it to my new house with me and installed it myself.)

Anyone who wants to learn some basics can save themselves thousands of dollars.

And if you are like me you hope you can afford to pay people to do the tedious work in the future, but until that winning lottery ticket comes in, I plan to keep learning and saving on these little things.