Is this a girl thing? sort of.
It is also a family thing. My paternal grandfather lost most of his fingers on a saw in the 1930s. The danger has been real for us our whole lives. That blade starts spinning and I freak out with pictures of severed fingers flying around in my head.
My mother was not afraid of saws, her family had all their fingers... but she never forced me to learn because I was afraid and refused.
So my fear kept me from learning how to use this important tool. I have gradually forced myself to learn a trim saw and even a chain saw, though my imagination goes wild when I use them.
Where am I going with this? Before I get into the gender issues, some things are just personal taste. I love building wood things, I HATE using a saw. I get around my issues as best I can by making the guys at the hardware store cut my lumber or work with the standard sizes :) It does sometimes cause issues though, projects get delayed or cost more due to my fear.
None of us can do all things all the time, regardless of gender. I also have zero interest in fixing my own car or doing my own taxes. I love cooking and making sparkly jewelry. All people are different!
So let's get back on topic, and that topic is that women are crippled by not being taught to play with and later use tools the same way boys are taught. They start practicing those motor skills, the righty tighty, lefty loosey from toddlerhood. They get the muscle memory started from the very beginning. They played with daddy's wrench, felt it click into the wider setting, pushed it back into the narrow one. They held their hammer at the end of the handle to get more power out of each hit, and to have confidence when they swung it and hit that nail hard, practicing getting nails in with as few hits as possible, and getting those hits straight. They got to bend nails and strip screws in order to learn. They knew the clickety click of a socket wrench.
Most girls do not seem to have had these experiences. I see a lack of self confidence in how women hold their tools, surprise from women that I do know how. We tap tap holding our hammer at the top of the handle, we are fidgety when trying to drill a screw in, we hesitate at the thought of drilling holes in our $10,000 cabinets even though we really really want those handles installed. Nails and screws end up crooked or stripped. Tools get dropped, fingers smooshed with a hammer. I know because I did these things. I would hand my tools to a man to do a job on the assumption he should know better than me... something that is not always true. We get so scared of failure that we do not try. After all we have decades of being trained to hand all that stuff over to the boys because they like it and we don't! right?
Nope. Most girls don't even know if they would like these things because they have never been able to learn enough skills to see.
In the last decade I have learned that I love painting, tiling, and general building of things out of concrete, bricks or wood.
(I admit that my own life was not so strict along gender lines, I was lucky that way, but it was still there, still encouraged in certain directions by friends and family towards the creative crafty side of things, not the rough, dirty, hardware side) My mom was self taught and she tried to teach me, both of us had big gaps in our skills. I will say we were both good at painting though!)
Outside of the muscle memory, we do not learn the vocabulary. To this day I do not know the names of different wrenches and pliers and have never had the time to make a study of it. I basically make up my own names (flippy sink wrench, giant grabby wrench, little lockey wrench). This makes things difficult when shopping online or trying to be taken seriously at a hardware store. I constantly have to remind myself that when I am stuck on something there is probably a tool that does the thing, I just do not know about it because I have not seen it or held it in my hand (which creates a more meaningful memory). I constantly have to fight the urge to reinvent the wheel and force myself to do research into tools that most men probably already know about.
I am neither a super woman who knows all the things, nor am I a helpless little girl who has to be rescued. We all struggle with being a little bit of both. I will say that I would like to see more women out there in the spotlight not just decorating or making flea market furniture pretty, but digging in and getting dirty like http://www.diynetwork.com/shows/rehab-addict
What is the solution to this?
I have found the internet to be incredible. I can usually find answers without having to risk being called darlin' or sweety by a salesman or sold extra crap I do not actually need. A month ago I spent hours researching dremel bits, this week I learned how to remove and repair/replace my shower valve that was leaking.
Google is your friend. Googling "how to change a drill bit" gives many choices for instructions. There is no shame in googling "how to hammer a nail" You may find some tricks that make simple tasks easier. (Seriously girls, do NOT hold your hammer near the top except for the first hit to hold the nail in place, and even that is debateable. Practice getting a good self confident straight hit with your hand at the end of the handle)
Here is a nice tutorial that is, of course, very manly: http://www.artofmanliness.com/2009/09/29/how-to-use-a-hammer/
Or here are some nice tutorials from Bob Vila:
https://www.bobvila.com/articles/978-how-to-use-a-hammer/#.WKy3UzsrLIU
Remember, there are NO stupid questions. None.
We girls need practice. We need lots of hands on messy, nail bending wood splitting, battery wasting practice. Take a scrap piece of wood, some drill bits, an assortment of screws and just try all the things. Get your muscles used to the feel and your hands used to holding things in place while using the drill. predrill holes and see how that differs from using self driving screws. Strip some screws. Try phillips head and star bit and see which you prefer. Next thing you know you can remove your cabinet doors or replace handles with ease and comfort and self confidence. Practice on scrap and it becomes far less intimidating.
Include your children! All children should learn these life skills. Let them see you mess up and learn from mistakes.
But it is okay to make big strong men haul the boxes of tile. Those things really suck/
Worried about making mistakes?
Real risk:
Get pets out of the way. Make sure kids are safe and won't have anything fall on them or stab them. Do not leave nails or screws in driveways or carports.
Trying to do electrical work without studying or being sure the power is off? DON'T DO IT. That is risk of death. Same thing with heights and other genuinely risky things, learn those things from pros and be incredibly over cautious. As demonstrated in my opening story, bad things can happen to good people.
Also as a side note: My house that I am renovating was built by that very grandfather who lost his fingers. His fiance at the time married him and would later be my grandmother. He became an architect and was very successful. Funny how things work isn't it?
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