(A) Cooking (B) Sewing(c) Childcare (D) Speaking kindly (E) All of
the above.
My mother actually told me: “There’s not always going to be a woman
around so you better learn how to do these things for yourself” I’m
the cook in the house. I know how to make a dress except I don’t
want to. And we don’t have kids but I’ve changed more than my share
of diapers.
As for the rather bizarre turn this thread took -One of the very best
things about the jewelry industry is how very many really, really nice
women are involved in it. Wouldn’t have it anyother way.
Metal may be difficult to master, but I am not afraid of trying to
work with it. At least I know I won’t kill the patient as I might,
for instance, if I just began dabbling in brain surgery. Personally,
I think fear lies at the base of most of the activities that people
won’t try.
Fear of failing, fear of succeeding, fear of not fitting in, fear of
whatever. Fear leads to not trying - to staying safe - to a dull and
uninteresting life. And men and women both are not immune to fear.
Maybe they just express it in different ways. Here’s to trying - for
forging new - to being on the edge of whatever it is that you are
doing!!! Barbara on the littlest province in the country - someday
it might not be here at all since every storm takes some of it out to
sea. But for now, it is here and we are making a home on it.
As for the rather bizarre turn this thread took -One of the very
best things about the jewelry industry is how very many really,
really nice women are involved in it. Wouldn't have it anyother
way.
When I started out it was not the case. It was a male dominated biz.
I’d be willing to bet that 95% of the jewelry in America was made and
repaired by men back when I started in 1969. It was truly an old boys
network. I was almost always the first and only woman in many trade
shops. In some retail settings a woman wasn’t allowed to close a sale
over 3 grand. It had to be turned over to a man. Also the majority of
jewelry was purchased by men for women. He picked the engagement and
wedding ring and the woman was stuck with what he purchased.
Oddly enough the dentistry world was the same. Mostly all guys. I
remember doing work for a woman back in 78 who was the only woman in
her class in the OHSU dental school.
Here’s my understanding of the differences between men and women when
it comes to fixing things.
I read this in my mid-teens and have always taken it to heart:
"A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an
invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a
sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the
dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve
equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a
computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly.
Specialization is for insects."
-Robert A. Heinlein
I agree with you. I also grew up on a family farm where everyone did
pretty much everything. At one point we needed an outside income so
my mom stayed home to work in the fields while dad took a job in town
in a furniture store. He was more of a people person and enjoyed it
and he logged many hours working on the farm after he got home from
the job. We never paid anyone to so something we could do ourselves.
One difference for me is that there are some things I don’t want to
do or don’t know how to do and, looking at time and money, sometimes
it makes more sense to pay someone to do something.
One big gap in the learning for a lot of our young people is that
they haven’t been taught how to resolve problems. To many of them it
looks like a roadblock. To others it looks like an opportunity to
learn how to figure something out and get past the roadblock. It’s a
logical thinking thing and many of the young people haven’t been
exposed to that type of exercise. I have grandkids who are very good
at it and some who are not.
I think that many of us here in the jewelry business have learned how
to do things, some self-taught and some classes. I think as a group
we are problem solvers.
I second the suggestion of a set of transfer punches. You can get a
set for as little as $12 or so. They are good for the purpose you
have in mind, or for many other things including winding coils,
pushing out dented-in bezels (before setting), and for marking the
center of things.
New thread? Stoopid things people say? Upon reading the comment “you
mean you can CUT metal” - I took it to mean, “you mean any person
could cut metal without large machinery/factory?” Brought to mind a
comment when I was horseback guide in Yosemite- in response to a
bite warning, the tourist exclaimed in utter amazement, “you mean
thehorses are different? They have PERSONALITIES?” Some people’s
children, no?
Things are changing for the better - although at a slower pace than
us change-lovers would hope. At my father’s funeral one of his
friends said he could always be found on “the locomotive of history”,
standing just behind the engineer and shouting at him “faster,
faster!” Me too. I have taken his place.
Still, progress is uneven. There are fields more and less dominated
by one sex or the other. I live my life straddling several of these
and can see the differences in the resulting tone of interactions
that go on between the people in each field. I just wanted to say
that Orchid, despite the occasional dust-ups, maintains one of the
very best atmospheres of any chat group (or whatever these things
are called). I particularly noticed the difference when I first found
Ganoksin after a time engaged with a boat-building group. Don’t get
me wrong - Boats and boatbuilding encompass a great amount of pure
beauty - and an important part of my life - but the tone of
discourse was damned near intolerable. Needless to say this was a
male-dominated field, Ganoksin was a conspicuous improvement and i
attribute that to the much higher proportion of women involved.
Thank you my sisters.
It was a male dominated biz. I’d be willing to bet that 95% of the
jewelry in America was made and repaired by men back when I started
in 1969. It was truly an old boys network. I was almost always the
first and only woman in many trade shops. In some retail settings a
woman wasn’t allowed to close a sale over 3 grand. It had to be
turned over to a man. Also the majority of jewelry was purchased by
men for women. He picked the engagement and wedding ring and the
woman was stuck with what he purchased.
This always confused me. I think it was why I was never that much
into jewelry until I actually started making it myself. Most jewelry
is worn by women, but most of it was always made by a man,
“supposed” to be made by a man, and chosen by a man. for the woman!
I always looked at jewelry and thought, “why the hell do I need a
man to tell me what I’m supposed to like?” So I eventually started
making the jewelry that I wanted to wear, and hence I started to
wear jewelry more.
Yeah, that’s what she exclaimed, “You can cut metal?” She was
astounded. I thought it was a bit funny but I’m sot sure I want to go
so far as to throw her in with the “stoopid things people say” bunch.
It’s not that I am a super-conscious paragon of Buddha-like kindness
but i know she wasn’t actually stupid. She just had lived the kind
of life where she’d never actually seen anything made - so it was a
revelation to her, and it was a revelation to me too. I’d never met
anyone, at least not to my knowledge, who was so oblivious to that
segment of human life and activity. And I think I was a bit grateful
that she let her astonishment show instead of trying to hide her
ignorance, as i probably would have done. That’s another thing Women
are better at than most men.
I think that many of us here in the jewelry business have learned
how to do things, some self-taught and some classes. I think as a
group we are problem solvers.
AND, making art, all media, is problem solving at it’s best.
the ladies in my class at the School for Silversmiths were always
ahead of the guys.
Better control of tools and better problem solvers.
I put this down to earlier development of fine motor skills. Girls
got in the kitchen younger and were more used to heat and sharp
knives. Also they learned to use a recipe as a basis for meal and took
it from there.
I don’t think this is a sex based situation but an education based
question.
I know of a university professor who was recently shown an old exam
paper from high school leaving exam. His comment was that is second
year university now.
Education is going backwards and so is thinking.
Just means we will get more and more dumb questions from young
newbies.
Around 1970. I participated in a “Teach-in” day at my college. I
brought pliers, cutters, anvil, and hammer, to show folks how to
bend and forge copper wire. My surprise question came from a college
student who properly held a wire with a pliers at each end, looked
up at me, and asked “What makes it bend?” My most accomplished
student was the 12-year old daughter of a custodian/janitor at the
school. She did just fine right from the beginning, having watched
her dad use tools for years. I think that the difference between
these two young women was totally in what tools and actions they had
been exposed to so far in their lives. I guess that the best student
was probably the first one I mentioned, because she must have learned
the most that day. My answer was something like, “You bend it with
the movement of your hands as you hold the pliers, like this.” I
certainly never anticipated that level of incomprehension, but I was
glad to enlighten her! Maybe she is a better consumer of fine craft
now, due to her learning on that day.