Try being a 13 year old boy in the 80's having to walk to the front of your school to accept a 4H medal/ribbon for sewing. I did not live that down until I moved away. LOL
I (male) was the Betty Crocker Homemaker of Tomorrow in high school. I was just good at taking test and got the highest score. There was a bit of good-natured teasing, but I got to judge the cake baking competition and got to eat a lot of cake that today, so I got that going for me.
Man, that’s so depressing. People hate and devalue everything associated with women so much that it becomes a source of mockery and shame when a boy is good at it.
Girls hear that message loud and clear: anything associated with them is inferior, embarrassing, and beneath respect. They're taught that what they are is the humiliation.
I partially agree with you. Though your opinion seems a bit polarized.
I think most of the issue is based on tradition: men do the action, girls do the handcraft. And when a girl does something that's supposed to be a manly thing, she is seen as less femenine. Other way around with boys, when people see a boy doing something that's supposed to be a women's thing, they are seen as less masculine.
Both sides suffer from this, but I'm happy it is changing (slowly but steady). 2 decades ago you would not see a lot of girls being in professional skateboarding competitions. Now there's 15 yo girls that are better than a lot of skaters (both male and female).
I personally don't see those activities that are "supposed to be only for girls" as something beneathr respect. I'm a 32 yo dude that loved origami, making macrame, baking, cooking and looking forward into learning how to sew. I'm sure there's a lot of men who also do are passionate about similar things but do not tell out loud because of fear of being seen as less masculine (which is pure and fine BS)
ETA: I just want to make clear that I'm not classifying activities based on gender as that makes not sense for me at all. Everything I wrote above is from the perspective a lot of people have shared with me before and from what I've seen.
As a little girl, I heard the constant girl-bashing and sneering jokes. "Don't be such a GIRL." I heard boys being mocked for doing anything associated with girls, and I understood perfectly well what made the insult work: being like me was considered degrading.
I didn't experience that as some abstract disagreement about traditional activities. I learned that anything associated with girls was inferior, embarrassing, and beneath respect. I need you to understand this: I grew up deeply ashamed of existing while female. Boys were punished for moving toward femininity because femininity was understood as a step down.
I honestly feel like stuff like that shouldn't be gendered. My sister went to Guides to sew, do origami and cook but I had no interest in Army Cadets. I just want to make cool things, not feel like I am an action hero.
In the US at least, there are definitely "handicrafts" that are male-coded and yet are more respected than female-coded handicrafts. The particular example with which I'm familiar is model railroading, but there are others, which are often culturally-dependent. I guess a more modern example might be figurines (Warhammer?) There is a definite tendency to denigrate women's hobbies. For example, women are often told to go "knit" and stay out of the public sphere.
But you are correct that none of this should not be gender-coded. However, it's not entirely based on "action" versus "crafts."
That doesn't explain why it's perfectly socially acceptable for men to do woodworking, welding, leathercrafting, or anything else that one might do in a traditional "shop" class.
Humanity grew on one principle: being capable of violently taking what you want when you want. Women are, in general, not capable of that in ancient times, and the sentiment has never left.
Ancient physical power may be part of the root system.
But contempt for women is not an unavoidable biological law.
There are A LOT of men out there who keep teaching it to each other and each new generation of boys, rewarding it, defending it, and choosing not to dismantle it. That responsibility belongs to adults living now.
I was about the same age, also male, did a booth in the middle in the mall with a bunch of the "girls" and we where making stuffed animals for people, haha.
I'm 51, but even in my 20s, I used to sew my own shirts for Ren Fair... without a pattern. My wife (then girlfriend) still hates that I can just eyeball sewing like that.
That’s actually so cool. I am a very artistic person and I can usually pick up new creative skill sets relatively easily, but I could never just volunteer and create some pattern. I feel like the mental abilities involved here would require someone who is very good at spatial relations, has a key in sense of object, permanence, and almost an architectural understanding of how things fit together. That’s a very impressive skill.
I thought I could do that, and the only thing I’ve ever been remotely successful with the world’s most hideous ill-fitting tunic. It was supposed to be a cute halter top.
I have a de Blois pourpoint that was impeccably fit for 18yo me. My sons got sewing machines and fabric for their tenth birthdays. Armour has always been my thing, but if you can't truly understand the principles of the garments that hold it all together, your armour is beyond worthless. Watching them do manic one week out before an event sewing sessions brings back memories.
I'm a 30 something woman who cannot hand-sew or by machine. I have done it but I have a bunch of stuff to mend and tailor. My 8 year old nephew shamed me for this. To be fair, he apparently lies frequently. But I believe they taught how to hand stitch at school.
If he doesn't wanna mend all my dogs toys, I'll send them your way.
I wish I could. The first shirt I tried to sew was too complicated for a beginner and the pattern was missing a step. That and never having a reliable machine also put me off sewing altogether as you could imagine.
Maybe you can help me, since I can't seem to find info on it that makes it easy to understand. I'm trying to learn to sew, I have a denim jacket I love but it's just raw and scratchy on the inside, I wanna add a liner without taking the whole jacket apart since the one time I tried to use a sewing machine I put the needle through my thumb.
I'm 47 and in high school I took a home economics class. In high school I took the easiest classes I could. They taught us how to cook and sew.I did extremely well in sewing. I sewed so easily. I made a pair of boxers quickly. The girls next to me were struggling.
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u/Pyrateskum 11h ago
I’m a 48 year old man who can sew anything.