"Did Your School Let Boys Take Home Ec?"

[Arch]

Okay, misleading subject line; I wasn't asked this question, but it was a near thing. Three of us were talking about education, and one guy said something about a home ec class he had taken, and a somewhat older guy said that his school didn't let boys take home ec. I must have had a deer-in-the-headlights look on my face, but nobody asked me what I'd taken in junior high. For a minute, I thought that they were going to. These guys don't know that I'm trans, and I want to keep it that way.

I had wanted to take wood shop, but my counselor told me that shop was not an option for girls. I didn't know enough to call her on it, so I took a hideous sewing class with a bunch of hideous "mean girls" and hated pretty much every minute of it. Damn that counselor. She lied to me. Title IX guaranteed me equal rights to education, and she freaking lied to me--or the school did. I still get pissed off when I think about it. And I wish I hadn't been so meek about it, but that's how most girls were raised in my day.

Back to the present...nobody who knows me would ever believe that I took a sewing class voluntarily, so my mind was racing while my buddies talked about junior high. I couldn't come up with a satisfactory answer under any circumstances, so I discreetly steered the subject in a different direction. Fortunately, nobody noticed.

Narrow escape. And I still don't know what I would have said if I'd been asked.

[Dena]

I have almost stepped in the same cow pie when I was talking about some of the things I did when I was younger. Because I did them as a boy scout, I had to edit the group I did it with. Most of my scouting activities remain locked up tight but a few could have been done with a number of other groups.

As for wood shop, you missed a lot of fun and if you would like to make up for it, there are places you can join as an adult where you can have access to a full wood working shop. Wood is so much easer to work with than metal and my mother still has some of the work I did nearly 50 years ago.

[Mariah]

When I was in Junior High School, both Boys and Girls were required to take at least a semester of home-ec and one in shop. I don't ever recall seeing something said if a boy or a girl took shop or home ec beyond that in high school or Junior High. Sorry that they turned you away from taking shop then. I would have gladly given up my required time in shop to anyone who wanted it. Hugs
Mariah

[arice]

Shop and Home Ec were required for all students in Junior High (full year all 3 years) and one semester of each was required in high school. I took an extra year of shop (as a female). Shop in junior high consisted of drafting, wood working, metal working, plastics and ceramics. Home Ec was cooking and sewing. In high school, you specialized more. I did cooking for my mandatory home Ec class and drafting, photography/print making and wood working in shop.

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[WanderingFace]

Back to the present...nobody who knows me would ever believe that I took a sewing class voluntarily

One of my good friends in high school ( I know you said jr high but I dont remember there being electives there) actually took a crochet class. He was cis, straight, and fairly masculine in interests and presentation. I always admired him for not giving a hoot. He would hang out at lunch while crocheting or knitting. I don't think anyone gave him a hard time about it. Then again he was the sort of person most people wouldn't mess with. He looked tougher than he actually was.

I was more of a theater, creative writing, video, art, and astronomy sort of guy. Took a lot of geeky non gendered electives. Though I would have also tried wood shop if that were an option at my school.

All the schools I went to didn't care what gender you were. I'm pretty sure there were a decent amount of guys in home ec from what I've heard, whether or not they chose it. It may have been one of those classes they stuck you in if you didn't take something else. That or floral arrangements.

[arice]

One of my good friends in high school ( I know you said jr high but I dont remember there being electives there) actually took a crochet class. He was cis, straight, and fairly masculine in interests and presentation. I always admired him for not giving a hoot. He would hang out at lunch while crocheting or knitting. I don't think anyone gave him a hard time about it. Then again he was the sort of person most people wouldn't mess with. He looked tougher than he actually was.

I was more of a theater, creative writing, video, art, and astronomy sort of guy. Took a lot of geeky non gendered electives. Though I would have also tried wood shop if that were an option at my school.

All the schools I went to didn't care what gender you were. I'm pretty sure there were a decent amount of guys in home ec from what I've heard, whether or not they chose it. It may have been one of those classes they stuck you in if you didn't take something else. That or floral arrangements.

My husband's best friend (hetero cisman) knit while on a combat tour in Afghanistan... he also sews.

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[cheryl reeves]

I took all the home ec classes for I didn't like being around boys period for they all showed their true nature in the end with me. Besides I love cooking and pretty good at it. The other home e.g. classes I did all right in the one thing about home ec it was an elective and not many boys took those classes.

[Ms Grace]

I went to an all boys school, home ec wasn't even a subject for anyone! That was from 1978-83... it might be different now but in those days it was wood/metal work only!

[sparrow]

I took auto shop, and there was an even gender split in my class.  Yay inner-city schools!

[Cindy]

You did a nice side step Arch!

I would have loved to do either EC or woodwork thingy classes. But in my school there was none of them. To be honest something practical, of any sort, would have been great.

If you think about it school should teach life skills. We are in the midst of an obesity epidemic and people have no idea how to cook a basic meal. Both males, females of whatever background should leave school with the ability to wash themselves, care for their clothes, cook a meal, clean their home, maintain a budget (or at least know what one is) and to not be socially awkward.

Owning up to the fact that you were taught such skills should be a matter of pride and not one of shame.

[Arch]

One of my good friends in high school ( I know you said jr high but I dont remember there being electives there)

My junior high actually required girls to take both cooking and sewing. When my mother came with me to register for seventh grade, the counselor (same one) told me that I could completely SKIP both cooking AND sewing because I had signed up for a foreign language. I was stoked.

A year later, the counselor chided me for not taking either cooking or sewing in seventh grade. When I repeated what she had said earlier, she denied it (uh, no, my mother was there, too) and told me that I had to take at least one semester of home ec. She also had neglected to tell me that one semester of science was a seventh-grade requirement, and she dressed me down for not taking it in seventh grade!

Because of this counselor's incompetence, I wound up in summer school because I had nowhere to put the seventh-grade science class in my eighth-grade schedule. I did feel triumphant years later in college when I ignored similarly bad advice from another counselor; I didn't fight her but just did what I was going to do anyway. Worked like a charm because, well, she was wrong.

[Arch]

Fortunately for me, another girl was even less popular than I in that sewing class. Fortunately for her, she was rather dim and never realized that the other girls were making fun of her. I used to grit my teeth when they started in . . . "Oh, SaMANtha, what a cute TOP! Wherever did you GET it?" And then, behind her back, the snickers.

They buttered up the teacher in exactly the same way, and she never seemed to catch on, either.

Of course, the boys would go after an unpopular kid and snap him with a wet towel. That wasn't much fun, either, I'm sure.

[FTMDiaries]

This is a subject that has annoyed me for decades. I also wanted to do woodwork or metalwork (both of which were on offer at my High School), but I grew up in Apartheid South Africa which was a very strictly segregated society along many lines, including gender. If they had you down as female, you *had* to do Home Economics; if they had you down as male you *had* to do woodwork or metalwork. There were no exceptions. It wasn't even an option for me.

My elder brother got to do woodwork and made a reasonably decent occasional table... and unlike me he's utterly useless with practical skills, so he's never used the skills he learned in that class. That class was taught by a very eccentric German teacher with a great sense of humour; I would've loved that class & I would've enjoyed putting my practical skills to use. But instead, I had to learn how to cook, knit and sew so that I could be a good little housewife - all taught by a ridiculous Afrikaner teacher who told us that after work she'd get home and make sure everything would be perfect for her husband in time for his arrival back home from his work. Because even if a woman has a University degree and a full-time career as a teacher of High School Biology & Home Economics, her primary purpose is to make sure the house and herself are always immaculate for her man when he comes home, because as the 'man of the house' he's so much more important than her and his needs must always come first. She'd even bath, change clothes and re-apply her make-up after work to prettify herself for her husband.

Boy, how I despised that woman!

I don't know what else you could have done other than to divert the conversation, but I can say this: things have changed for the better. My kids were allowed to do *any* subject at school, so that horrible gender segregation that made our lives such a misery is mostly gone. Certainly here in the UK, most kids now dabble in all of these subjects so it wouldn't be weird for a guy in his 20s or early 30s in the UK to talk about having done sewing or cooking in school. Thank goodness.

[Elis]

Hearing about all your experiences I'm glad times have changed. I was born in 94 so in secondary school both genders had to do food technology  (basically learning how to cook professionally and following certain requirements on what to cook). In our year 8 class we even had to do sewing (no idea why; we were never asked to do it again). Plus both genders could do wood work which was a requirement upto choosing what subjects to study for your GCSES (which I hated with a passion and would have much rather go back to the 50s and do home economics)

[Shiratori]

Back to the present...nobody who knows me would ever believe that I took a sewing class voluntarily, so my mind was racing while my buddies talked about junior high. I couldn't come up with a satisfactory answer under any circumstances, so I discreetly steered the subject in a different direction. Fortunately, nobody noticed.

Narrow escape. And I still don't know what I would have said if I'd been asked.

You could always say that you were considering becoming a tailor.

[2fish]

I'm an ftm and before I transitioned I had to take either shop or home ec. I took shop and loved it. There were a few boys that took home ec instead. I was treated very well and I was very good at that course. My mom was very impressed at the things I made and didn't put me down for it. I even made her a clip board for work. Very good memories.

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[DanielleA]

When I was in high school I was like a free for all when it came to year 11 and 12 elective selection. You could choose to do whatever you wanted. I knew two guys who did sewing and two others who joined hospitality.

[big kim]

I did woodwork, took 3 years to make a coffee table! It would have been useful if I learned anything but the teacher had a speech impediment and the mean kids spent every lesson teasing him. Kids can be horrible

[Kylo]

I took home ec and woodshop. Everyone had to do it in the 90s I guess.

But if I was older and felt like I was coming up against an issue with colleagues talking about it, I'd just say I was home schooled like I should have been, and drop it. School isn't a happy topic and it only annoys me other people recalling their fun school days when I hated every freaking minute of it. If they wanted to know the origin of my carpentry know-how I'd tell them: my dad was a carpenter and a guitar maker. Which he was, and taught me how to build my own stuff.

[suzifrommd]

In my school, girls too home ec and art, boys took drafting and shop.

My mother went to the school and demanded that my sister be allowed to take drafting and shop. The school relented.

My sister later graduated from Duke University school of engineering.