Now that one I didn't see. Is it good?

It depends on what you're into.  There's some blood and lots of violence and Ripped guys running around in speedo's and capes.  The ending was a bit of a let down to me, and since my school's masscot is a Spartan, the whole movie plot was basically ruined during the 3 trimesters of pep assemblies we had.

I'm actually not bad with sewing.  Took two sewing classes one in middle school and one in high school.   I'm not the greatest sewer but I do ok.  And fortunantly only had to make a pillow in one class and an apron in another.

And I sometimes still sew, I made part of my klingon costume, made my wallet, made a sporran. and back when I found myself forced to use a purse I started out making my own.  Also altered my binder a bit as well.

I tend to work with both cloth and swade.  Some people may consider it a women's thing, but I consider it a useful skill.  Can save money plus make things the way you want them rather than how others decide to make things.

in 9th grade i was bullied into conforming, and kept it up at my new school through my sophomore and junior year.  wasnt really a phase.... idk.  my whole life is kindof a girly phase.   making it not a phase. >_>  im just kindof feminine and flamboyant.  plus i like to make things.  be they a 24 ft half pipe (yea, i really did that) or an awesome ppouch to hold my dungeon and dragons dice.  making things is what i do.  be it the manly woodworking side or the girly making a costume side.

Yeh, lol I also tend to patch up my own shirts when I have holes in them.

Quote from: Aiden on August 10, 2008, 07:29:23 PM
Some people may consider it a women's thing, but I consider it a useful skill.  Can save money plus make things the way you want them rather than how others decide to make things.

There's definitely a psychological element having to do with perceived gender roles. Only girls sewed--or so I thought--therefore, I felt as if I was being punished for being a girl. And there were very few class periods in which I didn't wonder, quite enviously, what kinds of woodworking projects the guys were doing in shop class; my older brother used to bring home cool stuff that he had made, and I wanted to be just like him. Finally, my mother sewed, and I didn't want to be like her. She gave me sewing lessons when I was in elementary school--I really did hate it and had no skill--yet this early experience gave me no advantage when I took the sewing class a few years later. I guess not being good at it gave me even more of a feeling that I wasn't normal, gender-wise. But that's me getting stuck in binary-style thinking.

Sewing IS a useful skill, but it only serves the purposes you mentioned when you can do it well. I can put stitches into cloth, I can fix a gap in a seam, and I can sew on a button. But that's about the extent of it--I've never been particularly "crafty" or good with my hands, so I just learned a few basic sewing survival skills. I think it's interesting that my sewing teacher never taught us how to hand-sew a button; it's not quite as simple as it looks. So I had to teach myself later.

I also never QUITE got the hang of the sewing machine. I would have been better off stitching by hand, but "Mrs. Sniff" would not allow it. We butted heads over this issue quite a few times. I thought my argument was quite logical because there weren't enough machines to go around, but logic didn't enter into it.

On the other hand, I was hell on wheels when it came to grooming a horse or mucking out a stall. (You know, about three quarters of the kids at the stables were girls.) I guess you just go with what you like and do best. But in my less admirable moments, I still do tend to see cooking as a necessary and gender-free survival skill and sewing as the ninth circle of gender-role hell. Aiden, thanks for yanking me back from that once again. Occasionally I need a good swift kick to make me remember that gender roles (although they might have some biological/genetic basis) are largely constructed. This concludes my sermon.

Posted on: August 10, 2008, 08:13:01 PM

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Quote from: Chett on August 10, 2008, 07:56:18 PM
plus i like to make things.  be they a 24 ft half pipe (yea, i really did that) or an awesome ppouch to hold my dungeon and dragons dice. 

Ha! One of the few things I ever made outside of that dismal sewing class was a slightly lopsided triple-stitched handmade velvet pouch for my ex's D&D dice. That pouch was a symbol of my love; I sweated every stitch.

He knew it, too--and he knew why I never made myself a similar pouch.

Hmm... I took a Home Ec. class last year, but because I had to. It was all bundled together: woodshop, Home Ec. and Computers. I wanted woodshop, but I had to suffer through home ec first, and after I had to suffer through computers. I was actually pretty good at sewing (I was making my own halloween costume during that time), but I could never get the knots right. I can work with a sewing machine pretty well, and I also made some little pouches for stuff out of old jean material a few years ago. I was good at woodshop, but sometimes I would have trouble keeping my projects symmetrical when they were supposed to be. And I already knew a ton about computers, so the whole time I was sitting following very slowly with the rest of the class so i wouldn't get in trouble.

In any case, I know sewing and cooking are considered girly, but my dad can sew and cook, no big deal. He hemmed up some pants for my sister and I when they were too long. And if he hadn't known how to cook, we would have been eating junk food for 5 years after my parents got divorced, and before he married my step-mom. So I just try and remember that, and also that they are useful skills to know.

And I guess that's why I hate my sister's boyfriend so much. His family is from the south, so they apparently believe very strongly in gender roles. And therefore, he does not no how to cook, sew, or even do his own laundry! And he's almost old enough to get his own place! I mean come on!

I rather enjoy sewing. My mom showed be the basics when I was small and I figured the rest out myself. The first time I did any serious sewing, it was the middle of the night, I had just gotten back from my first real show (Bleeding Kansas \m/), and I had a bunch of patches I wanted to put on this jacket. It turned out awesome. Ever since, I've been into modifying clothes. I made a couple of femmy shirts and a couple of makeshift binders (none of which worked) and modified a vest (added patches, buttons, and pockets and hemmed up the sleeves where I ripped them off). When I sew, time passes real quick and I get something out of it. I'm into beads, too, on clothes or as jewelry.

Its funny but at one time (and still in a lot of places) all professional chefs were men.  So are a whole lot of fashion designers.

Quote from: tekla on August 11, 2008, 11:41:57 AM
Its funny but at one time (and still in a lot of places) all professional chefs were men.  So are a whole lot of fashion designers.

Well, of course. What idiot would want women to actually get PAY for doing something that they should be doing FREE? And why should women get recognition or respect for something that should be everyday? And anyway, we might trust a woman to make quotidian meals or even holiday meals, but only men can make truly gourmet meals.

I am ashamed to say that when I was a kid, I saw camping vacations and hotel vacations as roughly equivalent in entertainment value (they have different assets) until my mother refused to go on another camping trip one year--because in a camp-out, she always wound up doing all the cooking and cleaning up, but in a hotel she could order room service or eat out, and let someone else do the scut work. Camping was a vacation for everyone else, but not for her.

Her refusal changed the way I looked at a lot of things, actually. I guess she held some value for me after all. I tend to forget that.

On my family camping vacations (and we were in Iowa and by the time my kids were out of high school they has gone swimming in the Atlantic, the Pacific, the Gulf of Mexico and the Great Lakes, including Lake Superior) my wife never cooked - of course at home the only thing she could make for dinner was reservations.  I wanted my boys to know how to do it.

Today, they are both big into backpacking in the Northwest.  And they still do the cooking.

Mom did cooking at home when lived with her. father did cooking when camping.  Of course my mom rarely went with us camping lol