Reading about these quilters made me realize that
there are certain jobs in our society that men would not like to do. One of these is quilting in itself. As said in one of the readings, one of the
ladies husband’s would help her with her piecing and cutting but the moment he
heard the dogs barking at something coming down the road towards their house,
he would drop everything he was doing just so other people didn’t know he was
helping his wife quilt. There are other
jobs that are considered female only jobs.
For example, teachers, nursing, secretaries, interior decorator, nanny,
ect, all of which are considered normal jobs for women but not for men. I remember watching Meet the Parents, when Greg’s girlfriends family finds out he is a
male nurse, they start to question his ability to be a man. These jobs seem to be predetermined by
society that only women should do them.
Reading about how all these wonderful quilts were done by mostly women
just amplifies societies need to have special jobs for women only. Jobs, that I am sure some people would argue,
are below that of a man. That being
said, I would also like to point out that some of the girls that were involved in
these stories seemed like they couldn’t wait until they were old enough to
quilt with their mothers. It seems like
society is pushing girls to recognize this type of job. Now, the quilts that were pictured in the
readings were quite amazing, and I for one don’t believe I could have made
anything near that quality, but the notion that quilting is below a man still exists
now. Something that should be allowed to
change but society has kept locked down for a long time.
Your statement: "Jobs, that I am sure some people would argue, are below that of a man." This was the cultural code at that time. But it still exists today. Gender roles are still dimorphic (if that is a word). No one wants to do housework and therefore if boys are asked by their moms [(or dads) but mostly moms] to do this, regulatory mechanisms step in to prevent them from performing these tasks for long. In the way of public spheres, as nursing continues to increase in economic status, more men are entering the field. Pretty soon we will have to spotlight that career as 'women nurses.'
ReplyDeleteBut I do believe that it was a matter of low technology and lack of knowledge at that time, that society rendered girls and boys differently. Not to mention Aristotle and Herbert Spenser.
Daniel:
ReplyDeleteI enjoyed how the filmmakers of Meet the Parents emphasized Gaylord’s (Ben Stiller) career choice as a thematic devise for questioning (his) manhood. Of course beyond the comedic cues, the idea was to amplify the polarization between his father-in-law’s (De Niro) virility and his parents’ (Hoffman and Streisand) liberalism.
Among the hundreds of students I meet each semester as a faculty member, there have been a dozen male students who majored in nursing. Across the board, they seemed aware of the stigma(s), but appeared unrelenting in their goals and relished the opportunities in the nursing field. Typically during a class introduction, a male nursing student would justify his decision ahead of others’ comments; assumingly prompted by knowledge about existing gender precepts. Interestingly, according to a non-academic website, the nursing profession originated several thousand years ago in India and was strictly a male line of work.
Over the years, there have also been several dozen female students in my classes who were engineering majors. Few remarks were made by their peers; the gender and their career choice went together like chocolate and peanut butter. The notion being that the girls were simply smart and engineering was the perfect fit for them.
In terms of quilting as a way to illustrate gender roles, attitudes about them are not always bidirectional. In other words, an awkwardness existed in describing the husband’s desire to quilt and arguably as you listed, similar attitudes likely persist about today’s male interior decorators, nannies, nurses, secretaries, teachers, etc. Conversely, the hiring of Yahoo’s new $71 million CEO and engineer Marissa Mayer indicates the growing respect and value for women’s leadership in historically male milieus. Nonetheless, in an attempt to maintain advertising revenue, the media find ways to problematize her newsworthy story: age, daunting tasks, pregnancy, etc.