In defense of the sanctimonious women's studies set || First feminist blog on the internet

A Slow, Uncomfortable Screw

Lauren

With sparkles and feathers.

While I appreciate their attempts at sarcasm, I can’t get over the fact that these screwdrivers are prettier than this chick’s undies (when I stoop to wear ’em).

Believing that women will only use tools when said tools are pink, feathered, and sparkly, is just as dumb as thinking women won’t see through the unbelievable gall for finally giving the Nintendo classic’s Princess Peach her own video game and making her a manipulative, hormonal, diamond-grubbing wuss.

16 thoughts on A Slow, Uncomfortable Screw

  1. Actually, it’s the fact that they’ve turned mood swings/PMS into superpowers that galls me the most. Crying to make things grow? Getting angry to burn stuff down? Gah!

  2. When I went away to college, dear old Dad gave me a toolbox that was pink with pink-handled tools. When I tried to call him on it, Mom said it was the best price on a basic toolkit they could find. I still have the needle-nosed pliers (oh dog, it’s been almost 20 years!).

    Punchline: a guy upstairs in my dorm had the same set.

  3. One of the guys I work with has a set of these feathered, pink-handled tools. He bought them specifically so nobody else on the maintenance staff would steal ’em.

  4. I’d use those!

    I might be less likely to misplace my screwdrivers if they were screaming pink and feathered. Because bright Stanley yellow isn’t visible enough, I guess.

  5. I have a whole bunch of girlie tools, although mine are powder blue, rather than pink and feathered. I used to do a lot of market research, and I got on a list of people who get occasional surveys from a girlie-tool company. Every couple of months, they send me a survey about their products, I tell them their products are obnoxious and unnecessary, and they thank me by sending me a powder-blue tool. So far, I have been sent a powder-blue hammer, screwdriver set, and wrench. I’m hoping at some point they’ll give me a powder-blue power drill. Their tools are obnoxious and unnecessary, but I’m not about to turn down free stuff.

  6. hahaha, I got given those screwdrivers as a present from my mum’s friend. I needed screw drivers, and she liked the zebra print ones. I do agree that making special girlie tools is silly, but they’re actually quite nifty little screwdrivers. Except the big GIRL one; it’s the most impractical handle EVER.

  9. Did anyone else look at these screwdrivers and think, “sex toy”? Or was it just me?

    Maybe this is a good way to get vibrators past the censors: Disguise them as tools.

  10. In some sense, if this gets more women actually using tools and realizing that they can do stuff for themselves, great. On the other hand, I’d rather see women using real tools.

    It’s interesting watching certain home improvement shows like Trading Spaces and Tool Belt Diva. While the stated mission of Tool Belt Diva is to show women that they can indeed do it themselves (many women on the show have never used a hammer, and then they’re off using compound mitre saws and the like), there are a lot of moments on Trading Spaces, especially when Amy Wynn Pastor is the carpenter, where women who’ve never used tools in their lives get to use some of the tools in carpentry. And almost universally, they say they feel powerful when they use the tools, partly because they’ve never felt like they were up to doing it before.

  11. I like to ask my dad for presents that I know he feels comfortable shopping for. He gave me an awesome tool kit for Xmas – it was basic black. Its a pain doing things like removing carpet/nail track but do have sense of accomplishment that I’ve spackled, painted, stripped, stained, drilled….I leave the electrical and plumbing stuff to the handyman though!

  12. Oh. Good. Grief. I’d use a table knife before using one of those things. The feathers (which I normally like as decorative accents) would not only drive ME batty, they’d incur Feline Assistance. Which is NOT necessary most of the time!

    My father was a carpenter and a waterproofer who saw no reason why he shouldn’t teach me how to properly use tools. Consequently, I was one of the few women in my theatre program who was not afraid of the power tools. They used to make me go shorten/round off the boning for the period costumes we made ’cause everyone else was afraid to use the grinder. I enjoyed that. 🙂 So obviously, I don’t get the “empowerment” that comes from using tools of any sort. It’s just one more skill set that I have. One that sort of weirds some people out a little, but I can cope with that AND question why it bothers them. *evil grin*

    I guess if sparkly things and feathers will get women to actually GET a basic tool set and learn/figure out how to fix things by themselves, well… that’s a good thing. But it STILL irks me that manufacturors feel that they HAVE to make tools all girly (and by that, I mean PRE-TEEN GIRLY) looking. The zebra print one is kind of cool, but other than that? I am vaguely insulted.

  14. Those “tools” are an abomination. They look like gag gifts, not functional equipment, especially with the fluffy stuff on them. As I was reading the current front page of the blog from the bottom up, I at first thought they were sex toys, too, since the screwdriver tip came into view last.

    I am really glad that tools hadn’t come into sparkles and feathers when I graduated from high school. A well-meaning aunt gave me a powder blue set of tools as a graduation gift – I guess she didn’t know I already had a tool set (in black and red). The color was fine, but the fact that the case was stamped with “Do It Herself” rather than “Household Tool Set” still makes me wince, though the set is now in my ex’s hands. Because he, who knew nothing of tool using and didn’t care to learn, he’d tease me about its very existence. Or maybe he just liked seeing me cringe when he invoked that oh-so-mockworthy phrase. But he had no tools of his own when we split up. So I gave him my extra set. No one should own a house without having a basic tool kit, after all.

  15. So obviously, I don’t get the “empowerment” that comes from using tools of any sort. It’s just one more skill set that I have.

    I’ve got kind of a tool background, DIY and carpentry and the like, and that’s somewhat uncommon among my peers (biology graduate students) and so I’m surprised that you don’t find that empowering. I mean, it’s not like being able to build a cabinet makes me a better man, or something; it just gives me options that a lot of my peers don’t have. I can get lumber and build Cornell trays instead of ordering them from the entomology suppliers. I can fix stuff instead of replacing it. I can modify things to whatever specific need I might have.

    It gives me more choices than I would have otherwise. What’s more empowering than that?

    Barbara K’s tools look useful. Not girly; but a lot of power drills are very heavy between the motor and the battery; putting the battery in a belt pouch is a pretty good idea. Even I have trouble using my Makita drill overhead for any extended period of time.

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