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Women shop for clothes, instead of make them. Men do womens work because they have no idea what else to do.
Why should I have skill or enjoyment in sewing clothes or knitting just because I have a uterus? I've tried it, discovered I have little skill at it, and it's more cost effective and a better use for my time to not waste the fabric or hours it would take to build up basic competency.
As for "men's" and "women's" work, it's all rather silly to break it down on stereotypes rather than what the skills of the individuals involved are. My husband cooks dinner every night because he largely enjoys the task; I'm responsible for household bill management and accounting because I'm the one with an economics degree and a head for numbers.
Great posts...thanks. I worry about kids who aren't being taught common sense today...or exposed to the "culture of common sense."...How do you feel about it? Thanks....
Can common sense be taught?
IMO either you have it or you don't, just like intelligence, you're born with it or you're not.
Think about book smart people that don't have much common sense, it makes a case against common sense being something that can be learned.
However, lack of common sense is evident in rural America also.
Look at how many rural people fall for every " fad" in the regards to cattle and crops.
Look at how many people in rural America will quote articles from some " homesteader" who makes a living selling books rather than " practicing what he preaches"
Sadly, I have observed a decline in common sense in rural America also.
Marmac's been stealing my thoughts again Lots of farmers have gotten sucked into taking out big bank loans for new equipment, barns, etc, when agricultural times were good, Never mind the ostrich fads, the Siberian wild boar fad (we had them - my husband's decision, not mine, but I did think what harm could it do? Boy, was I wrong), the bison fad ruined a number of farmers around here when all of a sudden stock prices plummeted.
My father stuck to the tried and true - dairy, grain, and broilers, never putting all his eggs in one basket and fixing equipment rather than buying new even when other farmers thought him foolish for doing so. But as they say, he who laughs last, laughs best.
I would like to make one comment though, and that is the thought that perhaps the early pioneers had very little common sense if one defines common sense along the lines of "this is how we used to do it and so this is how we will always do it." Perhaps people without so much common sense are responsible in some degree, for society moving forward, in decisions to immigrate to the New World from the Old, or settling the West, in spite of all the difficulties involved.
I would like to make one comment though, and that is the thought that perhaps the early pioneers had very little common sense if one defines common sense along the lines of "this is how we used to do it and so this is how we will always do it."
I am not so sure about this. What I mean is, back then everyone homesteaded except for a very few in the most urban cities. Considering how rough, rocky and forest covered the terrain is here on the East Coast, I don't think they were headed west to try something novel, I think they were moving westward to do what they always did, just on land that was far more easier to work!
I think the most successful progressive thinkers are the ones that mix tried and proven products produced in novel ways. In your case, you are indeed right, the pioneers were successful because they used traditional crops on better soil to gain incredible yields.
As a sheep farmer, I see barns and management systems for sheep that are designed for the benefit of farmers instead of the benefit of sheep. Rather then try to create profit by going into some exotic breed of livestock like ostrich, emu's or spotted salamander eggs, I'll stick with the traditional sheep...a species that has done well on this farm for 253 years...but want to incorporate the needs of the sheep in mind first. Unfortunately the media and the general public like shock and awe so all you see is the more radical ideas that are unproven, but certainly a change from the traditional methods. You will never see the media report on designs for low carbon footprint barns, or barns that are being round that is for sure, even if these designs have the potential for greater productivity on a market that is already in existence. That is boring stuff right there, unless you are a sheep and are afraid of a sharp corner!
I think we learn common sense from our parents and adults in our life when we are growing up...When I was small and wanted to do things that my parents didn't feel was "wise for my age"...my parents carefully explained their views and thoughts to me...They told me the reasons "why" they didn't think it was "wise" for me to do something....I got into the swing of things myself as I grew older....When I wanted my parent's permission to do something or go someplace as a teenager I would get out a sheet of paper and make two side-by-side lists....On one side I would list my parent's possible objections....I knew them well and knew how they might feel ahead of time....On the other side of the paper I stated my case and rebuttal to my parent's possible objections....My parents were pleased with all of my work and forethought....We all sat down together to discuss my list and looked at things from all sides....Sometimes I was able to persuade them to let me do what I wanted because my ideas held "weight" in their eyes.....But at other times....their thoughts and feelings "won out" and carried more "weight" and "wisdom" at the time.
sounds like a good--common sense-- approach to me.
I think common sense is all about weighing the worth of new ideas...and continually examining long held ideas to see if they still have merit. How do you feel about it? Thanks.
Why should I have skill or enjoyment in sewing clothes or knitting just because I have a uterus? I've tried it, discovered I have little skill at it, and it's more cost effective and a better use for my time to not waste the fabric or hours it would take to build up basic competency.
As for "men's" and "women's" work, it's all rather silly to break it down on stereotypes rather than what the skills of the individuals involved are. My husband cooks dinner every night because he largely enjoys the task; I'm responsible for household bill management and accounting because I'm the one with an economics degree and a head for numbers.
Lady that won't work. I sew my own clothing myself, and for my wife who sews for me too. I generally do the leather working parts, but will make her dresses too.
She does traditional female rolls because she isn't very good at tradtional mens roles. Like splitting 5 cord+ of wood for winter, and or dropping trees, and or fixing the truck, van, car, and motorbikes, and or fixing the garden tiller, I traded a .22 rifle for, not running.
She does all she can though out in the garden, and again all she can helping me make maple sugar, plus she does the accounting, taxes, and other papers work we seem to have placed a Govt values on these days.
The point that women these days think of shopping as a skill set, and it really isn't.
And why would a woman want to toss 70 pound hay bales into the barn loft? Unless no man is around, i can't see why they would, as men hate that too.
We are still eatting last years home grown produce. All hard work, and 1/2 the crop failed due to rains and cold. But we got enough to go till next harvest. This is a discussion on rural living, and if you are a writter living rural and buying all your supplies whell that just makes you a tourist.
My wife is an artist and a good one as well as a writter, but she works in the garden hard like a man. The last time she went clothes shopping was in Sept 04. I know because that was a 13 hour ordeal and i was there.
She went from size 14 to to size 6 due in part because her uterus went missing, and i was there too. Probably I am the first male to have slept in materinity in that place ever.
She makes a lot of our medicines for wild plants and store bought vodka, so to me she is the doctor. We deal with little things like cuts needing a few sticthes, a broken bone with out all the fuss and muss of going 40 miles to the hospital.
We make 90% of what we have, the other 8% we buy used, the last 2% we buy new like fowl, meats and fish.
At X-Mass we bought 1 turkey new, 1 container of sour cream, and a can of cranberry because it won't grow here. Other wise everything else came from the land right here.
Oh my wife has another rural skill, shooting, and she can hunt deer too. In fact she can hunt, skin and butcher as well as i can, but we work it as a team. She can do that with a modern gun or a flintlock for that matter, so just which rural skills is it we don't need?
I'ld have ta' say we don't need shopping as a skill, wouldn't you agree?
marmac, that farmer giving up corn to feed his live stock? Just what did he feed cattle then with Dammon Yogert?
We call grass fed only cows here, Baloney Cows because they are all bulk but no real mass to them. You talk to the veterinarians, State, Federal or private livestock vets and they all tip toe around the topic of nutrition and grain, but as soon as they find out you use grain to feed your animals, it is like a weight is lifted on their shoulders and they get right into amounts they should have, and when to give it to them, etc.
Proper nutrition is complex and grain is just a tool that as a farmer I use to get the animals to thrive. There are times when my sheep have no grain in their diet (summer), but come this time of year when they are milking out twins, they get upwards of 2 pounds a day, simply because they need it and can't get enough hay into their small rumens.
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Marmac's been stealing my thoughts again 
Lots of farmers have gotten sucked into taking out big bank loans for new equipment, barns, etc, when agricultural times were good, Never mind the ostrich fads, the Siberian wild boar fad (we had them - my husband's decision, not mine, but I did think what harm could it do? Boy, was I wrong), the bison fad ruined a number of farmers around here when all of a sudden stock prices plummeted. 
