Are any women out there interested in starting a DIY group where we can learn stuff with a professional? This has been my long held dream!

do please make yourselves known!

Yes, I am interested. Let me know if you have a DIY group?

Is this a women-only thing? Why are men excluded?

Men are not "excluded" it is just that they often have learnt ( through school and home , in our culture) very basic things that women have often not - so they would most likely find it boring or not useful

My feeling is that this kind of assumption, even though based on some majority’s reality, contributes to perpetuate genders’ cleavage (same with assumptions regarding other groups). How would a man without any technical or practical skill feel? Has he missed something in his education? Isn’t it the same as assuming that only men would be interested in cooking classes? I am looking forward to discuss this topic at next Café Philo about gender and identity. To quote Judith Butler, "anatomy does not constitute destiny".

Men don't always know this stuff( my husband didn't- but he could cook and iron really well) I agree. But women who feel pathetic in not being able to use basic DIY tools( and are sometimes ridiculed by guys for this) sometimes feel more comfortable in a group where they feel it is ok to be clueless.It is about creating a comfortable environment( large stores in the UK as well as OBI in CH have recognised this and offer DIY courses for women.) Personally, I would not exclude a man from such a course - he would be very welcome. But it would be interesting to see how many men would sign up for a course of this nature.

judith Butler's point is at the root of how it comes about that women are often helpless in the DIY field - boys are encouraged from an early age to engage in this type of activity and it is assumed to be part of their world. When I was at school, boys did woodwork and metal work but girls did not as it was not on offer. Result - a lack of basic knowledge that makes some women very reliant on men for help. I don't like this either - but it is just the way it is because of how our society views gender.

off to do some cleaning now( which I WAS taught how to do :-)

I agree with most of your point but it's the assumption and generalisation that makes me uncomfortable. As I said, although it represents the reality of some majority, it perpetuates cleavage. On a practical stand point, if an activity is addressed to women because they are the majority who need to learn practical skills, there are chances it discourages the few men who would like to learn too to sign up.

Anyway, I leave you to the point of this thread now as I am happy enough with my technical skills... my father who is an excellent cook taught me how to change a wheel, use a hammer and quite a few other useful things.

great idea, i would love to join you! women-only or mixed, whatever. if you are planning anything, could you put me on your mailing list?

you mean like "get a repair man" or "cleaning lady" . these gender specific terms are expressed daily and unconsciously uphold and promote the pre-conceived idea that only men or women are destined for these types of jobs. 

Don't want to enter into the gender discussion... I'm a scientist and guy... HEY IT ISN'T MY FAULT!

No, seriously, I want to say that you should not assume that guys who like DIY things (such as myself) would be necessarily bored to share with people who know less. In fact, I think it is quite a pleasure to share these skills, equally (and often more rewarding) to those without specific training. In my opinion, what is more frustrating is that in general we live in a world where instead of learning to fix things, we just throw them away, and instead of learning more about technology, most people just rely on it and complain when it doesn't work. I think many people with technological background might agree with me, it's not the lack of technical knowledge that is frustrating, but rather the lack of a desire to ask questions and appreciate it further. I mean come on... don't you think it's fun for us to show off our pet accelerator or cosmic ray detector!!!

For sure, there's a lot of knowledge to acquire in the DIY world, but what I've found is that the main thing that leads to learning is curiosity and the desire to simply try! Once you go down that path, many DIY projects (which usually require some basic physics, mechanics, electronics, etc) are MUCH less difficult than you initially thought they were before diving in. Nowadays the wealth of information you can find on youtube is incredible and besides, technology was made by people and made to be understood. Try understanding astology, in my opinion, THAT is more difficult precisly because it is NOT scientific!  

Anyways, I think your idea, Jennifer, is great and it's really cool to see the enthusiastic replies to this initiative. Go girls! DIY!

To add, I think it would be helpful for you all to begin defining exactly what DIY projects you would like to get into? Any thoughts? This will determine what tools you will need. For example, if you wanna learn to change your oil, brake pads, etc in your favorite VW Golf with over 300k kms (just an example eh?) it's helpful to have access to a car lift which obviously not everyone has. If you want to fool with electronics you just need some screwdrivers, a multi-meter and probably a soldering iron (maybe 50 CHF total). If you wanna fool around with software you just need a PC, something nearly everyone has anyways.

And just to add some fuel to your enthusiasm and to illustrate how wasteful our society is here are two examples of how very little DIY knowledge can go far. I recently found a JVC amplifier on the street in GVA, trashed cause was 'broken'. It took me about 5 minutes to fix, mainly the time to remove the screws and look inside. Incredible! All that was required was to tighten the screw on the main volume potentiometer. Another example, the wire of the charged of a friend's mac broke, to replace she was told 80CHFs... took about 15 min to re-solder the connections and add shrink-wrap to make it pretty. ;-) Works perfectly.

DIY rules!

Sorry! Buzzcocks gets credit for the idea to start the DIY group! In fact, we've ignored Jennifer's original post: to share DIY projects!

Ok I will: I want to build a simple cheap handheld radiation detector that yuppie hippies from my home town can carry around with them to test everything and anything they come across. Since there is so much mis-information about the Fukushima disaster (huge radioactive clouds will soon hit the Pacific NorthWest, sushi is not safe to eat!!! Oh my God! It's a GIANT F-in' squid washed up on the beach!!!) i figure I will get rich quick. And if not, I will at least educate people in realizing just how often we are being irradiated from natural sources, like from the Earth and from Space.

I will share my project. I installed a cat flap, sort of. In doing so I broke a jigsaw blade and resorted to using a drill instead, then a file to 'join the dots'. Once the hole was finished, I chose to glue the cat flap to the wood, as I wasn't confident to align the saw holes either side of the door.

To conclude, the cats can now enter and exit, though the two way lock is non-functional.

Intersering story, eh

David W - you're very impressive & knowledgeable, but I'm not sure you're on the "same page" as the others .

I'm only slightly more advanced than "Amy and the Cat Flap" - as I actually managed to screw mine to the door, rather than glue.  But I did do the whole "join the dots with a drill" thing as I didn't have aa jigsaw. 

Polyfilla - the greatest invention known to mankind (David W will disagree, I expect!) but when using it, always overfill and keep a wet "j-cloth" handy (don't know the Swiss word, but these blue, striped, semi-disposable kitchen clothes that come on a roll).  

Once you've filled the gap and scraped off the excess (a credit card works well!), smooth it over with a wet cloth to get a lovely smooth finish.

Sorted 

Hey guys! Thanks for you participation. I hope we will make a great learning platform together with so much fun. Cheers!

The only way to learn DIY is to actually have a specific project, have some idea what you want the end product to look like, have some idea of the materials you may "want" to use and what materials you actually "can" use, then its a question of whether you cut it or break it, file it or chip it, nail it or scew it !  (no punn intended, eh)

A few tools will help but that is stage 2;  Stage 1 is just knowing what you want to do.  It may actually be interesting to know that many guys are equally or more daffed than women when it comes to DIY, plus they (women) have more patience and common sense (probably from cooking, sewing, and . . . . just kidding).

Good luck and maybe one day you'll graduate to a buzz saw !

Carolyn: don't be so sure! ;-) I love polyfilla, except when you drop it by mistake and it punctures and starts foaming everywhere like a crazy drunken alien. No, actually that's pretty cool too, but a waste of a perfectly useful product.

Seriously now (if that's possible) any DIY project is a success as long as you achieve ANY of the following 1. learn something by doing it, 2. have fun while doing it, and 3. actually get whatever you set out to do working. I stress that you need only ANY of these... many things I've tried don't work at all, but it's always worth it to try! And any DIY project is a good one. I think the kitty door is great!

Anyways, agreed. I was probably not on the same page. Nothing intended by it though, I'm just passionate about DIY I guess and it got me ranting!!  

Hey Poster: this summer I graduated to a chainsaw and band saw mill. Waoooo that was fun!

Well, I must be atypical , having very little patience or common sense. So far, I have put up a shelf in a cupboard- with permanent slant.Then trying to replace the frame around a socket , i ****ed up the whole thing and had to get an electrician friend  to come over and sort it out.Since then, I always ask friends to do things for me( some of them female and very capable) but am fed up of this and want to be less dependent on others.

OBI have courses for women ( and maybe for men too) but they are only once a year and last year I was not free to go.

Does anyone know of any other organisation that runs courses for the clueless?

Hornbach

Needs a car :-(