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AIBU?

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Original poster

Can you call yourself a feminist if you can't do flat-pack furniture? (semi light-hearted)

93 replies

thepeopleversuswork · 29/12/2020 19:14

That's it really.

Lone-parent, completely financially self-sufficient, earn a reasonable salary, manage all my own household finances, keep my house in order, do a (generally) OK job of bringing my DD up and very happy as I am. I've always taken pride in not needing to have a bloke around for everything.

The flaw in my armour is I can't do DIY to save my life, other than most basic stuff: home maintenance/changing plugs and lightbulbs/basic screwdriver work. The idea of DIY simultaneously bores me stupid and terrifies me: if I see an Ikea flatpack assembly manual it brings me out in a cold sweat and even if I apply myself to it I literally cannot grasp what needs to be done. To my shame I end up asking either my boyfriend or a more practically-minded girlfriend to help or paying someone else to do it.

Does this make me a complete sell-out or is it OK to just be shit at some "male" jobs? For a long time I've shrugged it off but now feel vaguely embarrassed that I can't do these basic jobs. Trouble is I have very little spare time and find it so uninteresting I can't bring myself to be arsed.

OP posts:
SarahAndQuack · 30/12/2020 01:35

@Stripesnomore

What has not being average got to do with it? Obviously some people can’t do it just as some people can’t walk or see.

But for the average person it is just a matter of confidence. Some people have been undermined, made to feel useless, made to feel it is some arcane art. It is not however an essential life skill. You can get by just fine in life without ever buying flat pack.

Confused

Erm ... you are the person who mentioned an 'average' seven year old?

You tell me who it has to do with being 'average'?!

Stripesnomore · 30/12/2020 01:57

Sorry, I don’t understand what point you are making. I am talking about an average person in terms of cognitive skills not a person with any kind of additional cognitive challenges.

Just as if someone referred to an average person in terms of lung function I would know they didn’t mean me, an asthmatic.

TeenPlusTwenties · 30/12/2020 07:07

@Stripesnomore

Putting together flat pack furniture has nothing to do with feminism and very little to do with spatial awareness. An average seven year old could put together flat pack. It is just big lego. It is really just a confidence thing.
An average 7yo might be able to put together flatpack (though they would struggle with the weight). However your assertion it has little to do with spatial awareness is I think totally incorrect. Turning 2D instructions into 3D reality is very much a spatial awareness issue.
HazelWong · 30/12/2020 07:17

I suddenly found it easier when I stopped trying to understand how it should look, how it all fit together and just followed the instructions precisely and step by step. I am still slow but I can do it.

That said, I have lately discovered that you can pay someone via TaskRabbit to do it for you and it's brill

PinkPlantCase · 30/12/2020 07:47

I’m disabled but with very good spatial awareness. I am forever frustrated that I can only ‘project manage’ our DIY and flat pack escapades.

You’ll be alright OP, I’m a feminist but I can’t carry my own bag Grin let alone assemble a bookcase.

ZaraW · 30/12/2020 09:40

YANBU. I can afford someone to do it for me who does a better job and in a lot less time. I have zero interest in DIY.

speakout · 30/12/2020 09:42

You can learn, it's not hard, I have built a lot of stuff over the years.

I find it boring though and I can't be arsed. and if there is someone else around that is keen they are welcome to do it for me.

Royalbloo · 30/12/2020 09:45

Love a flat pack and now there are loads of videos online which show you step my step

lyralalala · 30/12/2020 09:51

Building flat pack is absolutely to do with spatial awareness. That’s why it’s something many people can’t just learn how to do

It’s not un-feminist to not be good at something, unless you directly link your lack of penis to that ability.

funtimefrank · 30/12/2020 10:03

Like another poster I can put it together but can't tighten it up as I'm not very strong.

I come from a long line of very competent female diy-ers, gardeners and generally highly practical women. I am not one - much more the bookish type.

I am married to a very practical person (son, brother and grandson of electricians and painter decorators) who is good at that stuff. However he is only an ok cook whereas I am good and he isn't great at the admin side of stuff. This accidentally falls in traditional gender lines but isn't by design. He tidies and child rears more than me and I am the breadwinner. We outsource what we can't do well.

We play to our individual strengths.

SoupDragon · 30/12/2020 10:08

It has nothing to do with special awareness - that is about knowing where you are and where the things around you are. That's no help whatsoever with building flat pack.

3D visualisation and logic are what matters.

SoupDragon · 30/12/2020 10:09

Spacial awareness. FFS

SoupDragon · 30/12/2020 10:09

Spatial... I give up 🤦🏻‍♀️

Iknowwhatudidlastsummer · 30/12/2020 10:15

No better feminist example than showing your kids a woman comfortable with delegating and who doesn't need to martyr herself doing anything they don't enjoy.

Cooking/craft/gardening/DIY/flat pack are great hobbies for those who enjoy them or a great way to earn a living for those willing.

A complete waste of time and life for those who don't.

Original poster
thepeopleversuswork · 30/12/2020 10:17

3D visualisation and logic then. This is my weakest area intellectually. I'm very very bad at this. I could get lost in my own back garden.

stripesnomore is right that its partly a confidence thing; no one in my immediate family has ever been any good at this so literally the first person I ever met who could do it was my ex husband (so that wasn't a good confidence lesson).

I also find it so boring it makes my head hurt and I think of the other things I could be doing with the time.

My boyfriend, bless him, has now committed himself to supporting me get better with this sort of thing as he's convinced that its a confidence issue and I need to find my flatpack "mojo". I just don't have the heart to tell him I would rather die than find my flatpack mojo. Grin

OP posts:
Original poster
thepeopleversuswork · 30/12/2020 10:18

Iknowwhatudidlastsummer

"No better feminist example than showing your kids a woman comfortable with delegating and who doesn't need to martyr herself doing anything they don't enjoy."

That's exactly what I've always told myself but other feminists have pulled me up on this saying if I rely on someone else to do this stuff I cant ever be fully self-sufficient.

OP posts:
VictoriasCousin · 30/12/2020 10:23

Nobody can be good at everything. We are not meant to be islands. We are meant to scare our skillset with one another. There's no shame in paying somebody to do a job they would do easily but you would find hard, it's showing you value their abilities Male or female to do a job you find hard. Would it be un feminist to hire a gardener or a child care provider or cleaner or an accountant? Complete independence is not feminism, it's not the same thing.

VictoriasCousin · 30/12/2020 10:24

Feminists don't need to be fully self sufficient. Nobody is fully self sufficient anyway, we live in a social world

Stripesnomore · 30/12/2020 10:24

You don’t need to be fully self sufficient to be a feminist!

And even if you did, just don’t buy anything flat pack and then you are self sufficient.

Iknowwhatudidlastsummer · 30/12/2020 10:25

That's exactly what I've always told myself but other feminists have pulled me up on this saying if I rely on someone else to do this stuff I cant ever be fully self-sufficient.

that's exactly how women end up slaving in the kitchen and ruining their Christmas, end up doing menial jobs because they haven't got the guts to lead a team, and are slave of house chores.

Unless these so-called feminists are living completely off-grid, I bet they are nowhere near as "fully self-sufficient" as they pretend Grin

Don't feel bad! Just replace I can't but I can't be arsed!

Just look at the state of properties whose previous owner fancied themselves as a DIY King and who made an awful mess of everything. DIY has nothing to do with sex or gender!

midgeghost · 30/12/2020 10:29

No one in this country is fully self sufficient.
Did they chop and season the wood that they used to build their house using an ax they made in a forge they built from minerals that they mined?

Original poster
thepeopleversuswork · 30/12/2020 10:34

@VictoriasCousin

Nobody can be good at everything. We are not meant to be islands. We are meant to scare our skillset with one another. There's no shame in paying somebody to do a job they would do easily but you would find hard, it's showing you value their abilities Male or female to do a job you find hard. Would it be un feminist to hire a gardener or a child care provider or cleaner or an accountant? Complete independence is not feminism, it's not the same thing.
Yeah I totally get that. Whoever posted about project management is right too: its definitely not feminist to get hugely bogged down in something dull because you feel you should be able to do it for your family's sake.

Maybe its not really a feminism point: its a point about the emphasis on some parts of your brain at the expense of others. So for example I work with language and I'm good with writing and communication. I'm not mathematically inclined and I'm dreadful with spatial awareness (or 3D or whatever we're calling it here). For 20 years I've waved this off and said "not my thing, not bothering with this".

Increasingly I now wonder if that's a self-limiting belief which is sort of harmful: because I'm both scared of and uninterested in this I have put it in a box marked "not my problem guv". While at a day to day level my inability to do flatpack clearly isn't a threat to my survival, it worries me that I've let this part of my brain atrophy a bit and that this is actually limiting my ability to live optimally. And in turn in my ability to teach self-sufficiency to my DD.

Definitely a first world problem but its something I've thought about a lot recently!

OP posts:
VictoriasCousin · 30/12/2020 10:35

Flat pack furniture is not actually necessary for anybody. And if buying a piece of beautifully crafted furniture makes you un feminist because you should be an accomplished craftsmen in all areas then there really are no feminists.

Feminism for me means when I outsource jobs I don't beat myself with a shit stick. Pay for child care so I can clean the house? Good outsourcing. Hire a cleaner? Good outsourcing. My body doesn't need to do the job. That's what men have been doing for millennia.

cuppycakey · 30/12/2020 10:36

I am very much a proud feminist but due to dyspraxia there is no way I can even sew on a button, let alone do flat pack Shock

Like you, the thought of it makes me feel quite ill.

Notthecarwashagain · 30/12/2020 10:36

Shapes make no sense to me at all. Flatpack is a massive challenge!
I'll try my best, but if I can't do it, then I can't do it.

Recently I carried a tumble drier by myself to my mum's car, loaded it in, and then at the other end 2 men unloaded it and carried it- so despite my flatpack issues, I still feel like a pretty strong woman Grin