Rock, hammer, jackhammer

Okay, I'll have to get back to fashion in another post since I've barely scraped the surface of that topic.  I feel like shifting gears and talking about some fun stuff.  TOOLS! 

Time to get real here, ladies--men generally have more upper body strength than women.  Yeah, I said it--because it's true.  Case in point: how many times have we handed a pickle or peanut butter jar over to a nearby boyfriend/brother/dad with the assumption that the damn thing is about to be shown who's boss?  Half of the time, they get the lid off instantly and hand it back to you casually with that annoying little smirk.  The other half of the time, they ream on it and grunt, giving you those 15 seconds of glorious vindication before vanquishing their stubborn opponent and handing it back to you with a little more humility (if they know what's good for them, that is).  Bottom line is, they always get the jar open!  Sure, yeah, you can tell yourself you loosened it.  But I propose there are several other factors working in their favor, not the least of which is the male ego.  What are they gonna do?  Hand it to a burly next door neighbor?  Put it down in defeat and declare that it is just stuck for good?  HELL NO!  They have something to prove here, and frankly I'll be happy to let them do it (I want my pickle!).  They also have larger hands (the better for gripping with, my dear) and extra strength in their forearms (the better for turning with, my dear).

Art by james@verbotomy.com

So there you have it: in the area of upper body strength (from twisting off lids, to picking up heavy things, to adding pressure to a drill while screwing in a cabinet) there is a distinct male advantage.  And for a long time, it was an arduous physical struggle for a female carpenter to prove herself.  She may have had the brains, the skills, the gumption, and even the thick skin--but, if she just didn't have enough strength to apply to a heavy hand drill (imagine those big old manual beasts your grandfather had hanging on his garage wall), she simply couldn't cut it as a carpenter.  I imagine the men might have "voted her off the island", or she may have left by her own free will, disappointed but convinced that it just wasn't meant to be.

But here's what's changed for the modern female carpenter: now we have power tools!  Those old hand crank drills are history--or at least, they are sequestered to a life of being old-timey decorations.  Welcome to the age of the Lightweight 18 Volt Lithium Ion Battery Impact Driver, ladies.  Simply make sure the bit stays in the screw head and pull the trigger and it practically does the job for you, applying tiny hammers of force to the screw to assure it goes in as deep as you need (deeper if you're not careful).  Seriously--if you have the right type of screws and you do exert a bit of pressure, you can get away with driving a 3" screw through a cabinet, all the way into a 2x4 stud, without pre-drilling, above your head because the thing only weighs like 3 pounds.  And yes, the drill version of this same model will make some nice deep holes in very dense wood.  If you can't tell, I seriously LOVE these tools.

This drill and impact driver are definitely my most beloved power tools.

And it doesn't end there.  Chop saws and table saws are relatively new to the on-site woodworker, and these days they have better motors than ever.  So long as you have sharp blades, you can cut through dense, thick wood with just a little finesse (force will actually work against you in many cases).  One story credits a woman named Tabitha Babbit for inventing the first circular saw after watching two men try to cut through a log with a two handled saw--she noticed that half of their motion was wasted and came up with the idea of a spinning disk, always moving toward the cut and never backwards.  She was a Shaker, so never sought legal credit.

Talk about patience.  Can you imagine sawing through a whole tree with one of these things?

The list goes on and on.  If you are having trouble cutting through a metal rod with a hack saw, consider the mighty porta-band.  If you are having trouble making a cutout in a cabinet with a japanese hand saw, consider a jig saw or a multi-master.  If it's taking forever to cut a 2x4 in half with a manual saw, just use a circular saw.  If you are tired of swinging a hammer, use a pneumatic nail gun and let the compressed air do the work for you.  This is not to say that hand tools are obsolete.  Honestly, if I was given the choice of having either all of my power tools or all of my hand tools with me, I'd probably prefer the hand tools for most jobs.  But, power tools do help level the playing field between me and the men I work with.  I mean, I already come home sore as it is, I can't imagine how it would be if I didn't have access to all that electro-magnetic torque.

For those who are unfamiliar, this is a porta-band.  It cuts through metal like it's butter.  Seriously.

There is no doubt about it.  Power tools have really helped to make carpentry a feasible career for females.  Social change is another "tool" that is certainly on our side.  At this point, I think one of the less obvious things keeping us out of the field is just our own narrow dreaming.  As a young girl, I had really never considered carpentry as a career.  Not because I dismissed it, but because it didn't occur to me.  So I think what's working to our advantage these days are all these new reality shows on cable networks that depict women using power tools to build houses and furniture right before our eyes.  While it's true that they may be cast for sex appeal, the happy side benefit is that they can serve as role models for young women, helping them understand that they really can succeed at some nontraditional roles in society.  But that's a topic for another day...