In the New Yorker...

[serious crayons]

The contemporaneous king of France was Louis XIV. Macaulay calls him "Lewis."

Interesting, because the French would have a good excuse for pronouncing Louis Lou-EE, as in faits accomplis.

[Jeff Wrangler]

I enjoyed Amy Davidson Sorkin on the books about Lady Bird Johnson and Nancy Reagan, particularly the section on the book about Nancy.

[Front-Ranger]

That issue was a little strange, almost like the women's tech issue, especially the last part. I enjoyed the home ec article and the one about First Ladies, more than I expected to. Also, the Margaret Atwood piece was good. I expected not to like it but I was drawn in.

I'm intrigued by the movie reviews of "Voyager" and "Monday". I'd like to see them both.

[serious crayons]

I've been reading Margaret Talbot's article about home-economics education. Really interesting! It started as a way for women to be scientists, and they took the job seriously. Home economists created a lot of things we're familiar with, like (IIRC) the food pyramid. But then it became somewhat discredited, because why shouldn't women get to be scientists in other areas? That's what I've read so far.


 

[Jeff Wrangler]

They did invent the food pyramid. I did not know that.

I think I'd be better off today, and my home certainly would be, if I'd been able to learn some of the things they taught in home ec.

[serious crayons]

They did invent the food pyramid. I did not know that.

I think I'd be better off today, and my home certainly would be, if I'd been able to learn some of the things they taught in home ec.

I think the food pyramid was one of the things -- there was a whole list, many of them surprising.

Here's what you missed in home ec: I learned how to make a dirndl skirt and how to make a root-beer float with ice cream and root beer from scratch. I did do a little sewing for a while until I realized that every time I would make some irreversible mistake that would wreck the garment, so I gave up. I have made ice cream a few other times,  but never root beer.  I can't say either I or my home now shows much benefit.

I could say the same for shop class. I haven't made a shelf since.

[Jeff Wrangler]

I think the food pyramid was one of the things -- there was a whole list, many of them surprising.

Here's what you missed in home ec: I learned how to make a dirndl skirt and how to make a root-beer float with ice cream and root beer from scratch. I did do a little sewing for a while until I realized that every time I would make some irreversible mistake that would wreck the garment, so I gave up. I have made ice cream a few other times,  but never root beer.  I can't say either I or my home now shows much benefit.

I could say the same for shop class. I haven't made a shelf since.

Well, I wouldn't need to make a dirndl, but I'm sure know some gay men who would benefit from that knowledge.    I'd probably be better at sewing on buttons if I'd had any sewing instruction.

I made a very nice wooden box in shop class--I mean sort of like a jewelry box. I use it to hold souvenir pins and buttons. When I was in college I made a very sturdy wooden bookrack to fit my dorm desk. That's still in use, too.

Didn't they teach you to cook anything other than a root beer float?

We had a hand-crank ice cream freezer. It made really good ice cream. Then my mother insisted we needed an electric-powered ice cream freezer. My dad and I didn't want it--we were the ones who cranked the freezer, not my mother--but she got her way on this. It didn't make as good ice cream as the hand-crank freezer.

[serious crayons]

I'd probably be better at sewing on buttons if I'd had any sewing instruction.

Didn't they teach you to cook anything other than a root beer float?

We had a hand-crank ice cream freezer. It made really good ice cream. Then my mother insisted we needed an electric-powered ice cream freezer. My dad and I didn't want it--we were the ones who cranked the freezer, not my mother--but she got her way on this. It didn't make as good ice cream as the hand-crank freezer.

Buttons are extremely easy to sew on, though kind of a bother and I never seem to get around to it. They're practically the way you'd think from looking at them. There are a couple of other little tricks but a YouTube tutorial or even a 10-step written list would make you an expert in no time.

You'd think we would have made other dishes in food home ec, but for some reason I can't think of any.

As for ice cream, I'm with you on hand-cranked being the best. My family had that when I was a kid. In the years since, I've received as gifts a couple of the kind whose liners you put in the freezer, but never gotten very good results. Once I took my kids to a park-board class where we learned to make ice cream in small tubs set in the snow. I tried it again at one of their birthday parties; it works pretty well.

 

[Front-Ranger]

In the article it talks about a hostile cabal of girls who sat in the back and sniggered, led by a girl named Shari. I remember that well. I also remember a kind of pressure, like, "in your other classes, you're learning nice things, but this is your real class, where you'll learn to be in your place and stay there." I hated it, in short.

There was a false sense of science and seriousness, where you had to write down on a worksheet the precise measurements of whatever you were making.

The worst thing that happened was in sewing. We were making a skirt. A straight skirt rather than a dirndl. I had mistakenly sewn the sides of the back together rather than the center seam, so the seam was more curved than it should be. My teacher showed it to another woman who happened to be there and said, "Why, it looks like it's for a dark girl." I was so embarrassed and ashamed for my teacher. I inherently knew that what she said was demeaning and wrong.

[serious crayons]

 

Whoa! Whether because of the locale or the year, I never got those vibes in home ec. Students of either gender took home ec and/or shop, although i can't remember what was or wasn't required, but I never felt any gender pressure. At home, my dad always told me I should become a lawyer and my mom had a career in advertising, so it never occurred to me that home ec skills were my destiny. Yes, the classes were somewhat gender-identified but either gender could take either and/or both and I basically thought of them as learning to make root-beer floats and shelves.

"A dark girl"!! Wow. I don't remember a teacher saying anything like that. I would have been pretty shocked.