Letter to the Editor
Posted October 7, 2009 at 9:59 pm in Opinion
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As a former Boy Scout and new engineer, I found the Sept. 30 article “Do-it-yourself projects leave many dangling,” although humorous and arguably meaningful, to be mildly discourteous to do-it-yourselfers in general and even more aggressively abusive to those of us with Y chromosomes — graphic images and penis jokes aside.
To say that we attempt to complete projects ourselves simply out of stinginess or out of sheer bravado or “pig-headed”-ness — as Laura puts it — is to discount the entire motive behind problem-solving and hobbies as a whole. It is not in the fact of having something but rather in the act of producing it that we gain satisfaction. We achieve a greater understanding of the selected topic as well a sense of success/pride/accomplishment/importance. Now, it may all sound like posturing, but from a male perspective, it’s with articles such as this one that incessantly promote the ideological stigma associated with the macho “male ego,” and with the steady advance of technology, that men begin to feel a sense of debasement and perhaps even in some dark cases: inadequacy.
Do-it-yourself projects provide a simple and safe solution (usually). I mean, if you ask me, we could all use a little confidence boost here and there, even if it comes at the cost of expedience.
Although I disagree with some of the messages of your article, I enjoyed reading it, so keep writing about fun topics. This comes as a response and not a critique. You can insult IKEA for lack of manual oversight and the penis enlargement industry as a whole, but leave me the beds and the hobbies.
Jacob Copman
Freshman, mechanical engineering
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