I'm a professional graphic designer and I take great offence at the suggestion that these women are doing what I do . . . that they are "geniuses" and "excelling in art" even without formal training. There's a LOT more to it than collage-ing a bunch of random junk onto a page.

I don't have any genius, far from it, but I have seen genius on RARE occassions and what these ladies are doing with their ribbons and colour coordination ain't even close.

If women want to be seen as smart, they should start developing REAL skills in a REAL craft, and stop wasting their time with pre-fabricated "hobbies."

And I bet she gets just as frustrated as I do when she gets projects she has to "fix up" (read "start completely from scratch and work on it ALL NIGHT") because they were first given to the receptionist because she has "flair" (ie funky earrings) or the boss' 14-year-old niece "because she's really smart with that photoshop stuff" (ie facebook) . . . "I thought SHE could do what YOU do and I don't have to pay her anything!" GAAAAAAHHH!!!

Our hard-earned professional skills are degraded when they are equated with childish and amateur time-fillers like ready-made "crafts" promoted by the scrapbooking industry. Messing around with scrapbooking junk is NOT what we learn in a graduate design program!

If women have time and money for scrapbooking, they have time and money to LEARN HOW TO DO SOMETHING WELL—it doesn't even matter what it is.

I will be the first to admit you don't need to be a genius to be a graphic designer, but I bet those "genius" scrapbooking ladies wouldn't have the first clue about information design, typographic hierarchy, setting up a complex multi-page document etc.,

I just said I'm no genius—but geez, I have spent a tremendous amount of time—and still spend hours and hours of time— attempting to learn the stuff I NEED TO KNOW for my job. I don't just cover my ears and go "hmm hmm hmmm" everytime someone explains some crucial piece of information. But the women often do just that—literally—and run into the same problems again and again and again . . .

It's exasperating that WOMEN are the ones who hold themselves back instead of making the effort to excel at things, and then blame men for being misogynist and not taking them seriously. They focus on trivial stuff and complain that their "traditional domestic realm" is not given the same weight as something like medicine or engineering or law or. This whole scrapbooking fad just feeds into that.

If women want to document their families and children, why don't they put the effort into learning the actual skill of PHOTOGRAPHY or DRAWING instead of gluing ribbons down with plastic letters?

If you knew me, Allie, you would know that I am the biggest fan and advocate of creativity and craft. But I mean REAL skilled craft like bookbinding, woodworking, metal, clay, glass, etc. — NOT those damn pipe-cleaner-and-glued-on-eyeball-toilet-paper-cover "crafts" that ladies in Nova Scotia do for 6 months of the year so they can collect UI in the winter.

Women should be out there LEARNING stuff, EXCELLING at stuff—all kinds of stuff: artistic, scientific, musical, literary, business—but they should be doing it for REAL.

And Lilacmom, I apologize for singling you out in my last rant—my dislike of scrapbooking runs deep, and I should not have directed it towards you.

Just, whatever you do, please don't call it "design."

I did NOT make any of those comments about twinkies or pajamas or people's weight or anything else you attributed to me in your opening paragraph.

. . . EXCEPT the "ditsy gal" comment . . . which I feel I am perfectly within my rights to make. (It's hardly the worst epithet that has been used on this forum.)

As a female, I have no patience for "ditsy gals" as there are far too many of them out there. I expect women to use their FULL intellectual capacities (which are IMMENSE by the way) not play the bimbo. And I emphasize "PLAY" because 9 times out of 10 it's an ACT that some women still feel they have to put on. And it doesn't help the rest of us who get lumped in with them.

You can call me an impatient or frustrated bitch if it makes you feel better, but I must insist that you refrain from calling me a misogynist.