Cute Pens For Us Girls!

[jetsam]

Remember that in the days of those big, fancy, glamorous, feminine, ultra skinny and delicate, white feather quills, there were NO masculine pens for men.

[pencils+pens]

Remember that in the days of those big, fancy, glamorous, feminine, ultra skinny and delicate, white feather quills, there were NO masculine pens for men.

That is because back then Real Men sharpened their fingernail with a pen knife, stuck their finger in the inkwell and wrote. Feathers ... they didn't need no stinkin' feathers.

[nana_kathy]

At the same time Sheaffer was marketing the Pen for Men, they were aslo making Ladies pens. There were several designs. Here are two of them. They have the triumph nib and are cartridge-C/C filled.

 

http://i262.photobucket.com/albums/ii101/matthewsno/DSCN0603_zps31fb0402.jpg

 

+1 for the Sheaffer Skripserts... These are great pens... and the triumph nib writes like a dream. Slim, elegant, very lady-like, but would you call then cute? Probably not... too sophisticated for that. My black and gold paisley is one of my all time favorite pens. Always gets attention and comments.

[Garageboy]

For the record, Rose shave creams aren't specifically for women, per se

Taylors of Bond St, George Trumpers etc all have a rose/violet cream

 

That said, I've noticed that a lot of the lighter colored (Pastel Blue, Peacock Blue) Sheaffer Snorkels have been engraved with female names. Does that make them feminine ?

[Loeschpapier]

For the record, Rose shave creams aren't specifically for women, per se

Taylors of Bond St, George Trumpers etc all have a rose/violet cream

 

That said, I've noticed that a lot of the lighter colored (Pastel Blue, Peacock Blue) Sheaffer Snorkels have been engraved with female names. Does that make them feminine ?

 

True, rose and oud used to be the manly domain and still are in Arabian perfumes and oils. And there are a ton of Western perfumes out there too that are marketed toward men and are rose based.

Perfumes used to be like fountain pens - gender neutral and many perfume classics were marketed toward men and even a unisex audience. Men powdered their wigs, wore tights, danced and recited poetry. Only fairly recently we ventered into the 'tough and rugged' male idea of what it means to be a man.

 

P.S.: I should have known better than to check out Engeika's storefront. I already ordered from him once and now my wallet is screaming at me to stop looking NOW.

Edited June 21, 2013 by Loeschpapier

[chiaroscuro]

For that matter I've not seen many GLBT fountain pens, or many African fountain pens either.

 

I was also hoping to find an FSM fountain pen, but it seems that I can only find Buddhist, Hindu, Christian, and Islamic themes.

 

Delta made some "Indigenous Peoples of the Earth" "commemorative" pens, or some such nonsense -- a travesty. If you find that FSM pen, let me know. Noodly appendages FTW

 

But yeah, to the OP, I like my pens "gender-fluid" (is that even a word?). (Ladys,Lady-s,Ladies,Chatelaine...etc) is part of my go-to search on the fleabay 'cuz I like my pens human sized. I'm not down with the warclub/scepter thing in my writing instruments, as I use them for writing and not for signalling financial fitness or clubbing people over head.

[dorothynotgale]

 

True, rose and oud used to be the manly domain and still are in Arabian perfumes and oils. And there are a ton of Western perfumes out there too that are marketed toward men and are rose based.

Perfumes used to be like fountain pens - gender neutral and many perfume classics were marketed toward men and even a unisex audience. Men powdered their wigs, wore tights, danced and recited poetry. Only fairly recently we ventered into the 'tough and rugged' male idea of what it means to be a man.

 

 

I have a couple of colognes designed as tie-ins to the Avengers movies (don't judge, please, I'm not usually big on merch but these smelled nice). They were designed to be unisex, and I really like wearing the Captain America and Iron Man themed ones. Unfortunately the spray nozzle on one broke.

 

I hope that the pendulum is swinging back, and that we'll see more products marketed this way. It's just practical.

[chiaroscuro]

PS - same reason I go for vintage watches. While wearing watches like our grandpas used to wear (cuz, again, they used them to tell time and not to signal wealth and fitness as a provider to the opposite/desired sex), you can actually --gasp-- close the buttons your sleeves and/or put on a jacket without having it hang awkwardly on top of a lump at your wrist. Today, 34-36mm in diameter, or even smaller, is considered strictly women's territory.

[terminal]

 

Delta made some "Indigenous Peoples of the Earth" "commemorative" pens, or some such nonsense -- a travesty. If you find that FSM pen, let me know. Noodly appendages FTW

 

But yeah, to the OP, I like my pens "gender-fluid" (is that even a word?). (Ladys,Lady-s,Ladies,Chatelaine...etc) is part of my go-to search on the fleabay 'cuz I like my pens human sized. I'm not down with the warclub/scepter thing in my writing instruments, as I use them for writing and not for signalling financial fitness or clubbing people over head.

 

I gave my Delta Indios a rather poor review, and I haven't changed my mind. So /agree.

 

Also, my daughter has a Pilot Cavalier, which I reviewed because I think it's a great deal. As I noted in my review, to my eye, the very things added to make the pen "feminine" only detract from the overall design. I also want to add that my daughters favorite pen in terms of looks, is my Pilot Limited Edition Custom Heritage 91 (read Custom 74 with flat ends) -- as can be seen in this review.

 

 

But what this thread is REALLY about is the fact that physical gender and gender identification have diverged radically in the past 50 years. Because gender self-identifacation has broadened so much and become such a sliding scale, it has left room for people to define their tastes more by whatever it is that is intrinsic to our minds and less by what society tells us. This is a good thing. So when someone says 'masculine' we must remember that this is a reference to a set of conditions that exist within our society to define a recent or current tradition (and when a person with a male physiology asks whether or not they can use a purple ink, it is a reference to these same conditions).

[inkstainedruth]

That is because back then Real Men sharpened their fingernail with a pen knife, stuck their finger in the inkwell and wrote. Feathers ... they didn't need no stinkin' feathers.

HAH!

Actually, the big foofy quill pen bit was kinda invented by the media (probably Hollywood). In reality, most of the feather part would be cut off the quill because it would just get in the way otherwise. I think I'd heard years ago that it helped balance the pen as you're writing with it; plus, I read somewhere recently that a small section would be left on the non-business end of a quill to effectively be a brush for the excess pounce, used to dry the ink in the days before blotter paper.

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

[ethernautrix]

I always thought dogs were boys and cats were girls. Later, I learned that it was the language that influenced me.

[TSherbs]

Actually, pink was the "boy" color and blue the "girl" color well into the 20th century. A 1918 baby book says, "...the generally accepted rule is pink for the boy and blue for the girl. The reason is that pink being a more decided and stronger color, is more suitable for the boy; while blue, which is more delicate and dainty is prettier for the girl." (Source: Prof. Jo Paoletti's website, Pink is for Boys)

 

Basically, it's just social norms, and mutable ones at that. Whichever colors are seen as "weaker" at any given time get assigned to women. Misogyny ahoy!.....

Interesting! I will check this link out, thanks! I wonder why the shift occurred back the other way....

[TSherbs]

A very interesting blog collection, thanks dorothynotgale.

[dorothynotgale]

Interesting! I will check this link out, thanks! I wonder why the shift occurred back the other way....

From what I recall, some experts think it had to do with a pair of paintings, The Blue Boy and Pinkie, touring the US. (The paintings had nothing much to do with one another; they were just paired because they looked pretty together.) Also, the particular source I quoted (the baby book) mentioned that pink dyes were getting softer and more attractive at the time of writing, thus becoming more "suitable" for girls.

[Antaresia]

I always thought dogs were boys and cats were girls. Later, I learned that it was the language that influenced me.

 

at least us English speakers have it easy, but I find a lot of gender "norms" to be arbitrary and imagined.

 

http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/culture-conscious/201209/masculine-or-feminine-and-why-it-matters

 

Same as the "pink is for girls" thing; we know it's not intuitive since it used to be the opposite. Yet everyone knows it as fact, and not to many guys I know wear pink...outside of the cycling community, but I still haven't figured that one out.

 

As far as pens go, models marketed towards women usually just depress me. The pelikan white&tortoise is at the top of my wish list, but I wouldn't say it's masculine or feminine either way. Nor do I think it would look better in pink, or feel better if it was smaller.

For the record, I do like pink.

But I'm not a cat person.

[amk]

I actually loathe slender pens, despite being a woman with quite small hands (one bassoonist I know picked up my hand, looked at it pityingly, and said, "Are you really sure you don't want to play the piccolo instead?"). Using a Sheaffer Targa is my personal definition of hell.

 

Why? crampy arthritic fingers. Something like a Laban Mento is just that much easier to write with.

[Newjelan]

I always thought dogs were boys and cats were girls. Later, I learned that it was the language that influenced me.

Me too and I can't use language as an excuse. I was just a little child!

[TSherbs]

From what I recall, some experts think it had to do with a pair of paintings, The Blue Boy and Pinkie, touring the US. (The paintings had nothing much to do with one another; they were just paired because they looked pretty together.) Also, the particular source I quoted (the baby book) mentioned that pink dyes were getting softer and more attractive at the time of writing, thus becoming more "suitable" for girls.

Wild.

 

We are such creatures of a system of marketing pressures. Makes me sad.

[N2theBreach]

Wild.

 

We are such creatures of a system of marketing pressures. Makes me sad.

 

I think it's more than just marketing pressure, although that's clearly part of it. Maybe you've heard of the concept of "socially created reality". I think it fits here. Essentially, as a group or as a society, we create our own reality. And we think that's just the way things are. Think of the phrase, "everybody knows that". Boys wear blue, girls wear pink. Everybody knows that.

 

The fork is held in the right hand with the tines pointing upwards and field hockey is a game for girls. Everybody knows that. Unless you live in the U.K. Then "nobody knows that," so to speak.

 

Conflict and confusion can occur when one person's, or society's socially created reality is different from another's. This can be especially true when concepts of reality are in the process of changing. Think of the women's liberation movement. The civil rights movement. And so on.

 

Which is a long way of saying that I think gender associations with pen designs are individual personal tastes mixed with perceptions driven by our own socially created reality. And concepts of gender are changing to become broader, so when we consider that there are so many people involved, the designer, the marketer, the shop keeper, the consumer, who could all be from different cultures, each with their own personal percepton of reality, it's a wonder any of us can find pens we like!

 

Having said all of that, I still don't want a slim, pink pen with little flowers all over it. They're for girls, everybody knows that!

Edited June 23, 2013 by N2theBreach

[Trebster]

If a company really wanted to sell a PFW (Pen for Women), they might include a pair of hair sticks turned from the same material as the pen.