FOUR decades of feminism have shown that women are capable of crewing on the space shuttle, defeating chess grandmasters and fighting wars. Even that male bastion, the Augusta National Golf Club, is feeling the heat from barricade-storming women.

But when it comes to home repair, suddenly we're helpless, helpless, helpless, as Neil Young once sang. Men fix leaky faucets. Women stand by cluelessly holding the wrench thingy.

Enter a new wave of power women -- not those who want to be boardroom fixtures, but those obsessed with bathroom fixtures -- who are determined to teach other women more about home repair than just the seven digits of the super's telephone number. Designing tools especially for women, writing easy-to-read manuals and dispensing tips on Web sites, these Ms. Fix-Its seek to demystify, and even glamorize, home repair.

''There's definitely still a 'damsel in distress/knight in shining armor' mentality when it comes to women and home repair,'' said Allegra Bennett, the author of three home repair books, including ''When a Woman Takes an Ax to a Wall'' (Renovating Woman Books, 2002). ''We tend to want someone else to do the work in the house, but honestly, there's nothing more empowering than fixing something you were afraid of.''