Rant

Those of you who know me, know that I am not a feminist. My women's studies teacher (a required course at my women's college) gave me a card at the end of the semester that said she was worried at first to have a "Mormon woman" in her class, but that she appreciated my outlook, and gave me a book about how feminism is for everyone. I never read it. I believe that women deserve equal rights to men, equal pay for equal work, and all that jazz, but not if they are not willing to work for it. I think that is the ultimate downfall to the feminist movement. Women say "We are equal" and then turn around and say "I can't use a drill. That's a tool!"
What on earth brought on this rant? At work, we finally replaced the old industrial-style unused toilet paper holders with regular ones that we can actually use. When I say we, I mean me. Someone else came up with the idea, but it naturally fell to my shoulders as office manager to see that it happened. Yes, I could have foisted it on the "facilities manager" but let's be honest, he is a busy guy, especially with the party coming up, and it takes him a while on a good week to get stuff done. So I just said to myself "You know what, this requires a drill, a level, and a screwdriver. You have done harder things at 3am, covered in mosquito bites, wishing you were in bed, knowing that bed would not be visited long enough before you have to get up and do this again. You can totally do this." So I did. I had 3 different people (all women) tell me to find someone else (implied: a man) to do it for me. I kept asking why. One of the girls said “cause you’re a girl and you’re wearing a skirt and you have a baby in your belly.” The whole baby thing might get in the way later on, but right now, it’s not a problem. Having “a man” do it is one of my serious pet peeves. Maybe it is my upbringing, having a single mom who had to do those things, or my schooling, being one of 2 (serious) female techs my first year at school, and being expected to do exactly what the boys did, but it drives me nuts when women pull that "oh I'm a girl I can't card".
There was one girl that I thought I was going to kill at Boji one summer. She was basically a spoiled rich princess who had been taught to have men do the hard stuff and she just had to look pretty. So anytime she was given something more difficult than painting or holding something as an assignment, she latched onto one of the guys so that she wouldn't have to do any actual work. Our TD tried valiantly to get her to actually work, but in the end, it was just easier to give her the easy jobs, because then he didn't lose one of the people who would actually work. She was not the only one with this outlook, but was definitely the worst.
Even though I am not a feminist, I do believe that women have immense strength and can do things that most wont or think they cant. So it makes me really nuts when people say “get a man.” I am not opposed to one human asking for another human’s help. I went grocery shopping for work and it was terribly hot and humid and just awful. Even though I usually carry the groceries by myself unless I run into someone who offers to help, this time, I went upstairs and asked for help. I didn’t go upstairs to get “the guys”, I went upstairs because that was where the greater concentration of people were, and thus the most opportunity for help. But I wonder, did some of the guys think I was just a pregnant lady getting the guys help for an otherwise easy job? I don’t know, and don’t know that I care too much. But that is my rant for the day.