A few weeks ago, a rather inconvenient thing happened to me – my tire went flat as I was driving my friends home at night. Now, this is hardly a life-threatening situation, and even the inconvenience of changing a tire is marginal at most.
However, the episode turned into something of a saga. You see, I don’t know how to change a flat. I’ve been shown once or twice, but the method never really stuck, and even if I did know the technicalities, in practice I doubt I would succeed, given my lack of upper-body strength and inability to lift heavy things.
The two friends I was with also didn’t know how to change a flat, so we did the logical thing and called NRMA – that is, after all, why I pay for Roadside Assistance. Being a Friday night, they were quite busy, and it took a couple of hours to reach them on the phone and longer for them to get there. Then there were some complications with my spare, and by the end of it, I didn’t get home until 3am.
The next day, I was telling some friends about the episode, and they scoffed at me, claiming, ‘What kind of feminist are you? You can’t even change a tire.’
I’m sorry, I wasn’t aware that one of the prerequisites to believing in equality between men and women was that I had to learn how to perform various mechanical tasks. Strange how they don’t tell you that in Feminism 101.
The logic behind this statement was that I had somehow sold out my feminist ideals by having to call someone, who was a man, as it turned out, to fix my car tire. If I were really an independent woman, I would have done it by myself.
This kind of thought is incredibly frustrating to me. It comes directly from the school of thought that if a woman ever, under any circumstances, required a man’s assistance, she is admitting to being inferior to men in some way, or ‘needing’ men for her survival. The only way to have equality, then, is to have and do it all for yourself, to not only prescribe to traditional female roles, but also to attempt to emulate traditional male roles as well.
Now, don’t get me wrong. I am in no way claiming that changing a tire is a ‘man’s job’, or that women shouldn’t be expected to learn their way around their own cars. As a responsible driver, I probably should learn to change my own tire, if only so that I can be assured of my own safety at all times. But being a woman or a feminist has nothing to do with it at all.
Feminism, to me, is not about being women or men – in fact, that’s what it is precisely not about. It’s about eradicating gender-based discrimination, and realizing that individuals are different, regardless of what genitalia they possess; that being a man or being a woman means nothing in particular when it comes to strengths and abilities, and that women come in all different shapes, sizes and capabilities.
I may be the kind of person who can’t change their own car tire, but I can do plenty of other things. That’s why I pay for NRMA, with the money that I earn independently of any other person, man or woman.
Asking for help, or acknowledging your weaknesses is not anti-feminist in any way. I often can’t open bottles and jars at work, and generally have to ask someone to do it for me. That doesn’t mean that I’m assuming the role of a weak, helpless female – I physically can’t do some tasks, but am able to help in other ways. And there’s nothing wrong with that.
Being a feminist doesn’t mean that I have to be invincible, and it certainly doesn’t mean that I need to take on every traditionally male task in order to prove that I’m not inferior to men.
Being a feminist means having the liberty to be who I am, and have the opportunity to do things that I want to do, preferably without judgement.
Maybe I’ll learn how to change a tire one day, but I’m in no rush. Luckily for me, there are many other people who have those skills, who I can look to for assistance. And I don’t think that’s anything to be ashamed of!
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