Because I'm A Girl

I will make one thing clear to my readers; I am a feminist. By feminist, I believe more of the social equality than the political ones. The politics are too messy for me to get into in this post, considering the whole equal pay, drafting, maternity leave stuff. Maybe I will clarify my opinion on those in another post in the future. But right now, I want to write an entry on my stance on social equality of the sexes. My belief in social equality of the sexes stem from my mom being an outright sexist. She constantly forces me to do favor for her by using the excuse that I am a “girl” and that girls are supposed to do certain things for their mothers and family. Meanwhile, I use my mind’s eye to look into the other room at my brother who is just sitting in his bed all day playing games on his computer (and I do say all those things literally). In my mind, so many thoughts are racing and making me want to scream at my mom. Now this is the part where I sound like an ungrateful daughter, but I so long to ask her to explain to me why it is that those chores or favors she needs me to do require my female sex organs. However, I must refrain myself from doing such because I am respectful enough not to retaliate such harsh words at my mother and I do not speak Chinese well enough to be able to translate that for my mother.

Ever since my Woman’s Gender Studies class at Hunter College, it made me question my mom’s unfair mentality even further. Why is it that even though I am studying a double major in Film Studies and English, am maintaining a 3.7 GPA, have been on the Dean’s List at both Hunter College and Queens College ever since I enrolled in college, graduated high school with a Regents Honors diploma, and have worked at 3 jobs so not to need to ask my parents for money ever since high school senior year, am I still expected to devote so much time and effort to my mother’s expectations of me as a “dutiful daughter”? Meanwhile, my brother didn’t do so well in high school, graduated Hunter College without a ceremony, and have never held a job, is not expected anything in terms of family responsibilities. It just really irks me how society treats men and women so unequally.

But it’s not only the old generation that do this. Even in the modern generation that seek to equalize the rights of men and women, there are still sexist expectations. Women still complain about having to be subservient to men, meanwhile they expect men to pay for dates and to hold the doors for them. My stance is that if women want equality, they have to accept the bad with the good, just like everything else in this world.

Fun Fact: The Equal Rights Amendment was not adopted to the United States Constitution because many women feared losing the legal protection of the law that guarantees them custodial rights of children in the cases of divorce and exemption from military drafts.