I am treated
Like a useless little girl.
I'm sure a lot of women are.
For example,
When I was little,
I wanted to learn how to carve wood.
I asked my father for a pocket knife.
He told me,
"No. You are too little and fragile.
You might hurt yourself."
I agreed. I was small.
But my brother,
Three years younger,
Asked the same a few months later.
And he got what he wanted.

And then,
Years later,
My brother did the same.
He was told by our mother
To chop ice in the winter.
I knew he wasn't strong enough.
He isn't athletic or strong
As I am.

I asked to do it while he did my assigned chore.
Dishes.
A "woman's chore."
My brother,
My younger,
Smaller,
Weaker brother
Said to me
"Its a big job.
I think I should do it.
You are a girl, after all."
He went and came back.
whining that it was too difficult.

I went and got it done.
Without breaking a sweat.
And then he blamed me for being sexist
And rubbing it in that i was stronger,
When I never said a word.
I just sat,
Clicking my T.V. remote.

I thought about all of the other times,
Countless times in my life when I was treated like this
My most all men in my family.

Really?
I'm the sexist one?