Time capsule, redux? No way!
I was brought up as a Southern girl during an era of black patent leather shoes, poodle skirts, bouffant hairdo’s (OMG, the hairspray!), and home economics. Home Ec, as it was fondly (and not so fondly) called, was a high school requirement, an eponymous symbol for many things female during that bygone era. If in possession of a females’s two X chromosomes, oh wow, you couldn’t graduate and pursue higher education without the “art and science of home management.”
Uh huh…..
And, boys? Boys, with both X and Y chromosomes, were assigned to Shop, “home repair and craftsmanship, useful skills that could potentially be parlayed into a career.”
Uh huh….
Fortunately, I was blessed with an assertive mother during my high school years. She persuaded the educational overseers that my participation in High School forensics, instead of Home Ec, would do no lasting damage to my double X chromosomes.
There it was, clear as day. A culturally perceived handicap due to my female chromosomal makeup. Gifted with 2 X chromosomes, but alas, no male Y chromosomes, this female could not take Shop. (No research appears to support negative impacts of a female’s XX chromosomes on her capable use of a hammer and nails.)
Handicapped by this social prejudice regarding my chromosomal make-up and tool use, I hit an educational wall. Ergo, most life skills under the rubric of Shop were punted into my daunting red zone of “I can’t do that!” A decade or two past my own experience, a High School female’s two X chromosomes no longer seemed to need protection from all-things Shop. Sigh.
As time passed, my intimidation regarding building and technology skills held fast. My default mode consisted of: I’m intimidated by all things building and technical (cuz “I’m a girl”); and I’m gonna call someone else to do it for me! That second one was a consistent winner through the years until….
….this pandemic thing came along. Due to social isolation, all avenues for outside help dried up. A solo voyage began. I figured “what the heck!” and reframed Shop-like conundrums as play time, imbued with my newly-found, non-judgmental, curiosity. The spice of curiosity offered me just enough derring do to explore previously dreaded Shop challenges. My long-internalized dictum of “I can’t do this” was given a one-way ticket to Disneyland.
My computer quandries? Nipping right along with those, as well. Try this. Yep, that worked! On to the next snarl. Each success bolstered the confidence of my, formerly, Technology-intimidated XX chromosomes. Neighbors began asking me, of all people, for computer software assistance. Me!
My double X chromosomes were standing up straighter than ever they had before. And that old, incessant, mantra of mine, “I can’t do this because I’m a girl,“ grew quite a significant backbone. (Smile.)
Lessons learned? Curiosity and the spirit of fun became safe paths to problem solving. (I mean, really, why not have fun, even if I fail?) However, the biggest driver was, and is: run like crazy from any cultural shibboleths that paint you as less than you actually are. (You aren’t!)
YES!