Marginal Notes
i. Growing up, my father desperately tried to instill in me a fearlessness of things mechanical. If there were tools to be used, I was to be there learning these Extremely Valuable Life Lessons of tablesaw operation or how to change a flat tire or the art of roof reshingle-ry. As a child who clutched to proper femininity like my gender life raft, I hated it.
I don't regret my resistance because it makes sense. Because of my brother's death, I had a lot of anxiety about believing that everyone just thought of me as someone to take his place. I resented being pushed to do "boy things"- in my mind, it only solidified that my father was infinitely more interested in having his son back than in caring at all about the kid he still had. So when I resisted attempts to make me mechanically independent, at the same time as I was kind of buying into classic gender role assumptions, it was, I think more than that, a declaration about being who I wanted to be.
Nonetheless, these days there are times I wish I were a little more handy with an adjustable wrench. For instance, a few days ago when my bike broke down. Jonah fearlessly took the reins and set things straight for me while I sat on the curb making vague whimpering noises. He started talking about how internal hubs are stupid. I whimpered more. "What does internal hub even mean?"
The next day my bike broke again, and it occured to me that I would like to be the kind of girl who can fix her own damn bike! It's not about feeling like I'm holding women back 100 years if I don't know how to build a bookshelf or fix the bathroom plumbing or realign my rear wheel by myself, because I think there are plenty of reasons why girls particularly are fearful of doing those things. It's more a realization that I'm at a point where there's no reason not to learn if I want to. So I'm trying.
If nothing else, I can now say with certainty that internal hubs really are stupid.
ii. Know what else is stupid? Standardized testing. If lack of knowledge of bike terminology already didn't make me feel like enough of a moron, GRE preparation is always there to fill in. Despite having spent the first 17 years of my life as a veritable math genius, I have been able to answer approximately zero of the number-crunching practice problems so far. Admittedly though, the questions are fucking ridiculous, and everything seems like it is probably actually a trick. Here's an example:
Vertex Q of square OPQR is on a circle with the center O. If the area of the square is 8, what is the area of the circle?
Which essentially leaves me with two questions. 1. ARE YOU KIDDING ME? 2. I used to know this?!
I don't regret my resistance because it makes sense. Because of my brother's death, I had a lot of anxiety about believing that everyone just thought of me as someone to take his place. I resented being pushed to do "boy things"- in my mind, it only solidified that my father was infinitely more interested in having his son back than in caring at all about the kid he still had. So when I resisted attempts to make me mechanically independent, at the same time as I was kind of buying into classic gender role assumptions, it was, I think more than that, a declaration about being who I wanted to be.
Nonetheless, these days there are times I wish I were a little more handy with an adjustable wrench. For instance, a few days ago when my bike broke down. Jonah fearlessly took the reins and set things straight for me while I sat on the curb making vague whimpering noises. He started talking about how internal hubs are stupid. I whimpered more. "What does internal hub even mean?"
The next day my bike broke again, and it occured to me that I would like to be the kind of girl who can fix her own damn bike! It's not about feeling like I'm holding women back 100 years if I don't know how to build a bookshelf or fix the bathroom plumbing or realign my rear wheel by myself, because I think there are plenty of reasons why girls particularly are fearful of doing those things. It's more a realization that I'm at a point where there's no reason not to learn if I want to. So I'm trying.
If nothing else, I can now say with certainty that internal hubs really are stupid.
ii. Know what else is stupid? Standardized testing. If lack of knowledge of bike terminology already didn't make me feel like enough of a moron, GRE preparation is always there to fill in. Despite having spent the first 17 years of my life as a veritable math genius, I have been able to answer approximately zero of the number-crunching practice problems so far. Admittedly though, the questions are fucking ridiculous, and everything seems like it is probably actually a trick. Here's an example:
Vertex Q of square OPQR is on a circle with the center O. If the area of the square is 8, what is the area of the circle?
Which essentially leaves me with two questions. 1. ARE YOU KIDDING ME? 2. I used to know this?!