Anonymous

I have anxiety and about a year ago I fell into a place of lonliness and lack of motivation to do anything. Some morning I could barely bring myself to wake up in the morning let alone leave the house. My dad was saying that I couldn’t stay like this forever. Then he said something I never imagined someone like him would say. He told me I am lucky that I am his daughter and not his son because otherwise he would make me leave the house and would pressure me to do things because these are skills a man needs for when he leaves home to get a job as ‘men are the bread winners’.
I didn’t think much of it at the time but now I often ask myself when looking back at it “Why do you think I am less worthy of a job or of social skills because I am a woman?” or “Why would you treat me differently if I was a boy because of a social construct from 60 years ago?”
I know this isn’t anything serious but this is one of the first things that comes to mind when I think of sexism. I was 14 when this happened. I was 14 when I was told I don’t need to experience the outside world because I’m not a man. I was 14 when I was lead to believe that a housewife is all I’ll ever be.