I have a habit of putting my leg up onto the chair I’m sitting on when I’m bored. Most of the time, I avoid doing it because I know it could damage my spine in the future. However, when my father sees me do this, he makes this noise as if to say, “how ugly”, and tells me that it isn’t “elegant” to sit that way. If he told me this for any other reason, I would understand, but his reasoning is that all woman and girls MUST be beautiful and elegant at all times, otherwise they are bad, and no one will like them. Another time, he asked me and my sister if one day we would like to go sky diving. I never enjoyed that kind of thing, and my sister is deathly afraid of heights, so we said no. He then proceeds to say that if he had a son, the son would say yes, as if woman are only timid, little, pretty creatures, and all men are brave and courageous. Until recently, when I watched the Everyday Sexism TED talk, I would disregard these comments. I do understand that I could be going through a lot worse, but I felt that I should still share my story.
