Sexism at its Best!

This past week there has been a lot of talk in almost everyone of my classes about the idea of sexism, and it got me thinking

about an experience I had back in high school I guess you could call it my own personal experience with sexism. It was back

during my junior year of high school and I had run out of electives to take other than to take one of the shop classes the

school offered. Now the shop classes at my school were set up like this, all the students were broken up into groups each

group was assigned a big project whether it be to build the whole set for the school play or weld parts of the school

back together or there was rebuilding a whole car from the ground up. I was one of the lucky ones who was put into the group

that had to rebuild the entire car and then I was even more in luck when my entire group was made up of guys (not). Now if

being in a group as the only female wasn't enough I had to hear on a daily basis how I couldn't handle the tools or touch any of

the parts because I was a girl, that right they went there and pulled the girls know nothing about cars crap. Everyday I would

walk into class and go to my station and everyday one of the guy in my group would come up and take my part away from me

and say things like don't worry about it we'll take care of. One of the guys in my group even had the audacity to say that cars

were not "women's" work and if I wanted to help maybe I could I just clean off the work stations. I had never

felt so disrespected in my life, it was such a bad feeling to think that just because I was a girl they didn't think I was competent

to work right along side of them and I think what was worse was that the teacher knew all of this was going on and I was told

later after the class was over that the teacher has told one of my group members that the whole reason I was put on that project

is because he knew that the guys would do all the work and then he would just give me the A because he didn't wanna hassle

with any questions a girl might have about the car. I think that was the first and really the only time I have ever

experienced blatant sexism but you can bet that I will always remember that...But what I think I will probably remember the most

is when I came back to school after Christmas break that year with a completely rebuilt classic and the video that me and my

girlfriend taped of us helping rebuild that entire car and you can bet it kicked ass when they put up against the one that the

guys in my group has built in shop class!