Ijeoma A writes about what the expectations were of her for being a girl, namely, the Four Commandments: Her office is the kitchen, she is responsible for all the chores in the home, She is accountable for the children and their actions, And, of course, she must pledge complete and total allegiance to the man in charge first, before herself.
This made me think; these expectations were never overtly asked of me, however, I feel they were often implied. For example, I wasn’t asked to clean more than my brother, but I was expected to “be cleaner”. The general feeling I had was that although no one was telling me I had to live up to the roles that centuries of reinforced societal sexism carved out for me, it would be weird or I would risk feeling embarrassed if I didn’t.
I find that the recurring theme of norms for girls involve acts of submission, however, I find that the most common norm demanded from women and girls is more of an emotional submission. Girls are asked to be “sensitive” to men’s emotions, to put their needs to the side for those of men, and to take on the role of therapist and expect very little back in return.
Keep it up with the tweet screenshots please, this one is a fave
I’ve spent way too many of my formative developmental years on twitter to not cite it as if it were a scholarly source lol