Well I am little physically, 5′ 1 1/2″ to be precise.
I don’t like being called short but small, petite and little are fine.
That is not the issue. It is far more sensitive than that.
Yesterday I mentioned to someone how much I have always wanted a certain type of stove, the one that warms the heart of the house.
They said something along the lines of “your husband will have a fit at the running costs”.
I groaned just typing that.
Why, is it assumed that I would not have a fit at the running costs, pay the running costs, be responsible for the running costs, finance the running costs?
We had friends to stay a while ago and took them on a petit tour and passed the hotel de ville. The lady said “Our husbands should buy us a place like that”.
Our car has been called my husbands car and our house has been called my husbands house. Even my businesses have been called my husbands businesses on quite a few occasions!
I once had a male printer who had made a complete hash of my brochure printing – they went from mainly blue through a few balanced coloured to mainly red and back again through thousands of brochures. It doesn’t matter what the brochures were showing really, bad printing is bad printing, but they were clothing so highly important that people saw correct colouring.
When I asked what he would do he said nothing, he didn’t need to see them and indicated I was making a big fuss and condescendingly suggested I had a little chat with my husband about it! Well, you can imagine.
Needless to say I (not my husband) did not pay him.
When I laughingly told my husband about yesterdays comment (it was by a lovely man who would probably be really embarrassed at how it sounded, or think I was ridiculous for taking it that way 😉 he asked me ‘Does it bother you from a significance or a sexual equality point of view?”.
Such a horribly and annoyingly reasonable question.
I do hate, after all these years in business, that being female can make you so insignificant in a business and financial world. I also dislike that I still care and need that significance.
I wish I could calmly rise above it and be content with my own knowledge of my achievements.
Or maybe I don’t. I want to be thought of as super woman, divine wife, perfect mother, great business woman and I want one of those oil guzzling stoves for ‘my’ kitchen.
Oh…
