To the man who told me I’d make a good wife for some man someday,
I smiled at you. I never should have smiled. To this day that smile lays stale on my lips. You knew nothing about me to make this sort of judgment; you would not have even known my name had it not been for the badge on my chest. I took your words like a compliment until I turned my back from you. Until I realized what you were saying. You knew nothing of me except for the brief image you had of me with my head bowed as I quietly swept the floor and politely smiled at customers. Your comment was an insult to me and to what I have to offer.
I wonder if you have a wife. I can’t imagine what it would be like if sweeping the floor was the key to a good marriage. Is that all she means to you? I wonder if you have a daughter. Do her passions and interests matter to you? Is a life of quietly performing chores to please a husband all you want for her?
You won’t remember this moment, but I will. There are people in my life who attempt to justify and explain away sexism. There are people who I care about who tell me it doesn’t really exist and that things aren’t so bad because after all, we’ve made progress. While I’m grateful for the progress we’ve made, I’m not quite as happy to know that we still live in a time where you would feel this is all a female is worth. It bothers me that the men sitting by you then smiled, nodding their heads and offering their own remarks about my cleaning. We may have made progress, but we still have a long way to go.
To the man who told me I’d make a good wife for a man someday, I know that if I ever get married that I will be the best wife I can be. I will not; however, be a “good wife” because I can sweep the floor, but instead because of how I can love. While I am open to the idea of being married some day, there are many women who are not. A woman’s value is not dependent on being married someday or on cleaning. I hope that in the future you will be more thoughtful of your comments. I hope you will give more respect to the women in your life. I hope that this occurrence was a temporary lack of judgment and not your true mindset.