It pretty much saddens me to realize how something as innocent as gift wrapping could be sexist.

I was doing what I normally do during Christmas break: lying in bed while watching a movie (Coraline was my movie of choice for that day) when my aunt called me and my other cousins to go out to help her with something.

When we got out of the room we were amazed and shocked to find heaps of toys everywhere yet to be giftwrapped, even with just 2 days left til Christmas. This was how the assignments went: Beryl was the human tape dispenser; and me and Audrey were the gift wrappers (as in people who wrap the gift not the gift wrapper as in the wrapper paper object). 

Anyway, we pretty much sucked at it as we never really had any formal gift wrapping training aside from those stupid Christmas projects in school which were one-time things. And we never really had the chance to wrap things at home because... Well mostly because our parents didn't want us to meddle with their stuff and destroy them 'cause we were rowdy kids who couldn't do anything right. 

So let's just say that that was pretty much the first time we had to really wrap a gift.

Our aunt found us laughable and ignorant and maybe even stupid for not knowing how to wrap. It felt like gift wrapping was this skill you HAD to know and be good at just because. It was like gift wrapping was supposed to be something natural or innate just... Because. But I guess we just weren't blessed enough by the gift wrapping gods.

5 minutes into our gift wrapping racket, we found out those gifts were my aunt's husband's gifts for his godchildren. I unconsciously commented:

I pondered over what I said and then I remembered. I remembered the countless times I accompanied my mom to buy gifts for people, not just her gifts but my FATHER'S gifts. I remembered helping her wrap each one of them (tho I was just the human tape dispenser back then) for my father. My aunt told us how she learned about gift wrapping because of the many times she had to help my grandmother wrap gifts back when they were younger. They weren't even just joint couple gifts; there were individual gifts too. Then I looked around me and realized - we were all women.

Why are we the ones cursed to wrap gifts? It's because the MEN can't be bothered to buy and wrap their OWN gifts. Why is it so difficult for men to stop letting women do their shit and actually step up and do their own gift wrapping shit? 

Why are they born in life believing that they are superior human beings just because they own a penis? Why can't they be bothered to do something as simple and easy (yes it's actually pretty easy) as gift wrapping? 

My grandfather cannot be bothered to gift wrap. My father as well. And my brother, at this rate, won't probably ever have to wrap his own gifts too in the future.

So they will never, ever learn the art of giftwrapping. But it's okay, because they'll get married and have wives who'll do stuff for them, even wrap their gifts FOR THEM because that's what wives do right? Right?

After that incident, I had a headache and excused myself from giftwrapping duties, told my brother to freaking help, and vowed to myself that I will never buy or wrap gifts for my future spouse. 

It's a doggy dog world, man.

-K :)