http://www.israellycool.com/2005/03/14/where-are-the-women/ Down Under Punditry in the Middle East Mon, 01 Dec 2008 23:43:27 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.6.5 http://www.israellycool.com/2005/03/14/where-are-the-women/#comment-3019 Anonymous Mon, 14 Mar 2005 19:09:00 +0000 http://www.israellycool.com/2005/03/14/where-are-the-women/#comment-3019 Give me a break. I mean I'm a feminist, but lets be honest here, I can put together a kinder egg toy. I shall never forget when I bought my bed, from IKEA, actually. My first year of university. Ex boyfriend gone, father deceased, brother abroad. My flatmate was a girl. We had no idea what to do. The instructions might has well have been in Chinese. We tried for hours. We nearly sabotaged the parts. All we could say was WHY don't we have a MAN here?? Then I reached the conclusion (somehow), that the parts didn't fit together, and that I needed a saw. Luckily, there happened to be a carpenter working on the roof that day. I didn't know him at all. I went and asked him if he could lend me a saw, since I was "trying to assemble a bed". I saw the look of despair in my eyes, and said he'd come have a look. He ended up putting the whole thing together for me. The following year I tried to put a deskchair together. Even that turned out to be too complicated. I'm not an imbecile. I've written excellent essays in several languages. But furniture? Forget it, it's a man's job, whether the president of Norway likes it or not. Give me a break. I mean I’m a feminist, but lets be honest here, I can put together a kinder egg toy. I shall never forget when I bought my bed, from IKEA, actually. My first year of university. Ex boyfriend gone, father deceased, brother abroad. My flatmate was a girl. We had no idea what to do. The instructions might has well have been in Chinese. We tried for hours. We nearly sabotaged the parts. All we could say was WHY don’t we have a MAN here?? Then I reached the conclusion (somehow), that the parts didn’t fit together, and that I needed a saw. Luckily, there happened to be a carpenter working on the roof that day. I didn’t know him at all. I went and asked him if he could lend me a saw, since I was “trying to assemble a bed”. I saw the look of despair in my eyes, and said he’d come have a look. He ended up putting the whole thing together for me. The following year I tried to put a deskchair together. Even that turned out to be too complicated. I’m not an imbecile. I’ve written excellent essays in several languages. But furniture? Forget it, it’s a man’s job, whether the president of Norway likes it or not.

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