I was pretty baffled at what happened to me the other morning, outside of my house on Brookside Drive…

My boyfriend and I had the hoods of our cars up in preparation to check their oil and add windshield washer fluid. I thought this was very normal.

I told my boyfriend to hold the washer fluid cap up from the car because it continued to fall down, making me unable to fill it myself without a struggle as I was holding the full gallon of fluid. I slowly began to pour the fluid into the correct tube, knowing that if I filled it up slowly, I wouldn’t make a mess or need a funnel.

A couple riding their bicycles past us, down my suburban neighborhood street, caught me off guard. The man riding his bicycle said something I didn’t catch to the woman he was riding with. My boyfriend asked me if I heard what he said , and I said no, because I don’t tend to worry about, or pay attention to, what other people say. And anyway, I was trying to focus on not spilling the windshield washer fluid. Apparently, this man said to the woman riding with him, “Wow, that guy [my boyfriend] is really making her [me] work on the cars”.

To be honest, this offended me. I equated this to him saying that all women are incompetent.

I needed to do something to my car to increase its performance and figured we would check out both cars since they were parked right next to each other and we had a few free minutes. I had the idea to do this since we had extra fluid laying around. I did not ask, or tell, my boyfriend to do these two easy tasks for me. I acted on my own and asked my boyfriend to help me so I didn’t spill the fluid. He did not make me work on the cars in any way.

For that matter, I am an adult. Whether someone is a man or a woman or somewhere in between, I believe a person should be able to look under the hood of their own damn car and have some idea of what they are looking at. I believe any responsible automobile owner should know how to check up on their car in such ways.

Don’t get me wrong; I would love to live a life of luxury and have my numerous maids do all my dirty work for me, including looking under the hood of my car. Unfortunately, as an average middle-class American citizen, I do not have such a luxury.

I understand that some men are gentleman and would offer to do the work. And it’s okay to be kind and offer to help sometimes. However, I do not believe that my boyfriend always doing the work for me, ultimately making me unsure of how to perform such basic tasks, would be beneficial in the long run. I feel I am much more lucky that my boyfriend and I are on more of an even playing field. That we split the tasks and the work evenly, while not expecting one person to have a certain specific task over the other.

Are we so self-consumed and stuck-up that we cannot do anything for ourselves anymore? Do we expect everyone else to do our work for us? Why can’t women get dirty? Why is it that this man assumed my boyfriend was making me do the work? And why is it a bad thing that I was doing the work and he was just helping me?

Why am I expected to be incompetent as a woman?

I will tell you right now that a woman should want to be far from incompetent.

You should not be afraid of being a capable human. Having independence should not be a luxury, but a necessity. Why is it that understanding basic necessities seem to be so foreign to some?

When it snows, I clean the snow off my car.

When I get a flat tire, I am confident that I have the skills to change my own tire.

When I am walking to my car at night by myself, I am not scared and can be assured, having taken many self-defense classes, that I am physically able to defend myself should the need arise.

To my fellow women, and men:

If you are afraid or unsure of something, you should make the necessary changes to benefit yourself. If you think you are small and frail and unable to defend yourself, take up self-defense classes. You do not need to be a big person to know how to fight.

If you don’t know how to check the oil in your car, ask someone who does, but then ask them to show you how to do it. It does not take a rocket scientist to work under the hood of a car.

If you don’t know something, ask someone or do your research (Hello Google).

If you are afraid of something, do exactly what you are afraid of.

Be brave enough to make changes to your life.

Be brave enough to better yourself.