Weakness: Is it Physical or Mental

Okay, here’s something I have a little theory on. Let me know what you think, I may be way out there on this one or dead on, I’m not sure.

So last week I went to the Staples store by my house to get some ink and paper. I decided to get one of those boxes of paper instead of just one packet. I hadn’t planned on getting the box when I went into the store, but they were having a sale. Anyway, I decided to get the box of paper, I’d say it weighted all of thirty pounds or so. When I walked up to the checkout line the cashier was very surprised that I carried the box by myself. He said usual a sales associate has to pick up the boxes, put them into the carts, and load them into vehicles for women.

At first I thought to myself, “what a sexist.” However, while driving home I realized that as far as I knew the cashier was not a sexist, he was merely stating a fact. The fact was that women who shopped at his store often demanded assistants in carrying a thirty pound box.

Now here’s my theory: Thirty pound is not that much. I wasn’t too much for me to carry through the store, and I certainly doubt it’s to much for the majority of able bodied women to lift into a shopping cart, and then into the trunk of their cars. Perhaps our society’s infantilizing views of women contributes to some women’s own views of themselves as weak.