SAMPLE SHORT ESSAY
Title: Girlhood and Chores
1.
I know for sure it was this moment that made me realize what it meant, to some extent, to be a girl, different from my older brother, but only in so far as my role in the family was concerned. I must have been eight or nine years old, and I realized that even when my Kuya was closer to the remote control or the ashtray that Papa needed, instead of asking my brother to give it to him, Papa would ask me to do it. I later on found that it was because I was the girl, and for whatever reason, between my brother and me, I was the one who was expected to do this. Maybe because I’d do it without complaining? Maybe, too, because I was the younger child.
2.
This would fuel a sense of rebellion in me, a sense that I was getting the shorter end of the stick, giving me reason to believe that I had a right to resist or defy what was expected of me. It didn’t happen at that age of course, and neither did it happen soon after (I really was quite the obedient daughter haha). Instead it happened slowly and surely, given age and maturity, given a lot of reading; and given a mother who balanced things out, not just by making sure my brother had his own set of chores and errands, but also by talking to me, answering my questions, processing this difference in treatment I was growing into. This time is crucial for having made me aware of how other girls and women were treated in their homes, how different our families might be, but also how similar. It opened my eyes to the truth that while I was different from my brother based on gender, where love and attention were concerned, we both got it equally. That balance was key, where we didn’t have the same chores, but had the same amount of work we needed to do for the home. Where often enough I would think that he must have thought he was the one getting the shorter end of the stick.
3.
I realized too that it wasn’t that I was being picked on, as it was that girls can get stuck in certain roles and expectations, and that’s not necessarily always because of the men in our lives. After all, while Cinderella was cleaning that huge house, it wasn’t a man who was telling her to do so; it was her evil stepmother and stepsisters who were ordering her to. In that sense my story is not just about how being female dictated the chores I had or the roles I was expected to play. It was also about the truth that other women will be the ones to expect and demand these of other women. And the only way I will not turn into that evil stepsister, is if I know to see that Cinderella, and all other girls and women, are more than their chores and responsibilities in the home, because they are more than the roles that they are being made to fulfill. ***
