No, I don't want to Do-It-Herself Home Depot
When I was 16 and looking for a summer job, I applied to work at the Home Depot. When I was 17 and looking for a summer job, I applied to work at the Home Depot. If you can catch the pattern, you'll be able to guess that I applied there every summer until about sophomore year of college.
Why? Because I wanted to be a handy, independent woman.
I wanted to know how to use a power drill. I wanted to cut boards in half. I wanted to wear a little fanny pack with a hammer an nails. I wanted to make stuff. I wanted to paint things.
Unfortunately, Home Depot never called or emailed. They didn't want me, most likely because I didn't know any of those skills, so I'd be rather useless in-store.
Fastforward to me working (not at Home Depot) and listening to Spotify. I hear a Home Depot ad, so I immediately tune in. I've always had a soft spot for them, and now that I'm a homeowner, I might need something from them.
What I hear next appalls me. It was an ad for Do-It-Herself classes. Not to be too trigger happy on my judgement, I click through the ad. What landing page did I find myself on? None other than a registration page for a Do-It-Herself on how to make a cupcake tray.
I repeat: a Do-It-Herself for a building a cupcake tray
Excuse me, can someone confirm what year it is? Did I find myself in 1950? Not only do women get segregated classes, but it's a class to help us make a cupcake tray so that we can have dinner and dessert prepared for when our husbands come home after a hard day of work? I am typing carefully to avoid touching the piles of vomit I've spit up. Because this must be a sick joke.
But wait, there's more.
I'm getting a little trigger happy again. It's been a few months since I heard the ad, so they deserve another shot. I can't be too mean to my first-job love. Maybe that was in 2016 and now in 2017 we'll get a real class for us women-folk.
How about a concrete serving tray? You know, for once we're done making dinner and the hubs is too tired to stand up from the sofa to dine in the dining room. We can use this swell tray to carry food over to him, maybe hold it the whole time and wipe his face with a napkin once he's done.
Phew, Home Depot Do-It-Herself is going to help make me into the perfect housewife! Hopefully they'll have pink hammers for my dainty hands!
Puke. Puke. Puke.
I own my own damn house, and Home Depot wants to help me build a serving tray. Why don't I deserve to learn how to install a backsplash or mount a ceiling fan or really any skill that isn't for Betty the Homemaker?
I did some light Googling to see if there was an answer, and Home Depot suggests that the Do-It-Herself classes help women feel less intimidated about home improvement projects. OF COURSE THEY DO. IT'S NOT A HOME IMPROVEMENT BUILDING A CUPCAKE HOLDER.
Sorry about the caps, but I just can't accept this bullshit.
Doing home improvement is intimidating. There's a lot that can go wrong, and there's a lot of steps you can fuck up. But that's not a gender specific problem, just like cupcake trays. Instead of applying the Do-It-Herself label to any bitch project, why not just call them Do-It-Yourself projects and people will understand that building a cupcake tray isn't on the same technical level of assembling a raised garden bed?
If the Home Depot really has its heart set on having pinked out lady classes, why can't we at least get real classes? You know, legitimately helpful classes for those of us who don't have aspirations of serving cupcakes on trays? I'd still rather we just cut the shit and have DIY classes, and if women are intimidated then they clearly don't care about learning enough? The division is lame.
I mean come on, didn't we learn separate but equal isn't equal?