My hips don't lie

In December, my aunt and I were having a conversation about taxes and I said that I was planning to do my own and then have my dad check them over. I've been doing my own taxes since I graduated from college. I first started using the workbooks and worksheets and have since gone on to software. I equate the process to how you have to learn how to add and subtract on paper before you move on to the calculator. During the course of our conversation, I mentioned to my aunt I was compiling a list of things every woman should know.

A lot of the things we came up with seem self-explanatory but it's amazing to me how many women will flinch from doing them or even learning how to do it. Knowledge, I think, is just as important as experience. I know the process of how to change oil in a car but that doesn't mean I'm going to change the oil in my car. It simply means I know what the mechanic ought to be doing and how to check his work and make sure that he did install a new oil filter. It's nice to have someone else to depend on who knows how to do some of these things or to pay someone else to do the work, but it's not always possible or affordable. Plus, I think there's a special kind of pride that comes with independence, the knowledge you can depend on yourself no matter what.

Most of the things we came up with fall into typical male gender roles -- finances (taxes, investing in the stock market), car related (Jump-starting a car, changing a tire, putting air into a tire) or yard work a(mowing the lawn). Those are the big ones in my mind because so often I hear other women telling me they leave those kinds of things to their significant others. I hate to be a downer, ladies, but what happens when the SO is no longer around? Women outlive men and tragedy is not the time to start learning some of these things that we traditionally delegate because it's not what we women traditionally do.