I Adore Being a Girl?

So, for my 200th post (w00t!) I would like to ask if the following scenario is kosher:

Today my friend & coworker Robbie and I went up to Austin HQ to gas up the Jeep we took to the Bryan district on Monday. Neither Robbie nor I had ever filled up gas at the shop before. I'd once seen our lead worker fill up at a district office, but that's it. And paperwork, you know, is a strange and confusing thing. Often several strange and confusing things!

So we get to the headquarters' shop facilities, and Robbie pauses briefly to puzzle out which side the gas tank is on, and says hey! What are we supposed to do now! Like I know. But I have a built-in advantage, in situations like these: a bad, terrible, awful, non-progressive, unfeminist advantage of which I am not sure whether I should be ashamed or proud (frankly, I get some mixed messages from society).

I walk into the HQ shop office, whose population consists entirely of two middle-aged grizzled guys, dimple adorably, and say, "Hi! I need to gas up a state vehicle and I've never done this before and I have no idea what I'm doing!"

And they take care of everything. They tell me what needs to be filled out, but still fill it out for me, before I even have a chance to do so myself (and I really wouldn't have had a problem with it, only wanted a little bit of pointing in the right direction).

Oh yeah, and Robbie pumps the gas. Not that I am implying that my feminine wiles work on him, since of course he knows me much too well for that. However, he did state that one reason he was anxious to bring me along on the excursion was so I could negotiate the unfamiliar paperwork without any awkwardness.

Is this bad? I was talking to a very progressive friend of mine about the incident this afternoon and wondering, does this mean I don't get to call myself a feminist anymore?

Because, you know, I don't think there's anything I can't do perfectly well for myself. My intelligence is certainly not in question. I am even good at lifting heavy objects (as is any woman who has a well-grown five-year-old). It's just that there are a lot of things that can get done for me without me even asking. I can just look a little uncertain and *poof!* something gets taken care of without any further effort on my part. And the ardent feminist within me cringes, and the girly girl with her legs crossed on my other shoulder, flirtatiously dangling a high-heeled shoe, says, well, honey, why not? (Especially if it involves firemen! Like when our recycling bin got stolen and I had to go to the fire station to ask for a new one! Ooooh, firemen! But I digress.)

As a younger woman I would probably have had a lot more of a problem with the incident, taken offense, and done these things for myself rather than risk reinforcing negative stereotypes about the overall competence of women; and now I'm more inclined to blow it off and take advantage of it. But as I said to my Progressive Friend (TM), I really am not sure if this means I've learned to accept and allow for the positive aspects of what I can't change about the world I live in, or whether it just means I've sold out. Or are those just one and the same?

Well, it's something to go "hmmm" over this weekend, at any rate.