We were all excited yesterday, because the propane people were supposed to come hook up the hot tub and fire pit, since our swimming pool is just a large water dish right now.
We love our water dish.
Let’s start with good news. The guy from DIRECTV showed up and stood the satellite dish back up so we can see television. He was unable to do anything about getting things set up so we can put a set in my office, because we have the COVID in the house. But, now he knows what we need, so he’ll be prepared in case we ever get the all-clear to participate in society again. This disease can make some people so sick. It’s horrible. Yes, that was the good news.
Standing tall again.
The rest of the stuff for the day did not go well for anyone involved. First, the pool company sent a young fellow out to “fix” our fire pit, because it apparently needed ventilation holes that they didn’t know about before. They’d started it last week, but not gotten very far.
Early in the drilling process
So, the young fella drilled and drilled, and repeatedly said, “Oh, snap!” which I thought was charming. Pretty soon, he’d burned out the drill, so he had to go all the way back to Waco to get another one. That thrilled him to no end.
Where’s the pool guy? (Even the dogs are looking)
Before he came back, the propane guys arrived. Let’s just say they weren’t thrilled to find out that a) the pool heater was not functional, so they couldn’t hook it up, and b) they were supposed to install a line to the fire pit, which they had not been informed about. There seems to be a lot of miscommunication going on around here.
Fine. We at least brought enough of this yellow stuff.
They went ahead and attached the gas line to the propane tank, which was the thing we were most concerned about, then grumbled a lot as they got pipe to the fire pit.
Hope nothing escapes that sewer line!
Speaking of grumbling, the nice pool kid returned with what had to be the biggest drill I ever saw. I think it’s an impact driver or something. He couldn’t even lift it! He also couldn’t change bits until our resident tool person showed him how in a rather graphic fashion that I will not share here.
The giant drill is on the ground. That’s our medium-sized drill he’s using. The young man has shed many layers.
I finally suggested that maybe we’d have a drill bigger than the first one and smaller than the second one, and sure enough, we did, and he finished after five endless hours of drilling and being complained to by the propane guys about sending them here with none of the stuff ready (like some vitally important key to turn the fire pit on and off, which I swear used to be there). None of these workers had a good day, though they were all perfectly pleasant to us, and we did get in a few laughs.
Waiting for something to hook up to.
I was told that a new heater was coming today and that they would get the hot tub going. It’s afternoon already and I see no workers of any sort. I’m not surprised, since the propane guys have other clients. But, where is the pool heater?
I’ll just sit here and wait, says Vlassic.
I pity the poor young woman who works for the pool company and had the bad timing to email me asking how the propane went. I told her. Many excuses later, and we still do not have a fire pit, a hot tub, or a covered trench. I think the Pool of Dreams will just have to remain a dream a while longer…another cold front is coming and the wind’s picked up again!
I’m sure glad I have all those horses to fill me with joy!
My goodness was yesterday a total pain in the butt and other places. Today, however, we kicked our challenges in the butt.
The cause of the frustration
Yesterday I mentioned it was really windy and that the satellite television receiver was damaged. Today it finished falling over. So, we had to call DirectTV. Lee couldn’t find the customer support number, so I found that. Much dialing, redialing, cursing, and knitting on hold ensued. Finally a guy answered. And after some combined effort and cursing, we actually got a repair scheduled for tomorrow.
Next, I wanted to watch football. The customer support person just said, in a chipper fashion, you can use the app! This set me off toward many hours of trying to figure out how to log in.
Then I discovered I needed to sign on to AT&T to get to the television app. No password or user info I had worked. So I got to enjoy another customer support person. At least they answered fast. After 20 minutes explaining that I’d give them my 8 digit passcode if I had any idea what it was, I got many things reset.
Next, I tried to log in with all the various numbers and letters I’d gathered. Everything I did required a text or email verification, half of which went to me and half to Lee. By this time, even I was getting testy. They make things so damned secure that legitimate users feel like they’re being interrogated. I kept typing in the special secret passcode the nice lady had set up for me, but I could not get in. Turns out they needed the shorter passcode that had reared up way earlier in the day.
At long last the DirectTV and AT&T accounts are merged. I know the username and password, not that dang passcode or the other passcode. I watched football. Ironically, I watched it on Paramount+ not the thing I took hours to set up. Can’t watch live TV on the app without the upgrade. Crap.
Today I also wanted to watch football. We had been unable to get the phone to stream to the TV on Bluetooth yesterday, also frustrating. So, today I got the game on my laptop. Woo! Then Lee moved a shelf into the house, found an HDMI cable, and got the thing to work. Ta da.
Not pretty, but it works.
You may be a millennial or younger person, which means you’ve been watching television on many different apps for years. You may find our challenges funny. But I have an excuse!
We never watch streaming services here at the ranch, because we don’t have good Internet. We can’t stream without using up our limited data. No 5G. No cable internet. No fiber. No nothing. So, we never had to set all this up before.
Now I have some choices for emergencies. I’m not gonna get Netflix until we have something more viable. But that was sure a lot of work.
Looking forward to tomorrow. Both the hot tub and the satellite dish should function! And maybe our sick relatives will be on the mend?
Last weekend, as I was driving home from my Drew lesson, I listened to an episode of Hidden Brain, by Shankar Vedantam. I’m so glad I did, because the story he shared, gently and neutrally, made the point that I’ve been slowly and painfully trying to articulate for the past few years:
More than one viewpoint about people and situations can be true at the same time.
Me
I’ve always been deeply aware that circumstances are rarely black and white. No one’s all good or all evil. No form of government is all bad or all good. No religion is perfect or all bad. You get my drift and may even agree.
But what this episode, “Both Things Can Be True,” clarified for me is that while it is much easier to see people only one way, it is entirely possible to hold two completely conflicting views of someone. The woman in the story comes to see an important person in her life as both someone who saved her life and betrayed her. She could be both grateful and angry. And that allowed her to reach peace.
I can understand that professional football is highly flawed and can lead to head injuries with lifelong consequences. I can also enjoy watching it and be a fan. Integrative complexity?
The ability to do this is called integrative complexity, which is not a new concept, but was new to me. That’s what has let me cope a little better with the complexities in my own life (sparing you the details).
From what I observe, though, not many people are into the complexity thing. It’s easier to over generalize.
I see it so often where someone fucks up and the people around them switch from seeing them as good and label them as evil. It’s happened in my family, both to me and to someone I care deeply about. I see it, too, when people declare all Republicans or Democrats are evil, all Christians or Muslims are extremists, all police officers are corrupt…etc.
No wonder there’s so much divisiveness. Black and white thinking is just easier.
I am so tired of that bullshit.
It’s not easy to let go of ingrained patterns of belief. Don’t I know it! But integrative complexity is, I think, exactly what is needed to create a world where people can work together to solve the real problems of the world…once we accept that solutions, too, are not all black and white.
This was written sort of without editing. I’m glad I have a place to mull over my thoughts, even ones I will find silly tomorrow after some sleep.
Suna the self absorbed (yet another put-down label; maybe that should be introspective)
I’ve been thinking and thinking about a meme I saw earlier this week. It’s one of those things that’s intended to empower and embolden women in the workplace and beyond. I used to take those things to heart and work hard to be my authentic self.
Authentic me, pondering.
I added: Negative: Keep pointing out problems.
I grew up being told to be quiet, that children should be seen and not heard. I was labeled bossy, a lot, for being assertive. I asked way to many questions. When there was an elephant in a room, I pointed it out. These were not good. I was difficult.
Also, I was empathetic, tried to help others, and didn’t mind sharing credit. I asked things politely rather than barking out orders, and didn’t mind at all explaining why I wanted things done a certain way. I felt like that got buy-in and created cohesive teams. That was good, I think.
It can truly be exhausting to have to pretend you are someone you’re not in order to keep a job, keep the peace, keep your reputation, etc. And whoa, have I done a lot of all those things in the past few years. I’ve been constantly checking my Zoom camera to be sure I’m smiling and looking pleasant in meetings. I’ve deleted and rewritten so many emails, chat posts, Facebook statuses, and so on. I do pretty well most of the time.
But, damn, when you are suffering from anxiety and dealing with a lot of difficult family and work situations, you can let your real self leak out without meaning to. You can express an actual opinion, point out something that’s not right, ask if something is true or the best thing to do, use the wrong tone of voice (guilty as charged)…you know, all those things that get you labeled like the ones that are in that meme.
Can we, as women, who are expected to smooth things over, agree with what the leaders say, follow instructions rather than making rules, and all those frustrating unspoken expectations, ever, actually be ourselves? What if yourself is sarcastic? What if yourself gets tired of inefficiency? What if yourself gets irritated when told to just follow orders when you’re used to helping make decisions? (Or if you are my male spouse, your real self is tired of being told not to be so brusque. They have their own sets of expectations.)
Nope, we can’t be those selves. We have to spend years in therapy, reading self-help books, and getting sanctimonious “coaching” from our bosses, so we can meekly fit in, and only speak up when it’s time to do what we are asked to do.
The dogs don’t even try to be fake.
So, no, I do not plan to act on the meme above. I give up. I think it’s just as stressful and unproductive to let my more prickly nature show as to try to smooth my nature out to meet expectations. I’ve thought about this a lot. I’m not going to make waves, express my opinions, or debate in work or public.
I’ll be me with my inner circle, and just do what I have to do to get by with others. I’ll make a bad impression to some and a good impression to others and it won’t matter at all, in the long run. The key is that I won’t be stressing myself out either trying to conform or trying to be my fierce self. No wonder both Lee and I are plumb tired. We’re tired of trying to matter.
I’m tired of being tired. The price of authenticity is just too high for me.
How good are you at just letting go of things? I’m not talking about physical things, where you ate on the continuum between hoarding and extreme minimalism. I mean mental stuff, from past hurts and disappointments to things going on right now. How are you doing with that?
Wishing you could fly away doesn’t help…much.
Now, are you getting better or worse at letting go? In the current situation, where pandemics, wars, political differences, poverty, and growing inequalities surround us all, I notice people seem to be clinging to their grudges and gripes as if they are a lifeline.
I think we feel powerless much of the time and need somewhere to direct our frustration that we can’t fix the big things. So, we go after smaller things, like our friends and families. Or we repeatedly spread inflammatory content on social media or in person, just to feel like we’ve done something. Just so much acrimony.
I’ve considered being inflammatory lately. I walked away from the useless debate. You can see it wasn’t easy.
Since I’ve become more aware of this, I’ve been repeating my mantras more and more. I’ve also made more time for meditation and hanging out with plants and animals. An image that helps me a lot is one where I’m a mountain and the wind of other people’s burdens just flows over and around me, but doesn’t move me or get inside.
Let it flow.
I was never good at letting other people’s energies wash over me. I’d always pick up on it and mirror their state. Now I reflect it back, gently. This empath is finally getting the hang of protecting myself, and setting boundaries , but without abandoning others. How long can I do this? I don’t know! It’s hard!
But it feels good to see the struggles around me and reflect back loving kindness, not take it all in and add to my own struggles. It’s progress. And there will be twists and turns along the path.
Recently, I was talking to one of my old friends about being mistaken for a man. It happens to her fairly often, depending on how she’s dressed, since she is not shaped like the stereotypical Barbie-doll person, has short hair, often dresses androgynously, and is blessed with a deep voice (one of my favorite former singing partners). It doesn’t happen to me very often, probably because I like shiny accessories so much. Neither my friend nor I are particularly bothered by being mis-gendered, though I know it can be really difficult for some of our other friends, especially those who are trans.
I’ve talked about this before, but I tend to see my father’s face when I look in a mirror; I don’t have especially “feminine” features. And, now that my hair is quite short, it’s more noticeable, even though we all probably know enough people with different lengths, styles, and colors of hair to realize that any hair stereotype out there is pretty outdated. So, I was prepared to see interesting results when I tried that new AI software that turns your photographs into cartoons or paintings. As you can see, one setting gave me blue eyes and made me look like a 12-year-old boy.
My lovely friend.
I’d seen a few that my female-identified friends had done, and they looked cute/pretty and like women. I admit my example here is extremely lovely, but you can see they gave her eyelashes, lipstick, and such. That makes me think that the software makes a guess about whether an image is of a male or a female. I’d love to see more images from people who don’t identify one way or the other or who provide few cues to what they are trying to tell the world about themselves.
Adding glasses made me look more like a woman, but increased bye crossed-eyes.
Another thing that I notice about this software is that it’s very literal. I appear to have a “lazy eye” in most of the AI renderings, though at least in some of the photos I used I had appropriately brown eyes. The thing is, these things look nothing at all like me, whereas the ones I’ve seen of other people at least resemble them enough that you can say, “Ah, that’s so and so.” Well, it’s no big secret that AI is not perfect and that it is worse with women and people of color than men. Of note: none of my friends with darker complexions posted their little cartoon heads, unless I just didn’t see it in my feed, which is a possibility.
The bottom line for me is that the images are just plain…plain. Dare I say unattractive? I don’t imagine myself as some raving beauty, but I hope I am not as aesthetically displeasing as these images came out. The ambiguous, gender-fluid aspect is fine, even fun, but I’d like to be an attractive guy!
It did a great job on the wrinkles and blew up my eyes.
I look like someone’s Uncle Ernie
This one is just plain spooky.
I don’t know who this sneering person is, but it isn’t me.
Oh, vanity, thy name turns out to be Suna, and THAT is not pretty, at all. Let’s change the topic, so you can enjoy Alfred and Goldie getting along well, and a nice photo of Goldie. I wish they hadn’t cropped her ears, but she’s still got a sweet, yet noble face. Like me!
Things are good in the dog department.
Have you tried playing with the AI toy? Do you find it fun? I guess it appeals to fans of the selfie. Sometimes I am one of those, just because observing and recording the aging process is pretty fascinating.
This is a note to myself. Maybe if I write it out, then read it, then listen to myself reading it in the podcast, I can have a reasonable weekend.
So, Suna, ponder this:
Stressing over something you can’t do anything about helps nothing.
Me
Hypothetically, if someone sends a message at the end of the work day on Friday that completely changes work you’re supposed to start at 8 am Monday, but won’t explain what’s going on until 7 am Monday…you might be inclined to spend all weekend guessing what might be going on. That could ruin your weekend, right?
But, I’ve been doing my damnedest to not get myself all worked up over things I can’t control. I can’t change whatever decision happened that my input wasn’t wanted on. I don’t even know if it’s a good thing or a bad thing, because I don’t know the details. I’m just gonna have to deal with the consequences. Monday.
Worry doesn’t change a situation other than to make you feel bad the entire time you’re worrying.
I do have a hint that I’ve figured out through this situation, that might lead to happier relationships, whether with family, friends, or colleagues. Nah. I don’t. Hints you share for people who will never actually read or hear your words are sorta passive aggressive. Give that up, Suna.
Look, pretty flowers.
I’m guessing that, being human and fallible, I’m going to remain annoyed from time to time this weekend. But then I’ll remind myself that I wrote these messages to myself to remember to be way more philosophically consistent, more Zen, and kinder to myself.
You can only change your reactions, not the actions of others. Deal with it.
Suna
End of advice to self. You’re welcome, if you also needed to hear this. C’mon, we can practice what we preach! Let’s start now.
One thing that becomes clear to me is that if I try to squish down stressful situations and pretend they don’t affect me, my anxious brain has its own ways to beg to differ. It’s all well and good to consciously remind yourself that the only things you should concern yourself with are things you can do something about. But some part of you (probably hanging out somewhere with those unconscious biases, over in the unconscious stressors area) still feels stressed about those things.
Envying butterflies. They eat a lot, then sleep a lot. After that they just have one job, they do it, and then they go to butterfly heaven.
Usually I feel okay during the day, sort of observing what’s going on and doing my best to let other people’s problems be their problems and not take things personally. That’s a major triumph right there! I do a lot of deep breathing, just like I do with the horse. People, horses, they’re all things I can’t control, only offer information to.
At night, though, I have a completely different type of dream when I’m feeling anxious and overwhelmed than when things are just normally stressful. First, it’s the dreams about being in school and not knowing where to go or what the test is about. Then I’ll be at a large conference trying to avoid the scary people. Lately I dream about trying to get dressed in fancy clothing, but having forgotten how. That sounds like a COVID dream, doesn’t it?
I also think I’m trying to cover up my insecurities and put on a more professional/fancy face, but failing. People try to help me, but that makes me end up dressed really funny. I tend to end up going out to the party, meeting, or whatever half dressed. That’s a work-based interpretation. It means that all this hashing out of the same problems but only coming up with half-assed solutions ends up creating something totally unworkable. Hmm, that’s what my colleague L. and I talked about just today!
This is how I feel. All “extra” and woozy.
Otherwise, I’m overwhelmed with baby animals, adult animals, and their excrement. Duh. That’s literally true at the ranch, and figuratively true with my work and family life.
The dreams partially come from having so many animals in bed with me, and partially come from my problem of wanting to take care of everyone who’s helpless or needs comfort. Even when I consciously tell myself I can’t help people who don’t want to be helped or comfort everyone who’s hurting, my heart wants to anyway. Oh, stop it.
For me, I get physical symptoms only when my subconscious’s other ways of communicating don’t work. Right now they’ve been screaming at me for a week or so, and that’s led to my favorite anxiety symptom: chest pains. That means I need to do something NOW or I won’t be fully functional. I also get weird feelings like everything’s in slow motion, which makes it hard to talk. Usually, I can get through these and still do what I need to do, but it takes so much energy!
My mind and body are crying for help, obviously, but there isn’t a darned thing I can do to make today any different. I just have to get through today and see what tomorrow brings. We can’t always cope, and that’s actually fine. Sometimes we have a right to have an anxiety attack. It helps to know they will pass, and things can get back on an even keel.
Hope you aren’t having the ups and downs I am today! If you are, know you aren’t alone, because I’m surrounded by people in the same boat!
Today’s topic is something I’ve been mulling over for a long time, and I think I finally have come up with a way to present my thoughts coherently. I think it explains why I have close to zero tolerance for bullying in volunteer organizations and presents an alternative way to make valid points and open people’s minds to new and different ideas.
When I was a new mother, my lawyer and one of my mentors, Roberta Bishop Johnson, encouraged me to attend meetings of the mother-to-mother breastfeeding support group, La Leche League (and if talking about breastfeeding gets you all giggly, you can try to remember you’re a mammal and make an effort to be mature). I didn’t know any other new mothers, since I was older than most of my friends and the first to reproduce.
That’s right. We’re mammals.
So, I bravely went into the home of a stranger and sat down on the couch next to a woman who seemed nice. And I listened. At these meetings, only one of the people was speaking for the organization, an accredited La Leche League Leader. But, when people asked questions, all the other mothers were very welcome to chime in and share their experiences with their own babies. One thing that got repeated often in these meetings was to please share information, not give advice. Not even the Leader told women what they should do. The mothers were considered smart enough to make their own decisions based on their experiences and to use the experiences of others to help them. That led to the second thing I heard a lot, which was to take what works for you and leave the rest.
No matter what picture I chose, someone will find something wrong with it. She should lift her shirt from the top! Why is she white? Is her positioning right? Image by @nslebedinskaya via Twenty20
By getting to know all these different mothers with all their different babies it became very obvious that the best answer for one of us would not work at all for another one, and that was OK! We had lots of areas where we differed. There was cloth versus plastic diapers. There was jarred baby food versus “whole foods” only. There was the “family bed” versus having a crib for babies. There were vaccinators and non-vaccinators. Some mothers weaned promptly at one year (or earlier), while others kept a-goin’ until the child didn’t want to anymore.
The thing is, those of us who learned the LLL philosophy (which is a list of ways to be a good parent) mostly got the point that there’s more than one right way to parent AND that for some folks, ways other than ours make more sense to them. If a mother asked for help, we gave it and helped her work out a solution that made HER happy, not us.
I eventually became a Leader and learned a lot from the women I was friends with then. It was a lot of fun and such a great way to give to my community. But, when they started begging Leaders to become administrators (there was quite a hierarchy back then), my Leader, Sharon, took me aside and warned me that things weren’t always so warm and fuzzy at the State, National, and International levels. Oh, how I wish I’d listened to Sharon.
But, no, I like leading things, and because I’d made a little website for our group (before there were images on the world wide web) my mentor, Roberta, begged me to help them get on the fledgling Internet, so I went to a conference in Chicago, met the Executive Director, and suddenly I was the webmaster and co-owner of the first email list for Leaders, where we got to meet fellow mothers from all over.
Time marched on, and I had a lot of fun and met most of the people who read my blog. But, it turned out Sharon had a point. Once I started going to meetings and conferences outside my little bubble, and once I started reading the email lists, I began to see how La Leche League got its reputation as a bunch of breastfeeding…shall we say…”tyrants” (because I prefer not to use pejorative word word other people used). You could tell that there were members who we called “More League Than League” who looked down on you if your choices happened to come on the less radical attachment parenting side of things. Woe unto the parent who used a stroller and not a sling to carry babies (even outside conferences, where strollers were hazardous). You get the drift, I’m sure.
A lot of the time I spent as an administrator, web person, and eventually as a director in the organization was trying to keep portraying La Leche League (LLL) as an organization open to all who were interested in breastfeeding and parenting, not just a few people of a certain demographic (that would be white, Catholic, home birthing, stay-at-home mothers). It was never true that this group was even a majority, but it’s the reputation that came out. And the reputation that we told people to do this and that, and such. This all got to be quite exhausting, especially when we were wanting to help mothers succeed by their own standards and meet them where they were, not make them into other people!
There were, indeed, people in the organization with agendas that were at best peripheral to the core purpose of supporting breastfeeding in the communities where we lived. The diapers, the slings, the boycotts, the sleeping arrangements…subtly pressuring people to make certain choices or they weren’t “cool” led to a lot of sadness. I always thought either they should come out and say they’re an organization for a small group of people with certain beliefs and principles, rather than claiming to be for everyone, but alienating people whose cultures and ways of life preferred to do things differently.
Indeed, as the years went by, it came to pass that things got weirder and weirder at the higher levels, and we came under a lot of pressure, no I’ll say bullying, to only organize in certain ways, and only meet in certain ways, and…after a couple of years of trying to keep my team going through all this, I ended up being asked to leave. If your job, whether paid or volunteer, isn’t fulfilling and rewarding, it’s time to find a new job. And when my closest friends started in on me…it was time to go.
I did keep what I learned, though. I’ve always found it much easier to change someone’s mind or teach them something new by offering a wide range of information and suggestions and trusting them to figure out what works best for them. I’m so grateful for that lesson. There was and still is so much good in LLL. Honestly, this is a loving critique.
Now, today, a whole lot of years have passed, but it makes me chuckle a bit to learn that there are still factions battling it out to be the “right” kind of organization. The causes have shifted from Nestle boycotts and “Ferberizing” to trying to cancel members who aren’t deemed sufficiently on board with chestfeeding and racial/cultural issues.
All of that just isn’t the helpful kind of support parents, members, administrators, and former members need. And confronting, bullying, canceling, and lobbying against people you have a problem with has never, as far as I can see, solved the underlying issue, which is education. You know, perhaps we WANT to listen, but just being called names and treated like we aren’t even worth engaging in dialog with won’t help us learn a darn thing.
I can only suggest that people with strong feelings to convey consider this information I’m sharing, just as one option. By listening to the viewpoints of others, seeing where they are coming from, finding areas of commonality, and sharing our experiences as if they are all worthy of respect, I’m pretty sure some of the newer versions of the people I left behind in 2006 might be more successful at attaining their goals. I think they want more people to be welcome and included in LLL. I think that is a worthy goal that may not require tearing down others to achieve.
Breastfeeding is a great thing, and I applaud everyone who wants to do it, in whatever way works for their culture, religious practice, or social group. Sometimes having lived as long as I and some of my long-time LLL friends have, you learn that a little bit of listening and respect go a long way. We don’t all have to do things the exact same way, and we all will learn from our mistakes and new experiences.
Please, let’s be gentle with each other. I’m simply not going to let myself be put down for being who I am, and I don’t think any of you, my friends, should, either. And I do NOT want to put down others who have perfectly legitimate complaints, issues, or ideas! We should all have a chance to grow and learn, even us old white fogies.
No, I’m not particularly full of woe, but for the past few days I’ve been metaphorically girding my loins, knowing that a tale of woe is coming. Wow, I’ve listened a lot the past few days. The thing is, every single person venting, lamenting, kvetching, or sniffling is totally justified. Every so often it gets this way, when there seems to be a dark cloud over my social circle.
Rain lily in rocks. Beauty in a tough space.
I’m privileged to listen to people and not try to solve problems. We all need someone to listen to us from time to time. I know my turn will come! The problem today is that I’ve heard so much woe that I’m not able to come up with ideas for making the things better that it’s my JOB to make better. I’m all jumbled up. I guess I better go breathe and let some of it out by tomorrow!
Evening primrose and concrete.
As I went for a walk around the Austin house neighborhood to clear my mind (and take pictures), I started wondering if all this empathetic listening is one of those stereotypical woman things, you know, women are nurturing and all that. Do people assume I’ll listen because I’m a woman or because I just come across as gender-neutral empathetic? (Rhetorical question)
Drummond’s onion. Beautiful. Look at all those little antses!
Stick with me here. That musing led to a surprising thought. I just don’t spend a lot of thought on my status as a woman. In my mind I’m Suna, and being female is not one of my more important parts of my identity. I’m not on the alert for sexist comments or put-downs for being a woman. I don’t feel discriminated against at work or at home. What???
Nightshade.
Oh of course I know there’s sexism out there and stubborn areas of inequality that need to be addressed. You know, just like we’re not in a post-racist society, either. But I’m not feeling constricted by being labeled female anymore. I am quite confused by my lack of concern about this inequality, especially given that I get all righteously indignant about discrimination against other kinds of people.
Cedar sage by the Bobcat Lair.
I wonder if my privilege from my whiteness and being perceived as cisgender compensate for being female, to where most people treat me as equals. Or…I just assume people think I’m their equal and act accordingly? That may well be it. I feel equal so I don’t let myself be treated any other way.
Anita’s hibiscus.
Hmmm. I don’t know what to think about this. Life is complicated. I feel way too lucky to feel so free and equal when so many people I know feel oppressed, put down, or truly challenged just because of who their parents were, where they came from, or who they love.
Ruth’s succulent in bloom.
What can I do? I know that! I’ll keep advocating for the creation of a world where our diversity is celebrated and our differences used to our advantage. I’ll keep learning about ways to realize my prejudices and biases and be an ally for those not as privileged as me.
I’m also privileged to live in a beautiful place.
My question to you women out there is whether you feel like this or am I having atypical experiences? Where are you feeling discriminated against or thwarted in your life because of your sex? What’s your source of woe, or do you experience freedom and joy?
The Hermits' Rest 