What is new is how much that social handshaking is based on trashing one another. Whether another co-worker, homeless people, people facing foreclosure, immigrants – the examples go on and on. I am really surprised we haven’t had more controversy about fist-jabs.
I try to oppose it, to speak against it, to question expectations and stereotypes. Even with the co-workers who annoy the piss out of me, too. Sometimes the conversation changes when I am present, but I find that I am more isolated than in recent times. More often, it only changes while I’m actively questioning the stereotype. Then, before my eyes, a switch is flipped and it’s right back to the original thread of bashing.
Still, I remember the little victories. No longer do we routinely talk about needing “strong men” to help lift heavy things, we just ask for “people to help”. Even as some of the women I work with deny the existence of the patriarchy, they assert that they can be doctors, dentists, or anything else they want to be.
I draw the little bits of reassurance where I can, and fight where I cannot.
Oh, and be sure and bookmark this link. Something tells me it’ll be mighty busy, since all the obviously craptastic rumors I’ve heard so far are on here.
Can someone explain to me how the same people who complained about Sen. Obama being part of the Rev. Wright’s church can now be going on about how he’s a “radical muslim”? I mean, doesn’t one’s skull eventually explode from the cognitive dissonance? If not, we should harness that pressure, using it to turn turbines and think er… discriminate our way out of the energy crisis. Yeah!
(The robot pic doesn’t mean anything. Just cool. Don’t stress your brain cells, unless, well, you’re hooked up to the energy grid.)
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