Tag: sexism

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The Start of a Lifetime of Skills Procurement

Adults (are supposed to) teach young people skills—not just things like how to swim, boil an egg, care for a plant, or clean a car, but how to problem-solve, reason, resolve conflict, and protect one’s self. All these skills and many more create a foundation for success, hopefully building a well-adjusted person.

You take what your parents taught you, what you learned in school, and what you discovered through mistakes, mishaps, and blunders and present it [yourself] to the world for consideration. For the love of all that is fabulous, let’s hope your family taught you to be a staunch combination of confident and self-aware. Independent and loving. Assertive and respectful. Etc., etc.

Having said that, a socially awkward person can get by just fine. I did okay in my early 20s for a few years. I had youth on my side, and a complete ignorance of how unusual my situation was. I was a cute and dumb former foster-kid with—at the time—a relatively clean bill of health and a penchant for physically active work. I was a hotel valet for a while, and I loved the job. It kept me in great shape. I do wish I’d had better skills at handling workplace sexism and misogyny, but, live and learn, I guess.

And then it all went sideways…

By the end of my 20s my undiagnosed diseases had become a real problem, and none of it would get any better any time soon. So there I was, a young adult without a family, in the U.S. at the turn of the 21st century, and my health sliding down a mountain.

20-some years later I’m in therapy, and this, among other things, is what I’ve learned:

All those skills I was never taught—as I didn’t have an adult in my life after the age of 12 who was committed to my success—I could have picked up down the road, had I been in good health. Conversely, I could have managed better as my health deteriorated, had I had a supportive family, or at least one stable person on my side. But overcoming both disadvantages in what people are calling late-stage-capitalism was too much for one girl, even a White girl. Maybe some can do it. And my gosh, I applaud them! I couldn’t. Call me what you will; weak, lacking, worthless. Maybe. But I did the best I could, and even so, my future is uncertain as an American. I could not succeed with a failing body and being completely on my own… though not for a lack of trying.

Now that I have this knowledge, what do I do with it?

I have a platform to write about what it’s like to be economically challenged and have chronic health issues. I don’t write about this for me, I tell the story so that someone might look at a disabled or homeless American differently next time. If you don’t know why someone has failed to achieve the so-called American Dream, maybe part of the answer is in my story.

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The Hard Work of Making Other People Comfortable

February Along the South Yamhill River
7 minute read:

I’m disabled. I have been for a number of years, but not many people are aware of it. For one thing, I don’t have a lot of people in my orbit; a handful of good friends whom we left behind when we moved out to the sticks, a spouse and a son, and about a dozen doctors, PAs, therapists, etc. Aside from cashiers, pharmacists, and gas station attendants I don’t interact with a whole lot of people. And when I do, it’s a treat as I’m mostly home alone six days a week. When I’m around others, I’m usually chipper and friendly despite being in pain and living in a fog.

This is where things get dark… and a little sexist.

In the world I live in, women are expected to make others (generally, men) comfortable. I’ve been trained, starting when I was a teenager, to not disrupt the genteel existences of the few adults around me. So I quietly internalized having been abused. My guardian—my uncle—made it clear (without actually saying the words, of course) that he didn’t intend to deal with what my mother’s estranged husband had done. As a teenager, I had strong opinions about what I’d been through, and in response, my uncle expelled me from his home, washed his hands of me. I learned at 15 not to make men uncomfortable.

Maybe we shouldn’t be comfortable with the way those in power treat those who are vulnerable?

I want to pause and acknowledge I’m obviously writing from the cis-gender perspective. The movement to recognize that human gender is more complex than a simple binary breakdown is another conversation for another time, and one I support with enthusiastic hopefulness. I’m no expert on gender fluidity, or really anything, but it seems a number of societal problems could be relieved by not pigeonholing people into a rigid and limited system of self-identification. But, again, that’s a whole ‘nuther conversation. I’m a cis-woman, that’s where I write from.

Moving on… For a while there, health insurance was hard to come by for a lot of Americans. I needed it and didn’t have it for a decade, so I masked through the pain to work so I could hopefully earn it. And I still mask, as a survival strategy. Animals do it, too. They mask so other animals don’t kill them. I masked so I could be employed.

The effect of this was that I was usually dissociated from my own body—which had its pros and cons.

Pro: I could get a temporary placebo effect from pretending everything was okay, but it was temporary (con). Pain serves a purpose. It’s there to tell you to stop and tend to the problem. I was telling my body to shut up and wait its turn, and it shouted back, “Fuck you! Pay attention to me, now… or else!” 

I’ve been living in the “Or else!” stage since the early 2010s. And today, the Social Security Administration is asking me to demonstrate how hurt I’ve been, and for how long.

Now I have to experience my body and learn how to live in the torturous truth.

I’m still afraid of making people uncomfortable. I tend to apologize for being sick. One of my doctors is wonderful about it. She’s a good egg. I’m lucky to have her. She’s the one who finally figured out that I have Ankylosing Spondylitis. But I’m careful with the others—especially the men. When men are uncomfortable, generally they disengage. Apparently many of them can’t help it, I guess it’s a human weakness. So I read the room.

I want, I desire, to live in the dark, torturous truth.

I want to learn how to live there; I will be pissed if that superpower was ‘nurtured’ out of me by adults who were really shitty at adulting. I need to occupy that pit, to hang brocade curtains and burn scented candles there. I will make that pit my homely home full of books, dog toys, and home-baked bread, since those adults failed to provide one for me. I will live out my days in my comfy-cozy pit of despair, and not sugar coat a damn thing for anyone.

 

 

 

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What’s Your Writing Style?

1 Minute Read:

I’ve recently started writing news copy for a local paper, and it’s my first real foray into the Associated Press style guide. The point of AP style is, for obvious reasons, to be clean, consistent, and neutral in reporting events. It has always been important for news to be impartial. Reporters risk losing not only their credibility, but their access if they come off as biased in any way. I wouldn’t want to talk to a reporter if I thought she would twist my words, or characterize events in an inconsistent way. We are at a point in the American zeitgeist that the media’s credibility is being challenged pretty much daily by some of the people in charge, and it’s… problematic at the very least. It makes it difficult for the fourth estate to play their crucial role in keeping the general public up to speed on the events of the day, not to mention it’s downright dangerous for these people in a nation as armed as the U.S.

The Associated Press releases a new edition of their stylebook every year as language and technology evolve, making it necessary to issue updates. This year the editors paid a great deal of attention to race-related stories, setting some guidelines that will prove useful in the current social climate. A point that stands out is using the terms “racist” or “racism” when describing a person or an event. The style editors advise journos to instead use terms like “racially motivated” or “racially tinged,” to the frustration of people affected by racism. The frustration is understandable. We’ve all seen the tweets. Some news outlet posts a link to an article about a “racially charged” incident, and the wording seems wholly inadequate when people are getting shot because of the color of their skin, or accosted for being bi-lingual. I’m getting angry just writing this. And the comments come rollin’ in to the tune of “They oughta call it what it is, straight-up racism.”

The media has to stay impartial. But… the commenters don’t. That’s the beauty. You have a voice, use it. Write your story, or write a bunch of short stories. Blog it, journal it, serialize it, write open letters to the establishment. Share your story and find your style.