Today someone said to me my comment could be seen as racist? The thought of someone thinking I was racist bewildered me…me racist? It got me thinking, was I racist? Was all my conversations being overheard and analyzed? Will they be used against me?
So what did I say to be called the big r word? I said to a friend when a gentlemen continued to pay her attention ‘must be your Asian persuasion.’ Wasn’t this acceptable, it was said among friends whom are both Asian?
Now did I need to say that probably not, did my Asian colleague take offense to it? No? Was it racist?
Louisa Allen writes about how schools, often skew to heterosexuality and that homosexuality is something of a taboo/unspoken norm in schools. For example school uniforms females being checked for jewellery, makeup and short skirts encourages this sexualisation of gender. Insinuating that females wear these types of items where males don’t. Growing up this was done at schools I attended and honestly I never thought anything of it.
Point of this example is do I need to worry that everything has so many different meanings to everybody? Are we all being scrutinised under a microscope? In that case how will I ever know what is deemed acceptable?
I just heard on Radio NZ – Gender Stereotypes and Toilet Training Children, chatting about Huggie’s and their toilet training guide. Stereotypes that many parents have been guilty of – superheroes and competition associated with boys. Girls stereotyped by stories of princesses, cleaning. Haven’t we all been guilty of these gender stereotypes? My son’s room is filled of blue clothes, toys that we would deem boys toys, dinosaurs, trucks and cars. So actually when I listened to the radio hosts, I get where they are coming from but actually in my own home I am the number one culprit of gender stereotyping.
Help? Its becoming hard to say anything in case someone overhears and becomes offended? How do we determine what is acceptable to say? In the 50’s this was all acceptable. In the 21st they are not and in the 30th century what will be acceptable then?
This has begun many discussions around the dinner table, am I a racist? What can we say, what cant we say. Its still an open discussion.. Comments warranted:)
Allen, L. (2006). Keeping Students on the Straight and Narrow:Heteronormalising Practices in New Zealand Secondary Schools [Abstract]. New Zealand Journal of Educational Studies,41(2), 307-327. doi:10.1002/ev.20331
Gender Stereotypes and Toilet Training Children [Transcript, Radio broadcast]. (2017, July 25). Auckland: Radio NZ.
Diary of the beginner teacher... 
Oh man. What a thing to be called out on. Especially as you said, both you and the person you were talking to is both of the same race.
I always find these topics so hard to discuss because where is the line between people needing to just harden up and stop getting offended so easily by everything in life and calling out genuinely inappropriate behaviour.
I also listened to that NewsHub podcast. I think the thing with the Huggies advertisement is that it comes down to the individual and the parent. Babies of different genders, before they can be “forced into a gender role” behave differently. I think what they tried to do is just address what the majority of behaviour of toddlers from a certain sex/gender manifests and then constructs advice around that. But the issue is, for the parents, its up to them whether they take that advice or not. If their child shows more compassion and nurturing behaviour, noone is preventing them from taking the girls’ recommended potty training techniques if you know it’ll resonate better with your kid.
So rather than get offended, take onboard what the original purpose was – advice – and pick or choose what works for you.
Or in the case of you and your friend, take on board what that person said, but unless your friend got offended, then it’s an invalid point.
Or maybe I’m wrong?
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Difference and diversity
After watching a number of episodes of Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee, a frequent exchange amongst Jerry Seinfeld and his guests is the subject matter of jokes. Seinfeld always argues that no topic is off limits for comedians. The one provision is that the joke has to be funny. At one point, he concedes that a joke which could offend Chinese people might have to be edited from the episode. The joke is not edited out and in fact repeated. It seemed the primary purpose was to generate a laugh or just any kind of reaction from an audience of potentially millions.
I’m not a comedian and I’m more careful with the reception from an audience of one.,Though, I personally think your comment to your friend was said in good humour. It certainly doesn’t seem like there was any malicious intent on your part. If people do or say the wrong thing, particularly friends and family, I would like to think that I have the presence of mind to gauge their intentions over and above their actions. I hope they would afford me the same leniency. While one comment imparted in the sphere of social media can condemn a person, in the world outside it, we should have the knowledge and wisdom to be able to evaluate the whole person.
At the same time, I don’t subscribe to the idea that we live in a PC culture. I worry that people use that claim as a standard defense against their lack of perspective or ability to empathise with another person’s life and different worldview. Unfortunately, in schools, a lack of acceptance and understanding of difference can lead to the bullying of students. Gerald Walton( 2011) considers bullying in wider contexts beyond the confines of classrooms and school grounds, noting that –
“Bullying often reflects larger social and political battles, moral panics, and collective anxieties…Seen as violence against difference, bullying can be reconsidered as an expression of power mediated by constructs of social difference and as a mechanism of social control.”
A ”panic” against perceived breaches of heteronormativity was evident in the reaction from some sectors of the media in Great Britain in 2017. CJ Atkinson is a LGBTQ activist and author whose book -“Can I Tell You About Gender Diversity?” was written as a resource for primary school children, but also parents and teachers explaining the “medical transitioning” of transgender people. Atkinson noted the media outrage concerning the book being introduced into primary schools as “trans-panic” and harmful to young transgender people. The purpose of the book was to educate, due to both a lack of factual information on gender diversity, but also a notable rise in children and adolescents calling Childline for advice on gender dysphoria, transgender issues ,bullying and transphobia. Walton(2011) believes education is the key-
“…ethical, legal, and responsible approaches to anti-bullying in schools must acknowledge, address, and educate about notions of difference so that children who are vilified for being different (or perceived as such) are accorded safer learning environments than currently is the case in most schools.”
While education on difference and diversity might not be the only means to combat bullying in schools and wider society, it is still a positive step forward for our children.
References
Walton, G. (2011). Spinning our wheels: Reconceptualizing bullying beyond behaviour-focused approaches. Discourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education, 32(1), 131–144.
Book explaining gender diversity to primary school children sparks furore (2017, Jan 2) The Guardian
Retrieved from https://www.theguardian.com/society/2017/jan/02/book-explaining-gender-diversity-to-primary-school-children-sparks-furore
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