It does happen, though I didn’t expect it from Tumblr of all places. So, hello @archaeologysucks, and let me first and foremost thank you for your time. As some of your commenters pointed out, you didn’t have to respond. Especially not as frequently and in such detail. It’s refreshing, honestly. I suppose I should have realized that this would actually be a conversation, instead of a one sided attempt with the other party lobbing accusations of ill will, after the second post you made. I am afraid that I only realized that you had, in a sense, offered an olive branch when you understood that I do not believe men and women should be treated differently based on their sex. I will try to keep as concise as possible, but I will readdress a couple points, I didn’t get to explain my position well with a character limit. So I spent the last few days considering this rather unique situation I found myself in and I have considered my words carefully, though I fear I will end up offending you anyway.
First and foremost, your comment about the woman who recounted a time where she... oh dear, I am going off the top of my head here... went on a dig with eleven other students, with only one other person being a woman? You never explained how that was unfair. What was the process by which students were selected to go to the site? Was it based on grades? Drawing names at random? Who could afford to pay a fee? A representative sample of men and women from the class? And beyond that, how many men and women were in the class in the first place? And what was the ratio of men to women who signed up for it, if that was even a possibility? People, no matter how awful they are, have a reason for doing the things they do. Those with bad reasons are the ones who we dismiss, so it would be important to know all the facts about this trip before making a judgement on why it turned out the way it did.
“It sounds like you really do believe that people end up where they do based on merit and natural predisposition. I’m sorry to be the one to tell you that the ideal world you are imagining does not exist yet.”
Well, of course not. I don’t actually believe that world exists yet. It might never exist. Because the real world isn’t perfect and there will always be assholes. Despite my best efforts, my weight has been a point of contention among many employers despite the fact my former employers had nothing but kind words and sometimes even praise in rare times for my work ethic and capabilities. Nothing short of a totalitarian dictatorship will change the fact that people judge, and sometimes on such surface characteristics.
“I can understand feeling terrified. I, too, once naively believed as you do that we, as a society, had moved beyond that kind of inequality. The Civil Rights Movement and Second Wave Feminism fixed all those social problems in the 60s and 70s, right? I grew up white and middle class in a mostly white, fairly liberal community, and thought my own experiences were typical, because they were all I knew. I remember how upsetting it was for me when I began to realize what an unfair and sometimes terrible place the world still is for many people.”
Well, yes and no. I did once believe that, as a society, we have passed some sort of threshold of equality. History is not some far away time, history is made every second of the day. Things don’t really change, merely our perception of them do. The truth of the matter is, people will always be people. Unfair things will happen because people are free. Moreover, laws are only good for two things- deterring someone from doing an action, and punishing them after having committed said action.
If you think that the world isn’t a terrible place for anyone, then you may want to look again. Any human can, at any time, be t-boned by a drunk driver, have a psychopath break into their home and kill them while they sleep, be afflicted by cancer, die in a work related accident, die from asphyxiation during a meal, drown, be attacked by a wild animal, be afflicted with a terminal disease. And that is not even getting into what any one human can do to their fellow person. I am aware that, on average, men are stronger than women physically, but weapons, intoxicants, and the sleep cycle exist. There are means that one can overpower someone even multiple times bigger than them. No one is immune to bad things happening.
“People frequently experience different challenges, treatment, and sometimes even violence, because of their gender, race, sexuality, ability, appearance, background, etc. It’s going to take a lot more work by folks like you and me before we achieve anything close to a level playing field.”
How do I explain this. What you are asking for is utopia. A goal we can work towards, yes, but nothing we will ever reach. Violence, especially, is something that will always happen. It is something that I had suffered for a multitude of reasons growing up by the hands of my peers. Beyond that, there are those that are broken. Specific mental illnesses that leave them unable to process certain things. I would love a world where no one fought, where there was no hurt or suffering, but short of stripping people of individual freedoms I don’t see how that is possible.
“I advise you to do some serious background reading on this subject, and think about what you can do to help create that better world you believe in. It’s never a bad thing to check in and take inventory of our own internalized biases. We all have them, and unless we acknowledge them and do the hard work of rooting them out, we can only be part of the problem. We can all grow in our humanity and awareness.
I encourage you to start with Wikipedia’s article on sexism in academia, which covers a lot of the basics, and then check out the “references” and “further reading” sections at the bottom to figure out where to go next. I would also recommend you read about blind auditions, and what they reveal about the often subconscious biases people still hold.”
I don’t think Wikipedia, despite its sources, is a good means by which to understand a subject. Even as a starting point. As for a better world, there’s not much I can do other than insist that we treat people as people. We treat the people that are our friends with love and those that are our enemies with politeness until such a time when that is no longer possible. No one sex, ethnic group, sexuality, or anything of the sort should be place in one of those categories full stop. All black people should not be one’s enemies, but they shouldn’t all be one’s friends either, for example. Instead, go on a case by case basis and decide for yourself who to associate with and who you would rather not. And if most people do that, that kind of thinking will be reflected in society as a whole. Be the change you want to see and all.
Also, be careful what you wish for, as a fair warning I might just want to leave you with this.
I thank you for the opportunity to at least air my grievances, I appreciated the dialogue.
