In a world that has been increasingly made aware of the continuous prejudices in the world, I can't help but wonder why it seems like the issues are striving to go to the opposite extreme.
Don't get me wrong, prejudice in all forms exists. Racism, ageism, sizism, gender discrimination, etc. permeate all realms of our lives. Hell, I grew up attending mostly white schools. My mother upon hearing I had signed up for the military had a few "words of wisdom" to impart. Basically, what those words were showed that though she had denied being so when I was growing up, she was racist. She told me to be careful, especially of the black guys. I had a black male friend and I couldn't help wondering how she really felt about several of my friends - most of whom were males and some were not white. She moved us because she didn't want us to be influenced by her parents who were according to her, chauvinistic. While my grandfather may have had problems with my mother doing things that were seen as male, I remember him and my grandmother encouraging us to do as we wanted even if those dreams weren't what they thought we should do.
Recently, I read a story about a woman who has had to put down books written by guys telling a story from a female point of view because they'll have a woman walking alone at night, but there is no thought about her own safety or how she might be attacked on her way home. As a young-ish female, I have to admit that I have had walks where those thoughts do come into play. However, it's not a regular occurrence. In fact, it's really only a thought that I have every once in a small while unless I go somewhere I don't know very well. This, however, got me to wondering if guys who read books from a male point of view see the same disparities that women notice.
See, I've read numerous stories and I can't always tell the gender of the author based on what I'm reading because even if it is typical of a gender according to society, it does not mean it's unrealistic. Typically females will ask for directions according to general society, however, MythBusters did happen to bust it, and I can further confirm that not all females will ask for help. It just fits the mold we've tried to condemn ourselves to constantly.
Beyond that, we think of WW2 as a prime example of racism when the Jewish religion is not a race, but religion or faith. Being Jewish is the same as being Muslim, Catholic, or Wiccan - not defined by how one looks but by personal beliefs. But prejudice doesn't just get perpetrated by the perceived majorities. Women are considered a minority even though they make up just over half of the population. In South America, blacks made the majority but racism is considered to be perpetrated solely by the white people who were in control. There are still problems with whites and males thinking they are better than everyone else and who wish to keep control as a white patriarchal society, but the so-called minorities are fighting back and have been since the very beginning. We usually refer to teenage rebellion, but isn't that exactly what we need? The feelings of oppression that make us refuse to bow down to someone else's idea of whom we should be? These are things that have caused change to all of a sudden take over the news.
Legalized same-sex marriage, the repeal of Don't Ask, Don't Tell and so much more are the results of people refusing to be told that they are wrong, that they're feelings are incorrect. In fact, these people countered societal norms, which is good. The problem is that there are people who are trying to beat the past into our faces as problems that need to be removed from existence. We, women, get all upset over men who think they know what we go through or deal with and yet we do the same to them. We get yelled at for "cultural appropriation" and get told we can no longer use certain words because they are offensive. Then we use them because that's what we've grown into a habit of doing or that's how we were taught, we get penalized for not immediately conforming to avoiding using things that others find offensive.
I'm not saying that we shouldn't be aware of what we've done or said, but that doesn't mean we should remove all traces of what our past is. In fact, that could cause more issues because we have forgotten what was done. In doing that, we open ourselves to repeating the mistakes of the past in a manner that could actually be worse.
This brings us to what I started with. Are there things that readers have noticed that immediately aided in helping them to identify something about the author? Something other than what we get told about?
**This was started to be posted on the 20th of January. I apologize for the long wait but I was deterred by other things. I will also have last week's original posting and hopefully this week's by the end of the day Sunday.
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