Deference or Discrimination?

Most memes pass through my Facebook history without hardly a glance. Some, however, seem to be the perfect springboards for reflection and discussion. A meme I re-posted yesterday was just that:

Interesting.

"Real" men, eh? And men who don't open car doors for women have some strange backwards "unman" chromosome? Huh.

And some of the comments where I saw the image originally posted were cringeworthy: "If women acted more like real ladies, more men would do this." Yes. Women must be ladylike or men can't be men. Ugh.

The image, and the comments underneath, reminded me of a situation I was in with an unpopular friend. He had just been complaining that someone at work had reported him for sexual harassment because he had paid her a compliment for her looks. This was a second infraction. He simply didn't understand how it could qualify as harassment. Shortly after that, he opened my car door.

Now this wasn't my date, my lover, or my husband. In fact, he had been my husband's best man at our wedding. This meant that the only reason he had for opening my car door was that I was a woman. 

Thinking I might help him overcome his social blindness, I tried to explain to him that opening my door purely because I was a woman was sexism, and that commenting on a female co-worker's appearance, unless there is some other social context that relaxed the rules, was in fact, inappropriate.

And, as time went on, the same systemic problem in his thinking about women that led him to such social gaffs gradually made his company intolerable, and we parted ways.

I told this story on Facebook, and was surprised at how much discussion this generated, as if I was some kind of bitch for not wanting men who are not intimately related to me to open the car door for me. One seemed to think I had mistaken courtesy for sexism; another that I was making mountains out of molehills. 

And yet, in every situation where they themselves said that they appreciated a man opening a car door for them (or a man indicated that he would open the car door for a woman), it was in the context of a date, at least. So clearly, context has much to do with what behavior is acceptable.

Here is my point: 

Men who hold the doors of buildings open for women are courteous. (Of course, I also expect them to open doors for other men.) Men who refuse to allow a woman to open the door of a building for them are sexist.

Men (or women) who open car doors for their sweethearts (regardless of sex or gender) are sweet. Men who hold car doors open for women, solely because they are women, are sexist.

And no, this isn't about one person's interpretation of courtesy over another. It is about how someone thinks about the sexes. It is about the systemic problems that lie in the attitude that women are different from men, and must therefore be treated differently. If there is a sharp delineation in a person's mind about what makes someone a man and what makes someone a woman, there is probably some prejudice against one sex or the other and definitely a prejudice against people who do not fall neatly into those categories.

However, men and women are no more different from each other than one man or woman is from another man or woman. Sexual organs aren't even differentiated until 6-8 weeks in the womb. Until that time we all express the same sexual organs, and afterward, we all exhibit some of the traits of the opposite sex (the clitoris is what remains of the male penis in women, and nipples are expressed in men, who do not lactate). 

Sex and gender do not always run parallel. Gender is an expression of a combination of hormonal balances and social conditioning, and can result in masculine girls or effeminate men, of either sexual orientation. Genitalia does not determine personality or sexual preference. 

Men and women (and the genderqueer) are, first and foremost, people - worthy of equal consideration. Courtesy is treating someone with deference because of their humanity, not because of their sexual expression.

So, if I see you opening my car door and we're not on a date, you'd better be opening car doors for everybody.

When times get tough, the tough get hugs

I sent this to a friend who was faced with a difficult decision, one that impacted the way she saw herself and her future career in the field of animal care. I know I sometimes need reminders like this, so I'm making this available to the world. It's nothing new, but I've found that the more time passes, the more true it rings:

1. Put your own health first. Write down your priorities if you must, as a reminder: "Me, my loved ones, the rest" Make sure you are getting everything you need to be as healthy as possible before tackling the rest. Establishing formal guidelines will make the hard decisions a little bit easier. (and yes, you MUST put yourself first, or find yourself eventually incapable of being any good to anyone else.
   
2. When you have to make the hard decisions, forgive yourself for what you could not do. Remind yourself that you are human and being the best human you know how to be. You wouldn't ask more of anyone else, so don't expect more from yourself.
3. Keep acknowledging your emotions and KEEP MOVING. There are going to be days that seems almost impossible, and in that case break your activities down into manageable chunks. Don't think about all you expect yourself to do, just focus on *one thing* and then move on to the next thing.
4. Remember, there are people who love you no matter what. Love yourself, no matter what, because we aren't wrong to love you and you are a gamble worth taking!
5. Lastly, get a hug, or a kiss on the nose. Just something tactile. We mammals need it.
   
   All of the above can seem overly simplistic, but it's what I know deep inside (and from experience) to be true. Also, putting into practice is really difficult, so it's not as simple as it sounds.