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Aug. 5th, 2009
I learnt something new about myself today
Aug. 5th, 2009 08:47 pmThat I am fairly open minded.
During training today we did an exercise about diversity. And whilst everyone else come up with their presumptions based on a name, my response was a bit different. I was less certain making these assumptions about someone.
Yes I do have my prejudices. I did also make the mistake to presume that the name belonged to a bloke as much as everyone. I also have prejudices about non-english speakers in the UK. But that's okay, I can own those a bit and choose to ignore them whilst working.
We also watched a video that included the 'twist' that someone who excluded an openly gay man from social stuff was himself closet gay. I have to say that I quickly realised that the guy was also gay. Not on presumptions but because I left it open as a possibility. Because I'm the kind of person who sits listening to something giving a presentation and thinks to themself: "this person might be gay, or trans, or have mental health problems or health problems and I can't tell just by looking at them".
But all this also means I get really worried and scared by the presumptions of others. To hear the women I'm training with discuss transfolk and getting pronouns right (this was part of our training yesterday) and then still utterly failing to understand that it's not a sex "change" as if people choose and that no, she's not secretly a man.
I find myself getting increasingly annoyed by groups of women, like I fit in less and less. I'm fine with my friends but that's different. Like a bit of banter today where the tutor got a little teased for being the only bloke in the room. I felt completely alien because I didn't feel part of the group at that point with the way they were behaving, even before the comment. And plus of course he actually wasn't the only bloke in the room. Dress down day friday. I plan on wearing my bloke jeans (must take them up tomorrow evening, they're too long) and other blokey clothes.
During training today we did an exercise about diversity. And whilst everyone else come up with their presumptions based on a name, my response was a bit different. I was less certain making these assumptions about someone.
Yes I do have my prejudices. I did also make the mistake to presume that the name belonged to a bloke as much as everyone. I also have prejudices about non-english speakers in the UK. But that's okay, I can own those a bit and choose to ignore them whilst working.
We also watched a video that included the 'twist' that someone who excluded an openly gay man from social stuff was himself closet gay. I have to say that I quickly realised that the guy was also gay. Not on presumptions but because I left it open as a possibility. Because I'm the kind of person who sits listening to something giving a presentation and thinks to themself: "this person might be gay, or trans, or have mental health problems or health problems and I can't tell just by looking at them".
But all this also means I get really worried and scared by the presumptions of others. To hear the women I'm training with discuss transfolk and getting pronouns right (this was part of our training yesterday) and then still utterly failing to understand that it's not a sex "change" as if people choose and that no, she's not secretly a man.
I find myself getting increasingly annoyed by groups of women, like I fit in less and less. I'm fine with my friends but that's different. Like a bit of banter today where the tutor got a little teased for being the only bloke in the room. I felt completely alien because I didn't feel part of the group at that point with the way they were behaving, even before the comment. And plus of course he actually wasn't the only bloke in the room. Dress down day friday. I plan on wearing my bloke jeans (must take them up tomorrow evening, they're too long) and other blokey clothes.