Ageism and sexism
Feb 24, 2021 10:33:24 GMT -5
Post by Deleted on Feb 24, 2021 10:33:24 GMT -5
Xenophobia is widespread. Aside from being involved in propaganda, it also easily reinforces itself through daily experience. Insults traded by people strongly attached to their identity shape that negative experience that is then projected onto all people associated with the same identity as that of an insulting person. Words can hurt, but worse yet, they can do lasting damage to our capacity or willingness to preceive other people without prejudice.
This article is about countering prejudice that some age group (or generation), or gender, or both taken together is inherently better (worse) than some other.
I have, throughout my live, been strongly xenophobic. This tendency was shaped - in school and university - by being constantly evaluated by people who really perceived you as lesser, as owing something to someone because of their age, status or even gender. This inequality was not just between students and teachers, but between students of different gender, through teacher's preferential treatment of students of one gender over the other (most often, female students favored by female teachers). Not surprisingly, female students performed better overall under such conditions and dropped out of courses less often, which, in turn, must have shaped some preconceptions about gender.
By the time I entered workforce, my views could be summarized as strong hatred of the elderly, and a bipolar mix of misogyny or, perhaps, envy with perception that women were a better sex in some aspects, being more accurate, better at learning, etc.
Over the time of my employment, however, I have seen enough examples of individuals to counter all of the preconceptions formed. It then became apparent to me that whether the person in question is virtuous and what kind of virtue one has depends on the specific person alone and can't be answered in general based on what gender or age (or both taken together) they are.
Some such examples are given below.
First one is an old woman that was a programmer under my supervision. Completely full of herself, and hardly ever accurate, with neither knowledge of English nor passion to write clear, understandable code. Worse yet, rather than working in the office so she can actually learn, she insisted on working remotely half of the week, which was negotiated by management during hiring (I was not the one hiring as I was a lead programmer rather than boss). There goes my view about women being accurate with a passion for learning. At this stage I concluded those good qualities apply only to women that are young, whereas the arrogance of old people makes them poor learners.
Second one is actually two people: two men (40+ and 50+ years old), both programmes, the relatively younger of the two initially wanted to be a doctor, and switched to programming around turning 40. He actually did some freelance programming work as well beside working in our company. The other one was more than 50 years old, but seemed to never give up and always work towards a solution, no matter what was thrown at him. Neither were arrogant, and we happily conversed with each other many times during dinner or early work hours. So, it seems, old men are not necessary arrogant, then? Some definitely were - the ones I encountered in university - but now I've seen that old age does not necessarily come with arrogance in one package.
Third one is a young woman straight out of university with a bachelor's degree, who began master's degree in parallel to signing up at our company as a clerk. She was very intelligent, knew English well, but didn't care about work discipline one bit, always coming later, and was, for her age, surprisingly arrogant. Her mother was apparently rich, and the girl continuously boasted about herself whenever talking to someone she knew on the phone during work hours. In the end, she thought that the work of the clerk was "too low" for someone with a bachelor's degree, and she tried to go for being a project manager instead (which would match her future master's degree), changing occupation within the company. Her career finally came to an early closure when she was given one of the projects I worked in as a lead programmer, by that time I had enough of her so I called her boss and threatened to resign if her position is approved. Her boss immediately called the girl that evening, and, though they didn't intend to get rid of her, she resigned of her own volition withing a week. CEO let her go without 2-week notice. Her new job at another company was no longer a manager but some kind of consultant, so she was no longer getting work experience for her future diploma. Good riddance, and there goes my view that women were better or more accurate.
Wrapping up, it turned out that neither age nor gender is a predictor of whether the person is a shitty one. Well, perhaps the weakest evidence I have is towards at least some old women being good, because I can't pick anything on that from memory right now, and the recent real-life encounters reinforced the negative. Still, I am now trying to purge any preconceptions about a person based on their perceived group identity, and also watch out for any verbal exchanges that try to pull me back into distorted xenophobic view.
P.S. Yes, this is inspired by a recent exchange that happened on these boards between two members in an offtopic subforum, although the idea is more broad: watch out when you call out the other persons' perceived group identity, you are reinforcing prejudice towards yours.
This article is about countering prejudice that some age group (or generation), or gender, or both taken together is inherently better (worse) than some other.
I have, throughout my live, been strongly xenophobic. This tendency was shaped - in school and university - by being constantly evaluated by people who really perceived you as lesser, as owing something to someone because of their age, status or even gender. This inequality was not just between students and teachers, but between students of different gender, through teacher's preferential treatment of students of one gender over the other (most often, female students favored by female teachers). Not surprisingly, female students performed better overall under such conditions and dropped out of courses less often, which, in turn, must have shaped some preconceptions about gender.
By the time I entered workforce, my views could be summarized as strong hatred of the elderly, and a bipolar mix of misogyny or, perhaps, envy with perception that women were a better sex in some aspects, being more accurate, better at learning, etc.
Over the time of my employment, however, I have seen enough examples of individuals to counter all of the preconceptions formed. It then became apparent to me that whether the person in question is virtuous and what kind of virtue one has depends on the specific person alone and can't be answered in general based on what gender or age (or both taken together) they are.
Some such examples are given below.
First one is an old woman that was a programmer under my supervision. Completely full of herself, and hardly ever accurate, with neither knowledge of English nor passion to write clear, understandable code. Worse yet, rather than working in the office so she can actually learn, she insisted on working remotely half of the week, which was negotiated by management during hiring (I was not the one hiring as I was a lead programmer rather than boss). There goes my view about women being accurate with a passion for learning. At this stage I concluded those good qualities apply only to women that are young, whereas the arrogance of old people makes them poor learners.
Second one is actually two people: two men (40+ and 50+ years old), both programmes, the relatively younger of the two initially wanted to be a doctor, and switched to programming around turning 40. He actually did some freelance programming work as well beside working in our company. The other one was more than 50 years old, but seemed to never give up and always work towards a solution, no matter what was thrown at him. Neither were arrogant, and we happily conversed with each other many times during dinner or early work hours. So, it seems, old men are not necessary arrogant, then? Some definitely were - the ones I encountered in university - but now I've seen that old age does not necessarily come with arrogance in one package.
Third one is a young woman straight out of university with a bachelor's degree, who began master's degree in parallel to signing up at our company as a clerk. She was very intelligent, knew English well, but didn't care about work discipline one bit, always coming later, and was, for her age, surprisingly arrogant. Her mother was apparently rich, and the girl continuously boasted about herself whenever talking to someone she knew on the phone during work hours. In the end, she thought that the work of the clerk was "too low" for someone with a bachelor's degree, and she tried to go for being a project manager instead (which would match her future master's degree), changing occupation within the company. Her career finally came to an early closure when she was given one of the projects I worked in as a lead programmer, by that time I had enough of her so I called her boss and threatened to resign if her position is approved. Her boss immediately called the girl that evening, and, though they didn't intend to get rid of her, she resigned of her own volition withing a week. CEO let her go without 2-week notice. Her new job at another company was no longer a manager but some kind of consultant, so she was no longer getting work experience for her future diploma. Good riddance, and there goes my view that women were better or more accurate.
Wrapping up, it turned out that neither age nor gender is a predictor of whether the person is a shitty one. Well, perhaps the weakest evidence I have is towards at least some old women being good, because I can't pick anything on that from memory right now, and the recent real-life encounters reinforced the negative. Still, I am now trying to purge any preconceptions about a person based on their perceived group identity, and also watch out for any verbal exchanges that try to pull me back into distorted xenophobic view.
P.S. Yes, this is inspired by a recent exchange that happened on these boards between two members in an offtopic subforum, although the idea is more broad: watch out when you call out the other persons' perceived group identity, you are reinforcing prejudice towards yours.
