That Kind of Girl

I'm just a girl, take a good look at me

Just your typical prototype

~No Doubt

Let me preface this by saying that I really like each song/book/movie that I refer to in this post. In fact, I only chose songs/books/movies that I liked so as to avoid a huge bias against artists I didn’t like. I think every artist mentioned in this post has some wonderful things to say, often about feminism as well.

Let me also mention here that this post contains the word “awesome” more often than is necessary.

I’ve been noticing an unsettling trend in songs and books and movies, and that is:

Awesome heroines are awesome because they are not like other girls.

Y’all, what’s up with that? You know what I’m talking about.

ableism*

Discrimination, I imagine, looks different to everyone depending on where they’re coming from. It’s relative: the discrimination happening to me always looks worse than the discrimination happening to you.

The government of Canada recognizes me as a visible minority, which is kind of funny. I look “white”**. I am white (half). I hesitate to say I act white, because I don’t think there’s such a way to act (and please see the footnote). But I was born and grew up in Canada. My attitudes and way of looking at the world were pretty much standard in comparison with my classmates. That’s how white I act. But the government says that because my father is ethnically Indian (like, from India … even though he’s never been there) his children will be acknowledged to be “visible minorities” as well. Sure. Fine. But I can still pass as white.***

So I’ve never encountered any racism directed at me before. I’ve encountered some racism directed at Indians or “mixed” people before, but upon revealing my ethnicity, the offender in question has always backed off, looking shocked at they weren’t talking to, you know, one of them. Most recently I was on the receiving end of a lovely comment what went something like, “&%$#ing brown people – they’re always so ____” until I coughed and pointed out that I’m half Indian to get him to shut up, at which point the he corrected himself and said he was mostly talking about “&%$#ing Pakis” anyway. Incidentally, that was not less offensive. I don’t think. Like I said, I encounter almost no racism directed at me.

I’m not going to count the racism directed at white people I’ve encountered because white is the majority here, and I don’t think that racism does as much damage as the other kind, though I could be wrong. It still separates us.

The most bit of discrimination I get directed at me either directly or indirectly is sexism. And yes, to me it feels like it must be the worse kind of discrimination out there. Maybe it is. But I’m probably in no position to make that call if that’s the only one I experience.

Last summer, however, I was suddenly privy to another form of discrimination: Ableism, which Wikipedia describes as a form of discrimination or social prejudice against people with disabilities.

You see, I broke my foot. It was stupid – I misjudged where the stair banister was and kicked it quite hard in my attempt to step past it. The lighting was okay, I was completely sober. It was a stupid, stupid accident. I tell you this because no one bought my story about saving orphans from a fire…

identity theft

I've been thinking a lot lately about Identity Theft. This is perhaps because in the last week, there have been three thefts concerning people I am close to. Jamais deux sans trios, oui?

In this day and age, information is sent at impossible speeds around the world, so when you're paying for yet another case of beer in Brazil, your bank in Windsor can say, "No, fool. DECLINED." And in the morning, you're glad that this technology exists. You're glad that the store that sold you your 62" television has a record of your phone number and address so when you lose the receipt and it stops working in three days, they can say, "Hey, not a problem."

But no one's glad to see that their bank account has been emptied one day. ESPECIALLY when it wasn't you who emptied it. No one wants to be turned down for a mortgage because their credit has turned sour. No one is glad to learn they're on the airport's special list because some other John Smith with your birthday (and let's face it, there must be tons) has been convicted of murder. Will the real John Smith please stand up!

So while trying to catch a cab home from the airport (because they finally figured out it wasn't you, but damn, you missed your flight), you're starting to wonder how this is possible. How can you be wanted for a crime you did not commit? How can someone else have used your debit card to demolish your life savings? How can we stop sharing so much information?

And do we even want to? What is the alternative? Sharing all this information is so convenient for everyday living, we all know this. But it comes at a price. There is that risk we take everyday. That someone could walk away with your IDENTITY. And what is scarier than that?

I think Eminem had something there.

human trafficking

Human Trafficking has come up in conversation twice in the last month, which I found ... not usual. It's a horrific topic, but one that should not be ignored. It seems to be, though. We all care about the war in Iraq, and the problems with the environment, and hungry children in India, but talk about Trafficking is ominously avoided. And yet we all know it goes on. People are abducted from their homes or countries and forced into slave labour or prostitution. Is this not as terrible?

It could be the fact that problems that affect mostly women (and female children) are notoriously given less importance, but I like to think we've mostly moved past this. Still, though. Human Trafficking has been called the fastest growing criminal industry in the world, which is a scary thought. Why is no one paying attention? It's not like there aren't victims from every country, every social class in the world. Anyone could be personally affected by this, and I've seen few people who really care.

I know they care, though. Just because awareness is down, does not mean that those who become aware continue to ignore the problems. And there are women like Somaly Mam who have made great impacts on the lives of many victims. Her website: http://www.somaly.org/

It scares me that this happens to so many people, and that we hardly ever hear about it. It scares me that there is a huge market for this. (Who are all these people paying for non-consentual sex? Really. Who? And how did they get like that?) What scares me most, though, is that we as a species - the instigators, the consumers, and the ones who have done nothing to fix this - seem to have fallen down again, and we might not be able to get out of this one either.