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It’s Easy to be Rude Behind a Computer Screen.

Technological advances have greatly improved our way of living. Cell phones make it easy to get in contact with one another. Computers make getting work done simple. Televisions grant us entertainment on those days when we need a break from the real world. Burglar, fire and carbon monoxide alarms make us feel much safer in our homes. GPS devices help us get to where we need to be without having to consult a hard-to-read map.

All in all, it sounds like technology is our saving grace. And, in some ways, I would argue that it has been.

Unfortunately, there are two sides to every coin and, with the good must also come the bad. We can pretend (as we like to do with many other things) that the bad does not exist but it does and it would be wrong not to acknowledge those flaws.

As mentioned above, computers have the ability to make getting work done extremely easy. You can count on Google to supply you with an answer to almost any question. Sites like Yahoo, CNN and Buzzfeed (depending on your preference) can provide you with countless current events and news stories. YouTube grants you the gift of endless entertaining videos (even though this can sometimes feel like more a curse than a blessing, especially when you are trying to be productive).

When you think of the Internet in this light, it sounds like the best tool we humans have ever been given. But, as humans, we have an uncanny ability to ruin a perfectly good thing and this is exactly what we did with the creation of online harassment (because apparently regular harassment was not enough).

Anonymity is a person’s best friend online. They can say whatever they want, whenever they want and there is a very high chance that no one will ever know about it. Maybe you’re sitting across from someone right now who is currently typing up a less than nice comment on someone’s Facebook page and you don’t even realize it (kind of a scary thought, right?).

So not only is a computer used to learn new things, watch videos and have fun, it has also become a tool to pick on other people.

In the case of this video, the harassment is being pointed at female sportswriters who are literally being attacked for doing their job. To stir things up a little bit and put things in perspective, a podcast called Just Not Sports made men read these horrible tweet out loud to the women they were directed towards. From the get go it was obvious that these men (who were not the authors of any of these tweets) were extremely uncomfortable with the things they were being forced to read.

Things took a turn for the worse when tweets started mentioning things like rape and abuse. The men found themselves stumbling over words and one man had to be prompted to continue reading when he got stuck on a particularly horrible tweet.

“I can’t even look at you while reading this,” one man commented while keeping his eyes focused on his phone screen. This sentiment just further proves the point that if you wouldn’t say this to a person’s face, why would you type it online? Yes it is easier to type up an unnecessarily rude comment on your computer but why post it? What takes you less than a minute to type might take a person more than a few hours to recover from.

We are more than our Labels.

Food has a label on it in order to let us know what ingredients it is made of.

Clothing has labels on them in order to let us know what materials they are made of.

A piece of mail has a label on it in order to let a person know where it is supposed to go.

Even fire extinguishers have both removable and permanent labels on them for safety purposes.

All of these objects have labels on them because this is what they are – objects. They require labels in order to let us know more about them. A label lets us know that a cake was baked with peanut oil. A label makes us aware that the shirt we are wearing is made of 100% cotton. A label lets a mailman know what mailbox to drop a letter in.

In every single one of these scenarios, having a label makes sense.

Labels do not make sense however when we are talking about people.

People are not objects. They cannot easily be squeezed into a handful of societally created categories. Humans are far too complex to say we are only one thing or another but not both. We are countless things put together and I think that is part of the reason why we are all so beautiful.

Labels are too constrictive. I hate when it comes time to fill out on an application and I am instructed to only choose one answer. According to my application, I can only be Hispanic/Latino or American. Not both. Only one.

Labels are dangerous. They lead to overarching assumptions that, more times than not, are incorrect.

Labels should no longer exist. Why can’t we live in a world where we do not discriminate based on race, gender or sex? Why can’t we see people for who they are instead of who we expect them to be? Why can’t we just accept that everyone is different and that there is nothing wrong with that?

A label does not define who we are as people. We are the only ones allowed to define ourselves.

On February 15, I attended a talk called “Race and Digital Feminism” given by Dr. Britney Cooper as a part of Douglass Residential College’s “Conversations with Extraordinary Women”. Dr. Cooper is an assistant professor of Women’s and Gender Studies and Africana Studies at Rutgers University.

Immediately, I was inspired to attend this event because I was intrigued to hear about digital feminism. When I attended the event however, my interest was stolen by the race aspect of Dr. Brittney Cooper’s speech. She openly and freely spoke about it, something that I have found certain classes are uncomfortable with doing. Many of the Women’s and Gender Studies classes I have taken at Rutgers have been taught by white female professors who acknowledge the inability to discuss all aspects of a woman’s plight because they do not know firsthand how women live in other parts of the country or world.

The same could not be said for Dr. Cooper who was more than willing to explain all of the struggles she had growing up. She talked about never fully fitting in at school because she was considered to be an “oreo” (white on the inside and black on the outside). White people growing up did not like to associate with her because of her skin color and black people did not like her because she “spoke like a white person”. What was even better is that there were a few girls in the crowd who started snapping their approval of all the things Dr. Cooper was saying. They could connect with her stories and I feel like that is an extremely important aspect of teaching about topics such as these.

I felt extremely comfortable in this space and it made me wonder when we would get around to creating more spaces similar to this one. I want to hear a talk given by a Latina that revolves around her experiences growing up. I want to feel like I belong to something because I do not always feel that way in some of my women-based classes. I want other cultures and ethnicities to take the forefront in conversations during class instead of being barely mentioned. Let there be more open discussions about the experiences of different ethnicities in place of focusing solely on one.

Dr. Brittney Cooper and her talk let me know that race is something that needs to be addressed. It cannot be swept under the rug and ignored. It is a flashing neon sign that is begging to be acknowledged and accepted. Having more open conversations about it can have countless benefits in the long run. We can create more open spaces for people to talk about their experiences. We can make people feel more comfortable about themselves and their heritage. We can make people proud to be who they are instead of making them ashamed for being different.

What we need is more intersectionality and I really hope we get it sooner rather than later.

Let me set the scene for you.

Imagine that you are 20 years old. You are at a regularly scheduled doctor’s appointment. You are expecting this checkup to be just like every other one you’ve had and yet, it’s not. Instead the doctor, this person you literally trust with your life, tells you something is wrong. You’re scared (as most people in your shoes would be) and you don’t know what to do.

Finally the doctor returns but there is a very somber look on his face. It makes the pit in your stomach grow impossibly bigger.

Doctor: *very seriously* There’s something wrong with you.

You: What do you mean?

Doctor: You’re not who you thought you were.

You: *panicked* Is this some kind of joke?

Doctor: No, it’s not a joke. We made a mistake and well you’re simply not who you thought you were.

Suddenly, the rug has been pulled right out from under you and nothing makes sense anymore. Up is down and down is up. Left is right and right is left. You have entered some kind of alternate universe where you are no longer yourself and there are no words to properly describe how you’re feeling.

Now, this all sounds pretty ridiculous right? How are you “not who you thought you were”? This seems like the kind of straight to television movie no one would want to watch, except perhaps late at night when no one is around (a guilty pleasure of sorts).

Well you’re right, the scene doesn’t unfold like this. But it does unfold in a similar manner for someone who is born intersex.

Intersex, as defined by the Intersex Society of America, is “a general term used for a variety of conditions in which a person is born with a reproductive or sexual anatomy that doesn’t seem to fit the typical definitions of female or male”. To put this into more layman’s terms, intersex resides in the awkward middle ground between being a male or a female.

Confused? If so, I am not surprised. Intersex is not a word we hear very often. In fact, it is not a word I knew even existed until I was a freshman in college. That is because society does not want you to know about this ‘deviant’ category – this awkward sex that complicates the idea that there are only two sexes. To quote a very famous television sitcom, how rude!

I’m just kidding. They are not the rude ones, not at all. They couldn’t help the fact that they were BORN THIS WAY. The people who should be blamed are the ones who do not believe that those born intersex should have the right not remain that way. Those who purposefully harm and practically mutilate these intersex bodies simply because we do not understand them.

I’m looking at you Doctors.

For some reason it is hard to accept that there is some kind of middle ground between male and female (even though science itself proves that this is a pretty common occurrence). So what do they do? They force parents to make a decision – male or female. I kid you not, parents who have children that are born intersex are told that, for their child’s safety, they need to pick either one sex or the other.

And so begins the Case of the Stolen Identity: Intersex Edition.

What kind of identity is a baby supposed to have if it is stolen right out from under them? How are they supposed to grow up and be who they are if, mere moments after they are born, their future is decided for them?

Now that I’ve explained what intersex, let me reset the scene from earlier for you.

Imagine that you are at home going through a box of old things in your attic. You come across a dusty photo album and decide to flip through it (you’ve always been a sucker for reminiscing about your past). When you open it however, you are extremely surprised to find that the pictures are not of you but of someone else. Someone with dressed in denim overalls and smiling at the camera with a small truck in his hands.

You run your hand across the photo, confused. What is this photo doing here and who is this boy? You continue looking through the album and find more photos of the same person but it doesn’t make any sense. You’re an only child. Why is there an album of this boy in your attic among a collection of your things?

Then the puzzle pieces start to fall into place.

This boy looks just like you – same eyes, same nose, same mouth.

He is posed in pictures with your parents and he looks so happy. They do too.

Could it be? Did you have a twin you never knew about? A brother who died early and whom your parents never wanted you to know existed?

You rush downstairs to show your mother the album and, when she bursts into tears, you think you have solved the mystery. For a few minutes, you let this feeling swallow you whole. A brother. A twin no less. Gone before you ever got the chance to know him.

But your world is shattered when your mom sits you down and says, “That’s not your brother sweetie. That’s you.”

Suddenly, the rug has been pulled right out from under you and nothing makes sense anymore. Up is down and down is up. Left is right and right is left. You have entered some kind of alternate universe where you are no longer yourself and there are no words to properly describe how you’re feeling.

Now that you know what you know, that first scene I mentioned seems a little less outlandish. Identities can and have been stolen from people without them ever knowing it until years later.

For our plenary on April 13, we watched a documentary called Intersexion. It told the story of countless intersex individuals and their experiences growing up. For me, it was extremely emotional to hear all these tales of people whose futures were decided for them. Whose identities were stolen right out from under their young noses.

I wonder if the doctors who performed these gender assignment surgeries all those years ago ever stopped to think about the consequences of their actions. Did they ever wonder how much more harm than good they were doing? Because, when I watched that documentary, that’s all I heard. More anger than happiness. More pain than bliss. More feeling lost than being found.

And, if you really think about it, it all makes sense. How are you supposed to be happy with yourself when you don’t even know who you are?

Another thought that crossed my mind after watching this documentary was this: how much untapped potential was stifled because we couldn’t accept that a child was born ‘different’? How many people were too bogged down by the weight of not being accepted to reach their full potential? How many future politicians, doctors, activists, authors, and composers did we lose because we couldn’t say “well you’re a human so we are going to accept you for who you are”?

The more I think about, the more I realize that intersex people had more than just their identity stolen from them. They had their innocence given away the moment a doctor proclaimed, “You have to decide – boy or girl?”

But what if this wasn’t a decision that had to be made? What if, instead of making parents choose between one or the other, we acknowledge the existence of both? What if, as one of the interviewees in the documentary put it, “Instead of saying ‘congratulations, it’s a boy or girl’, we say ‘congratulations, you have a beautiful, healthy baby’?”

To answer his question, I’d say that bringing a baby into this world without the constraints of acknowledging its sex the moment it is born maybe, just maybe, could solve The Case of the Stolen Identity: Intersex Edition.

On April 6, the speaker at our plenary was Bobbie Ridgely, the executive director of a nonprofit organization called A Future With Hope. Her road to becoming an executive director was not a straight one. In fact, there were many twists, turns and detours that still somehow culminated into her becoming (SPOILER ALERT) part of an organization that she was proud of.

Instead of jumping ahead to the end of the story, let’s first start at the beginning. Bobbie Ridgley was a good student growing up. She acquired good grades and managed to balance this along with working on her family farm. Once it was time to start college, her decision of what to major in was simple. She wanted to be an engineer and she would major in engineering. Despite some rough patches, engineering is the major Ridgley stuck to and would go on to get a master’s degree in. This education is what led to an extremely successful career including: receiving her first management job at the age of thirty and, five years later, being promoted to the role of director in development.

From the details mentioned about her life, one would assume that Ridgely’s life continued on in this manner. She remained in this engineering job that obviously cherished her as a worker. She reached the top of her career and felt accomplished for doing so.

Well, here’s another spoiler – that is not what happened. Not at all.

Bobbie Ridgley left her seemingly safe career in pursue of something different. At the time that she left though, she had no idea that her life would do a complete 180 and present her with a job she never saw herself having – executive director of a nonprofit organization called A Future with Hope.

Impossible to believe, right? How does someone go from being an engineer to an executive director of a nonprofit in the same lifetime?

Here is how it happened:

1. She got outside experience doing volunteer work at the Red Cross and got disaster recovery training.

2. She became more engaged in her church and worked with an outreach committee.

3. She found a way to transfer over past experience from her old job.

To summarize this small list into one sentence here is what she did – she took different things she learned throughout her life and used them to her advantage. When only taking into consideration her past career, one would assume that Ridgley was no fit for A Future with Hope and its goal to aid victims affected by Superstorm Sandy. Once you delve deeper into her life, it is painfully apparent that Bobbie Ridgley was in fact the perfect choice to be executive director of the nonprofit organization.

I feel like an important lesson can be learned from Bobbie Ridgley and the story of her life – your past does not permanently define or determine your future.

As college students, we are programmed to assume that the choices we make now will determine the path of our future forevermore. Although this statement is mostly true, it rings untrue in terms of our careers. Our majors do not have to be precisely the field we choose to pursue in the future. You can do something as crazy as graduate from college with a master’s in engineering and still end up the executive director of a nonprofit organization. 

What matters most are the lessons you carry with you and experience you gather along the way. Your life can be whatever you want it to be. Whatever you make of it. We are all capable of creating our own future and, similar to the project Ridgley is working on, it can be one filled with hope. 

Ageism, like sexism and racism, exists and shows no signs of disappearing any time soon.

Not only are women in the media (and day-to-day life) expected to live up to ridiculous beauty standards; they are also being discriminated against for something they cannot change – their age.

In an article posted by themarysue.com, Olivia Wilde discusses her firsthand experience with the ageism that plagues Hollywood. After auditioning for the role of Leonardo DiCaprio’s wife in The Wolf of Wall Street, she was told she did not get the job for being “too sophisticated”. At first, this sounds like a compliment. Being too sophisticated for something? What an honor. However, Wilde learned later on that “sophisticated” was really just a code word. She wasn’t too sophisticated for the part, she was too old.

There are countless ironies that can be found behind this statement.

1. Olivia Wilde was only 28 at the time of the casting.

2. Leonardo DiCaprio, the male lead in the movie, was 37 at the time of casting. That would make him 9 years older than Wilde,

3. Margot Robbie who ended up winning the role of DiCaprio’s wife was most likely 21 around the time that she was cast. That would make her 7 years younger than Wilde and 16 years younger than her on-screen husband.

Unfortunately situations like this are very common. Actresses such as Carrie Fisher and Helen Mirren have stepped forward and called out Hollywood for the unrealistic standards they hold women up to. It is one thing to say a woman is not fit for a role because her acting is not what the director is looking for. It is another thing entirely for them to refuse to cast a woman because she is too old. I do not understand what Hollywood wants people to do about a process that cannot be stopped or reversed (unless plastic surgery is involved).

My question for Hollywood is this: why is it okay for men to age but not okay for women to do the same? Why is it that older men are allowed to play the older man with a young wife but women are not allowed to do the same? As men get older, they are considered wiser and more mature. When women get older, they get typecasted. They stop being the love interest and start being the mom, the unwanted ex-wife and the grandma.

Hollywood and society needs to see how toxic ageism is. What message are we setting for young girls and women around the world if we continue to let this discrimination exist? We are telling them that their youth is what matters most and that beauty comes before everything else. Once you lose that beauty, you are worthless. Once you age, you are useless.

These messages are not true.

Women and men of all ages are important.

Age should not be the determinant of who achieves what role. It should come down to talent and experience only, case closed.