Right place, right time

I got incredibly frustrated at work today. I was sick, and I shouldn't have been out of bed to begin with, so when I was faced with telling the same people why they shouldn't post a PDF to their website for the 90th time I lost it a little and went home.

I decided to spend the time in bed taking a a Poynter scientific writing course I'd been putting off for... oh lord, a year?

But these things happen at exactly the right time. Or, I see the connections when I need to. Or something.

I've spent most of my time in newspapers and nonprofits, but recently moved into higher education. The work is the same, but the culture is very different. And I have never seen it more nailed:

"Many, if not most, scientists are trained to believe that the more complicated their sentences, the more important their work. And the more important their work, the more likely they are to get funding from major sources and gain the kind of respect from their peers that translates into a more successful career."
-- Poynter. News University, Whose Truth? Tools for Smart Science Journalism in the Digital Age

HOLY LIGHT BULB.

Especially since I'd just posted this linked text -- seriously, just five seconds before reading the above -- to Facebook, which is what I've been repeating to each and every one of them ad nauseam:

"You are writing to impress someone hanging from a strap in the tube between Parson's Green and Putney, who will stop reading in a fifth of a second, given a chance."
-- Tim Radford, The Guardian

Everything's connected. Never stop learning, seeing and listening.

IN THE WORLD: Nathan Fillion and Ruben Santiago-Hudson

I commented to a friend today that so many wonderful people died this year, I needed a constant stream of people who are still alive to counteract what I'm beginning to feel is an epidemic of losing amazing people, and being left with Donald Trump.

I do not care for religion, and the more I hear people arguing and excluding each other over it, the more I am reminded of the same ways people in power use racism and sexism to keep people distracted, instead of paying attention real ways they could be making things better.

But Shepherd Book's calm questioning and acceptance of the people around him invites the best comparisons with religious people I know and admire. People who use their faith to help those around them and include them, not to pass judgement. You know, unless those people might need to be reminded that they are doing something fundamentally incorrect.

I don't know anything about Ron Glass personally, but as a lover of 70s and 80s television, he has very much been part of my life. I really enjoy those actors who play the witness or friend or sister of someone on one episode of television, and if you watch a lot of TV (like I do), these people stand out, and you get the idea they must be easy or fun to work with, because you see them throughout the years even on the same show.

Which brings me to the point of all this: I hate that Ron Glass died. But still with us? Nathan Fillion. He was just such a person who stuck out to me on... what? Probably a 90s? TV show called Two Guys, a Girl and a Pizza Place.

Not only am I happy Nathan Fillion is in the world because I loved every character on Firefly, and really none more than his, and also really like Castle, Dr. Horrible, and a million other projects where he makes life infinitely funnier and brighter; Nathan Fillion seems to be constantly raising money for charities. Right now, it's for a children's museum in L.A. This will be especially exciting to my daughter, who not only loves Nathan Fillion with the rabidity of the young, but currently works in a children's museum (finger on the pulse, that guy). He appears at comic cons, does cross promotion with the Supernatural guys, and generally gives of himself to fans in a good-humored way I get exhausted just thinking about. It's a way I see more and more as the comic con mentality becomes more the way of entertainment in an ultra-crowded sphere, and I love it.

When I started watching Castle, I did so because of Nathan Fillion, by now having fallen in love with Firefly (and stopped saying, "Johnny!" every time I saw him). But there was someone there who, like Fillion and Ron Glass, caught my attention over the years: Ruben Santiago-Hudson. I started researching Hudson, and found Lackawana Blues, collecting an amazing cast of these faces I had seen here and there in a phenomenal, award-winning play Santiago-Hudson wrote about his own childhood. He's won an Emmy, a Tony and a bunch of other awards over the years.

We lost one very good, beautiful, familiar, comforting face. But here are two we still have to celebrate.

P.S. I also want to say that I really miss Julius Carry. The man was in classics of comedy, martial arts and every TV show known to man or woman (but not Designing Women, dammit) before running a Pizza Place. I'll always have a special place in my heart for Lord Bowler.

It's not that I can't take a joke...

The place where I work has a Gender Equity Initiative. Putting a description on what gender equity brings to light is difficult, in a similar way to race conversations we are having right now as a nation, because the people who are affected are women and LGBT and transgender men -- really anyone who's not a gender-conforming, straight, white male. But I've found defining gender equity in those terms means straight, white men can either dismiss the subject as not applying to them or, especially in the case of racial equality, become extremely angry and defensive.

I understand this reaction: Any change in the status quo is upsetting for those who benefit from the status quo. And no one likes to think they are doing something wrong. Apologies are so charged now; admitting you were wrong and asking for forgiveness is treated as a weakness, especially in a society as litigious as ours.

But the prevailing treatment of women, the ingrained idea that women are there completely for male gratification makes me angry -- furious in a Samuel L. Jackson Pulp Fiction way -- and we can't ignore this attitude anymore.

People talk about how much progress we've made on one issue or another, but I see this "progress" more as a pendulum. Yes, we have less racism now than we did in the 60s, but we've also been about here before. Yes, women have more rights now than they did in the early 20th century, but we are now in a period of rolling back those rights.

At a recent Gender Equality meeting, our CEO talked about what it was like for her as a young woman not being able to find a mentor. She talked about being in a meeting as a young woman just starting out in a company of men, and having one of the men tell her, because of her youth and her gender, that she had no business being there.

And that is the root of much of the problems we're having: a feeling of not belonging. Not just feeling like you don't belong, but being told with every word and action that you are unwanted. When you don't feel like you should be somewhere, you are less likely to advocate for yourself, believe in yourself or succeed at a job. Two separate stories really brought this to the forefront right after the discussion at work: a New York Times article about women so trained by this horrible attitude that they can't believe when they've been sexually assaulted, and a StoryCorps episode about the magic of being told you belong.

An insidious symptom of this behavior is being defined in unflattering or demeaning ways. Having a boss tell you that you need to "be more ladylike" or say he's not investing time in you because you'll "just get pregnant" shows women on a daily basis that they are only being seen as a female body and nothing more. People with a strong sense of self might be able to stand up to this kind of harassment, but what if the woman is getting the same thing from her partner and parents and elected officials? When everyone around you tells you that you are worth nothing, you can't help but start believing it's true. What good is the right to vote when your country tells you that, as a woman, you are worthless?

Whether you are beaten down by these comments every day and have given up, or you actually believe them, or you experience sexist behavior for the first time -- being shown that you are not valued robs a person of their voice. And we need to start speaking up. Not in an angry way unfortunately, which is my reaction, but in a way that engages the sexist person calmly. Now that I am older, I don't get shocked by this behavior anymore and I don't let it go either. But it is really difficult to come up with something in the moment that won't just garner a "geez, women can't take a joke" eye roll.

StopSexistRemarks.org has a good starting point for engaging people when they make a sexist comment, and how confrontational you want to get really depends on the person. I've had to endure an inordinate number of conversations lately where "politically correct" was invoked. I hate this term. It's like "I'm not racist, but...", and whenever someone says they aren't politically correct, you know the next thing out of their mouth will be annoying at best. Considering the feelings of the people you are speaking to -- or the people who might overhear, or just people in general -- is just common consideration. Somehow decency has been lost in this "fuck your feelings" era of America (honestly, I think this shirt might have been a joke by anti-Trump people, but his supporters are wearing it. It's like Talladega Nights up in here).

Here are some of the things I've said in conversation lately (and please post any sexist-comment retorts you've used):

• Wait, nope. You can only joke about being raped (beaten/groped/etc.) if you've actually been raped. Otherwise I'm afraid you have to shut your mouth.
• Would say that to a man? Or, alternately, turn to the man next to you and ask the same question/make the same comment.
• I guess you could imagine a comment about killing your gay son is a joke, if that act was so outside the realm of possibility as to be unthinkable. Ho ho! Who would do that? But because it's happening every day, it's only horrible.
• You're right, I can't take that joke. How about you take it back?
• Would you say to your wife, "How come there's no International Man's Day?" No, because you'd sound like an idiot. The same applies for Black History Month or Latino History Month or anything else. Straight White Guy Day is EVERY DAY. White Guy (we're finding out about the lack of straight more and more) History is not our only history. Shut up and learn something instead of whining.
• We all have to live together. Make it nice.
• My favorite Tapeheads line, which I swear I will make into a GIF one of these days.
• Now that I'm older, I also have an arsenal of mom looks and noises that can be used on men to great effect. Similar to the "would you want your mom treated that way?" argument.

Not only do we have to stand up for ourselves, we have to stand up for each other. And that means anyone, regardless of gender or race, who is being demeaned or assaulted in any way. Speaking up to the person making you feel like shit also stops you from turning around and treating other people like shit (like the person taking your order at Burger King, the person driving next to you, your kids or parents -- anyone YOU think is less powerful than you). There's just no excuse to treat people like crap, and a big part of that is getting the people who do the demeaning to understand -- it's not that I can't take a joke, it's that I'm NOT a joke.