Today in the news, it was announced that Twitter was going to employ Apple's director of equality (or some such title). Apparently somewhere in the region of 80% of Twitter staff are male and around 60% are white. That just sounds pretty normal to me to be honest. That's about the makeup of most tech businesses. Indeed, I worked for one shower here in Columbia SC where the boss said he wouldn't employ women at all because they would get in the way of his porn viewing. That's right - he liked to view porn while his staff worked. Needless to say, there were other problems with that business hence it was one of the few jobs I quit before getting another role.
The thing that amuses me most about the equal opportunities is that they"re so limited. Equal opportunities are restricted to black, white, male or female. They don't extend to any of the other varieties of humankind. It's OK to be prejudiced against religious beliefs, lifestyles, tattooes, looks, clothing, sexuality, sexual orientation and gender expression. It seems to me that equality is only as good as the law and the law is not very equal.
Thinking further on equlity, the problem goes right back to people's attitudes. Until we all have the attitude of equality within us, nobody will ever be equal. For example, take photography. Wedding photography used to be the preserve of men and male photographers. They were the only people that generally wanted to master the technical aspects of what was then quite a technical role. Women generally let the men do the technical stuff though my mother loved taking photos.. That was inequality in society. That inequality has reduced with women taking on more technical roles despite some falling back on the roal of helpless waifs.
Now, wedding photography and particularly boudoir photography is dominated by women. The thought is that since the camera can handle the technical aspects of photography without much intervention, the photographer can concentrate on the artistic aspects - that does rather appeal more to women than to men. Certainly I'm saying women prefer the artistic aspects to the techical and men the technical to the artistic - in general. This, however is the result more of upbringing than anything else.
The fact that women are increasingly dominating the photography market as suppliers also says more about the makeup of society where women generally have traditional roles based on genetics. Due to women largely being stay-at-home mothers or part-time workers in low-paid jobs while they look after children, women increasingly look toward photography as a casual earner.
(editor - at this point the "Blog It" app from the android app store deleted the next 5 paragraphs without user intervention)
The domination of women in photography is almost 100% when it comes to boudoir photography. There's no logical reason for that because both men and women are equally capable of acts of sexual violence on either men or women. Indeed, there have been cases in the media recently of female schoolteachers having babies fathered by their male students where the schoolteacher initiated the "romance". Facts don't seem to come into it very much. 95% of men would never commit an act of sexual violence toward a man or woman. It's not just that 95% are simply non violent and non dominating but the thought of losing ones business, ones reputation and spending several years as somebody elses sex slave in a prison probably has something to do with it. Here we have a major thing - fear is a major dictator of personal choices and reactions. Fear dominates people's lives more than they will admit.
Fear of the strange and unusual is one reason why or perhaps the dominant reason why the different flavors of humanity face prejudice. We have already established that black and white are equally capable. Differences are largely based on upbringing. For example, in an area where there are few jobs there is little inclination to study to get better jobs because the jobs don't exist.
Because transexuals, homosexuals, transvestites, transgender, bisexual, asexual etc are minorities, people who're broght up with religious and traditional family backgrounds generally have little to no experience of such people. The new and unusual comes with fear. To people without experience, fear breeds predjudice. There are states such as New York that are actively trying to wipe out prejudice.
Going back to Twitter and tech companies, until they have a requirement for true minorities to be employed or rather a legal requirement to employ such minorities, the workplace transsexual, trasvestite, homosexual, transgender, bisexual etc will always remain an unemployed minority.
Going even further, back to boudoir photography, how would a woman react to having a transvestite or transsexual photographing her or even a fully disclosed lesbian? I think it's safe to bet that most women are biassed or afraid enough that such a possibility would be met with outright refusal.
Going toward men's clubs - would a men's club accept a known homosexual or would they be afraid that they'd get attacked in the bathroom? Men and women kiss in public and that's seen as normal. Two women seen kissing in public is unusual. Two men kissing in public is seen as abhorent. How about a transvestite or transsexual and a partner of the same or different genders seen kissing in public? Yet - this is an act between two people and nothing that does anything more than visually impact the people that actively watch.
I have very much a feeling that while tech companies such as Twitter are now employing equal opportunities directors, their remit is just going to be the same boring old black & white, male & female. Thus far the number of publically known transsexuals is minimal - possibly only half a dozen of which Caitlyn Jenner is the most widely known at the moment. Interestingly, she has not had any form of sexual reassignment surgery so while she is seen as female, she still possesses male genitalia. Does this perhaps blur the line between transsexual and transvestite? I have yet to see any business that employs a transvestite other than show business. There are many successful transvestites in show business - Dame Edna Everidge/Barry Humphries is just one example. Generally such people are restricted to being side-show freaks. I have yet to be served in a store by a man with a beard wearing a dress and hoseiery. I have yet to be served in a store by a man dressed even remotely convincingly as a woman or even unconvincingly for that matter.
Returning again to photography and wedding photography, how many photographers are there that are transgender or transvestite? How many are homosexuals? It definitely seems to have become the preserve of heterosexual women just like boudoir photography.
Looking to the future, it took centuries for black and white to become equal. Various conservative groups such as the KKK have tried hard to set back equality for fear that it might change their lives in some negative way. Homosexuality became fought against but that was harder because nobody could prove it negatively affected anybody so it was left to some religious oddballs to find some dubious sounding reasons in the bible to challenge equality. It took several thousand years for women to achieve equality. The challenge there was the perceived role as child brearer and rearer that was seen as not allowing anything else.
After several thousand years of conflict, religious equality is here yet there are groups of zealots diametrically opposed to such equality. ISIS, for example and the Taliban. The Taliban uses photography and photographs yet despises photography and photographs, particularly of people. There's not so much equality but equality in many places yet some groups demand domination.
It looks like being several years yet before we do reach full equality. I have no problem with people's preferences. Where I and others have issues is when people try to sell their preferences to me and make it seem as though we are the odd ones for not trying their lifestle. For example, I would no longer be a homosexual than a Jehova's Witness or a criminal. I will stand up for their right to be Jehova's Witesses or homosexuals (though as the Good Lord says - criminals are Devil spawn). Once we do have equality, there will be acceptace of all lifestyles.
No comments:
Post a Comment