#you can complain about takes but also consider how your biases and lack of awareness play into that | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

rwbyconversations · 5 years

Text

Rooster Teeth Glassdoor Crunch/Overtime Accusations #AnimatorsFirst

EDIT: Georden Whitman, former creator of Nomad of Nowhere, has come out and publicly confirmed the Glassdoor reviews are true.

Original story:

Rooster Teeth’s Glassdoor reviews have recently made serious allegations against the company, with people who work for the company claiming that the company engages in practices involving heavy crunch periods, a resistance to providing benefits, eighty hour work weeks, a management team trying to justify crunch and unpaid overtime that, according to some, led to as much as a third of RWBY and gen;LOCK’s recent seasons being made effectively for free.

Below are screencaps and exact quotes from the pages. Any emphasis made is done by me.

From May 23rd this year, as written by an employee with three years experience at RT:

Cons

Program scheduling department has no idea how to time budget for animation, has resulted in unnecessary, preventable crunch Company takes on projects that are too big for it to manage effectively Not the highest pay compared to Anim Guild standards Open office space, gets noisy

Advice to Management

Management has been using a weird method to try and deescalate hard feelings about crunch. They’re acting like counselors who are “there to talk” and to try and find “coping mechanisms” to deal with crunch. This is a terrible idea considering that none of them are trained counselors as far as I’m aware, but more-so, they’re obviously going to be biased in favor of what they want from us. It makes me want to communicate with them even less. This past review, my manager criticized me for having “negative energy” during a terrible crunch period where we were working over 80 hrs s week, and told me I should “look for the silver lining” which is just bad advice. Advice to management is to stop pretending you know anything about mental health and also be less passive - fight harder for your team.

From May 13th, an employee with a year’s experience at Rooster Teeth:

Cons

The management is terrible. Artists are lead on with the promises of "full time employment and benefits" dangled in front of them without ever being addressed and ultimately are never given, there is no paid overtime, artists had to fight for their right to time off between productions, and good luck getting any form of benefits despite them being plastered on the wall.

Advice to Management

You're not a group of guys playing halo in your apartment anymore. Please run your business and look at what's happened to it.

From June 11th this year, from an employee who has been working at the company for five years:

Cons

- Extremely poor management (Some of it is negligence, some of it is just accidental from the sheer amount of work. Upper management is also extreme bro/friends club.) - Insanely high expectations (animate a 10-14 min episode in 2 weeks) - Very low compensation (I've worked here for years and make entry pay. Some people have gone MULTIPLE years with no raise) - No overtime pay (Every season of RWBY and GL gets about 1/3 or less made for 'free' because no one gets paid over time and it's not uncommon to work hundreds of hours of overtime) - Toxic work environment (there are a lot of cliques, complaining and even making fun of other people and depts here. It never gets punished so it always happens. Not professional) - You know something is going right when after many complaints HR reminds everyone you have "unlimited" mental health doctor appointments... I could honestly go on and on like an emo on Myspace in 2007 but I'll reign it in. I'll leave it at this since I've seen many fans read these and be skeptical. It's not great. You can deny it but there is a lot of evidence if you just accept it. And the reason you work here is cus you get stuck and are promised "It'll get better". The work is low quality (hard to get jobs elsewhere), pay is low (can't save money) and life/work balance is a joke. We have a bit of balance now but it's only for a couple months out of the year when production isn't in full swing. Then it's back in the meat grinder.

Advice to Management

You NEED to listen to the workers and make hard decisions and actually fight for better conditions. It's been far far too long of "it'll get better" or "we know what to do next year". This isn't sustainable and I think we all know it. But someone has to be the guy to say "no" when things aren't good enough. If you don’t say no, hundreds of people suffer. Please.

From May 18th:

Cons

Crunch has gotten to an unacceptable level. Productions have been completed with over half of total hours unpaid overtime, especially impacting the comp and editing department. Management cares more about their ego than the quality of the work they put out— letting the crunch caused by their irresponsible decisions fall solely on the shoulders of the artists while they enjoy a forty hour work week. Pay is laughable compared with the amount of mandated, unpaid hours of labor. No career advancement, and contract workers are given empty promises of full time employment before being shown the door once production is done.

Advice to Management

Stop saying the crunch issue is “getting better” or that you’re “working on it”, and start actually owning up to your mistakes.

From May 19th:

Cons

-A lot of employees brought on, if not all, before the last development cycle were promised permanent positions after a 90 day trial period. As those dates approached those artists saw no change, asking their leads what was going on. The guidance from higher ups was vague at best, and some felt like they had been forced to lie to employees during the interview process. - A lot of processes went over-scope due to poor planning. -Lack of actual production experience in the management side of things is no longer something that can be glossed over as the company tries to take on more industry vetted employees. -Crunch is extreme and overtime is not compensated for, nor is that time given back in any fair amount.

Advice to Management

-Clear and concise communication -Re-structure your upper level management

From May 12th:

Cons

Crunch here is out of control. No Paid OT. Expect to work A LOT for free. 70-80 hour work weeks. Mandatory 10-12 hour work days sometimes with no days off. Management is more interested in telling you what you want the hear as opposed to the truth.

Advice to Management

Fix the crunch issue and stop saying 'we're working on it'.... because you're not. Layoffs are certain. Will layoff bad employees and good employees in the same breath, completely eliminating any reason to work as hard as you're required to do. Fix your transparency issue and stop overworking your employees otherwise your reputation will severely suffer.

From April 5th:

Cons

-No paid overtime. -Crunch is a major problem in the animation department due to unrealistic deadlines, poor planning, and indecisiveness. (Mandatory 10 to 12 hour days for multiple months are common.) -Stress levels are often very high due to harsh deadlines -Some of the producers tend to lie. -Promotions are used as a morale booster, not actual career advancement. -Hardly any time for Professional Development -Professionalism can be a bit scarce (for example people would draw penises on the boards throughout the studio)

Advice to Management

-Management needs to seriously figure out how to deal with the crunch issue. A question was asked at an all hands meeting: "How are you going to handle crunch this year?" Instead of giving a clear answer, the head of the RT animation department completely dodged the question. If you don't know how you are going to tackle a problem, try saying, "I don't know. I will get back with you ASAP." Then actually pursue a solution to the problem. Dodging questions makes you look shady and untrustworthy. -Improve production plans and make sure you have enough resources to complete your projects. If you are going to work on two shows at the same time, then you need to double ALL of your teams along the pipeline, not just one. If you can barely get one project done with your current resources, you certainly cannot finish two. If you can't get the resources needed to complete the projects, then it's probably best to keep them small or to simply not do them at all. Pushing your teams beyond the breaking point is not the wisest decision. If you continue with your overambitious ways, it will backfire in the long run. Telltale Games' closure and Bioware's Anthem debacle are examples of what's to come if you do not improve your production practices and get crunch under control. -Get more training on how to manage people. There are plenty of programs out there that can help management understand how to work with various types of personalities. There were some situations where I noticed that some leads and producers simply did not know how to talk to a person when there was a problem. Despite all of the criticism I just wrote, I feel the majority of who work at Rooster Teeth Productions are decent people. However, the management is just terrible. Put some of that ambition you have into fixing your problems internally instead of putting it into meeting those unrealistic deadlines.

From March 25th:

Cons

- Massive amounts of unpaid overtime. All while touting the importance to the company of a life/work balance. They promise to give you the time back, but it will be impossible to take. - Management is just a joke. They can’t schedule or stay on track to save their lives. Total amateur hour. - Zero followthrough on promises made. How about a pizza party? - Pay much lower than standard. Don’t expect real raises. Promotions with increased responsibilities don’t come with comparable pay bumps. - Most promises of advancement and opportunities are hollow wishful thinking. - Almost zero followthrough with meaningful investment in employee education. You can access a Udemy account and that’s about it. - Management will blame the artists instead of taking responsibility and will even through people under the bus to cover themselves. - Internet celebs are more valuable than artists. - Their awards are called “cockbite of the month/year” and it’s what they call their employees. You may not want to be called that but that’s too bad. It’s their culture. A few guys draw penises everywhere to be funny. - Not very much diversity in management. Feels like you need to be a straight white male to be appreciated.

Advice to Management

Hire some actual seasoned industry professionals to upper management in Animation. And demonstrate there are some consequences for them, instead of taking it out on employees.

From April 11th:

Cons

-Overtime, and hours will cause any person to slowly become something they don't like. -Management is typically made up of "talent" and treats other employees poorly, not to mention 0 years of previous managerial experience. -Management also blames other employees for the problems they create, and don't show actual leadership. -Echo chambers within management. -Stress levels incredibly high -Lack of professionalism

Advice to Management

-Get rid of "talent" in managerial roles, it's clear they're costing the company serious problems and money. The ones who end up being hurt are the employees who knew and constantly warned about problems ahead of time that were ignored. If the company stays the same a huge incident is bound to follow. -Try to respect creatives that aren't "talent" within the company as well. It's clear management doesn't and goes against the entirety of the company's "core values." those who have had previous industry experience should be listened to and considered instead of being shrugged off and given responses like "Well that's just how we do things." -Collaboration doesnt seem to exist for a majority of managment here. If this one massive change happens the company could really grow far and do much more than create crude content with a lack of care/heart for the final product. -If people are able to sleep and have a normal schedule more thoughtful input will also happen, and your content can only get better. -A multitude of people and lives have been hurt from management at this company, from in house employees being mentally abused to freelancers that are ghosted. So many immature and poor practices have taken place within the animation department I'm amazed a lawsuit has yet to happen. -Management should be leaders not bosses.

It’s almost darkly funny that most of the positives are just “They give you free food on Mondays and the people are nice.”

But these are all from just the last year alone. Most reviews from before the start of 2019 don’t speak of crunch barring one from April 2018, one from March 2018 and one from June. This is a problem that has been affecting Rooster Teeth for at least an entire year, and since the start of the new year, the problem has magnified tenfold. Most reviews mention that the heads of departments are aware of the crunch and unpaid overtime but refuse to do anything about it beyond offering platitudes or dodging the question on what the company is going to actually do to fix the crunch problem.

Crunch is a problem plaguing many companies, especially in the western hemisphere. In gaming development there’s a story nearly every month about what apathetic upper management think they can get away with by forcing employees to spend dozens of hours every week slaving away on their product. I hoped that Rooster Teeth would not be one of these companies, but I am saddened to see that they were not.

Crunch’s negative effects on mental and physical health have been well documented, alongside the basic fact that crunch isn’t worth it and doesn’t work. Employees forced to crunch are unable to work as well as employees who are well rested and have time to go home to their families.

To anyone working these impossible crunch hours at Rooster Teeth right now, I hope your suffering ends soon, that eventually basic human empathy wins out and hours are lessened while you receive your just rewards for your work.

For @roosterteeth? This is appalling and a slap in the face to the fanbase you conned into thinking that you were a company that cared for everyone within as a huge family. Your entire management team should be ashamed of the environment you signed off on. No profit margin is worth the suffering you have subjected your crew to. Shame on you.

As a fan of RWBY, it disgusts me that a product I enjoy was made through blood, sweat and tears. And as a fan of RWBY, I wish to make a public call to the fanbase, be it on Tumblr, Reddit, Twitter or Youtube. I want to make a public statement to Rooster Teeth that we are willing to wait longer for new shows if it means that they are made ethically. I can’t in good conscience support a product if it was made by putting the workers through hell. Maybe I can’t change anything on my own, maybe ultimately we’ll just be ignored, but I refuse to stand by and stay silent on the matter, maybe even get Rooster Teeth to make changes in their workflow (I won’t say “I hope they respond” because they seem to respond in-house to complaints about crunch without ever actually changing anything)

I encourage you to share this around as much as you can. Share the accounts of the Glassdoor reviews as far and as wide as you can. We love and enjoy media, we love the people who make it- the animators, editors, writers and voice actors, and we as a community want them to not have to resort to RT’s seemingly unlimited mental health coverage or “find a coping mechanism to deal with crunch.” As much as it pains me to admit, I’d rather see RWBY die instead of seeing continue to be made on the back of crunch.

Thank you for reading. Again, I encourage you to share this around as much as you can. Let your voice be heard if you stand against this.

#rwby #Rooster Teeth #Genlock #crunch #overtime #glassdoor #georden whitman #nomad of nowhere

5K notes · View notes

bakagamieru · 4 years

Note

I don't think people are mad because of harry still being sad about zayn or whatever it is between them. Public image or offical narrative you name it but for some reason it's ALWAYS zayn who gets talked shit about and people at their "enough!" point me inclueded. 90% of theblogs I follow here are always critical about what's going on but after 5 years you want somethings to left behind. And at this point I can't help but ask would this mess still going on after all this time if it was not zayn?

General

There is every reason to believe that Zayn leaving is a stunt and that none of the boys ever had a problem with each other. I’ve explained that in many previous posts, and the explanation takes up a lot of space, so I’m not doing it again here. You can check out those posts in my Zayn Stunt Summary here: https://bakagamieru.tumblr.com/post/120840259353/zayn-stunt-summary

I think it helps to visualize this situation as a siege. The human psyche is rather suggestible. Even for strong, confident, self-assured personalities, it can be difficult to hold up against constantly being told the same lie from every quarter. Sooner or later, people who are repeatedly told lies start to believe them, unless they’re very lucky, very aware, and very careful. That’s the whole concept of gaslighting. This has also been shown in psychological experiments where people have eventually been convinced they’ve broken bones that they never have just because they keep being told they have over and over.

That’s why it’s important with this situation to keep reminding ourselves of the hard facts and work through every new development logically. That’s how we survive the siege and stop ourselves from getting hypnotized into believing negative things about the boys just because we’re told negative things over and over again.

Direct Answer

I think the current badmouthing is about a sick and twisted promo strategy that all of their teams seem to share.

I suspect there would be a lot more negativity from Zayn’s side if he had proper promo. No promo, no appearances, no performances, no interviews = no opportunity for badmouthing.

Also, keep in mind that there are 4 people that can potentially badmouth Zayn, while Zayn is only 1 person to badmouth the other boys. That’s obviously going to lead to more vitriol directed at Zayn than at the other boys.

Those two things (lack of promo, 4 v. 1 scenario) are probably part of the reason everything seems so unbalanced.

There’s also the fact that Zayn was cast as the villain from the beginning. In the post I linked, you can find a post I made about why there were multiple reasons for that and why Zayn was actually the only person among the boys that could have been put in that role during this stunt. Is there probably some racism involved in that? Yes. Is part of the reason that people are so willing to believe the worst about Zayn linked to unconscious racism? Quite possibly, yes.

I know it sucks to see other people buying the negativity and feel like there’s nothing you can do about it. The only thing I can say is that if you’re surrounded by negativity, it’s very difficult to see anything but the negative side of a situation.

I prefer to think that most of the fans have been taken in by a targeted psychological strategy that relies more on repetitive misdirection than that most of the fans are blatantly racist. And I really do believe that’s true. I believe a lot of this type of racism is unconscious bias and that one day, hopefully a lot of people with these unconscious biases will at least become aware they have them and work towards trying to fix them.

But no, in general I don’t think this negativity is still going on only because it’s Zayn. I think it’s still going on because old 1DHQ still want it to be going on and keeps stirring the pot to make sure it does. I think this is still going on because old 1DHQ still has some sort of hold on 1D’s public images, because the “feud” drama is being used for promo, and because the situation can’t really be fully resolved until the hiatus ends (and I predicted that before the hiatus began). I had hoped that we might at least get friendly Zayn and 1D even before a reunion, but apparently that’s too much to ask for from the evil 1D overlords.

I, too, feel like shit every time this unnecessary negativity rears its ugly head. However, you have to either find a way to accept and move past it (which I do through reminding myself of the truth via logic) or you might need to remove yourself from the negativity. If it’s dragging you down constantly, consider unfollowing blogs that post the news that upsets you or blocking the most common tags on the posts that upset you. I know being told to ignore a bad situation isn’t the best, but for your mental health, it’s either that or finding a way to fight back that makes you feel better.

Showy = Putting on a Show

To me, the drama of this “feud” is just another reason to believe that nothing IS actually going on between Harry and Zayn. Nothing bad anyway.

When something is constantly being pushed in your face, it’s generally because someone wants you to see it. More often than not, the things that are really scandalous are hidden in the entertainment industry and it’s the huge dramatic “feuds” that are constantly in the news that end up being all an act.

Character

Maybe I wear rose-colored glasses, but I’d like to think I’m a decent judge of character. None of the boys are rude or spiteful enough to keep taking potshots, especially to gang up on one particular person, for years and years after a fight.

It takes a certain maturity to survive with as much grace as the boys have managed in the entertainment industry, and that sort of maturity should also lend itself towards mending a relationship after an argument / learning how to move on from an argument that can’t be fixed.

Former Friend vs. Foe

Yes, there have been a few public scuffles with other celebs in the past, such as the Wanted, but that situation is different simply because no 1D boys were ever close to any of the Wanted. A fight with a near-stranger is very different from a fight with someone you’ve called your brother on multiple occasions.

The closer the people who are fighting are, the more emotional it is and the more hurt people get. Being more emotional means being more likely to be very angry, but being more hurt means that you aren’t as likely to want to broadcast that very vulnerable, private feeling. You’re more likely to want to shun the topic with strangers than vent about it, if you’re any sort of a private person.

If we know nothing else, we at least know for sure that Zayn and the other boys were very, very good friends. You can’t fake the way they were together for the amount of time they were together.

It Was a Single Fight Supposedly

The story is that none of the boys are really in contact with Zayn, so according to that narrative, it’s not like there are ongoing clashes that keep any of the boys feeling like they need to keep commenting negatively about Zayn. If you’re continually butting heads, it might make sense to keep complaining about the situation, but that’s not what we’re being told is happening. We’ve essentially been told that there was 1 fight years ago and that’s been it aside from a small amount of supposed back and forth, almost entirely in print interviews initially.

Time and Common Decency

It’s been almost 5 YEARS. What person with any sense of decency keeps bringing up a fight at every public appearance that happened 5 YEARS ago?

That would be like getting in a fight with your good friend and then badmouthing them publicly at every gathering of your mutual friends for years. No matter who was in the right originally, you’re just a jackass at that point.

Talking about something in private and complaining is one thing, but doing it in public? That’s entirely different. And the more time that passes, the more ridiculous it is.

Relevancy

Zayn isn’t even really relevant to any of the boys’ solo careers, so it doesn’t particularly make sense for him to be brought up over and over.

This might be because the interviewers can’t seem to move on from 5 years ago, asking constantly about when the band is getting back together, if they’re getting back together, how is it different having a solo career, etc. It’s been 5 YEARS. Those questions have been asked and answered ad nauseam and it’s not like those answers have changed over time.

Sorry, got a bit off track complaining about interviewers… Anyway, it might just be the interviewers being unoriginal, but their team clearly hasn’t blacklisted the topic which would be a more sensible and classy way to handle things given the situation and the amount of time that’s passed. There’s no need to talk about Zayn at all really, and yet it keeps coming up. It just makes all of them look bad, which shouldn’t be the image their teams want for them, and yet…apparently something is more important.

The Promo Connection

More than that, it specifically always seems to come up during promo, for better or worse. Sometimes the mentions are more positive, but most of the time the narrative takes a sharp turn to the aggressively negative overnight.

After ranging from positive to neutral when talking about Zayn for years, suddenly during Liam’s first round of promo, things turned quite negative (e.g., wouldn’t save Zayn if he were drowning) and again during this current round of promo (e.g., guess I can talk about this honestly now, etc.).

After supposedly reconciling about 3 different times (while apparently having no contact positive or negative at all during these years?), Louis’ feelings on Zayn are apparently very negative (e.g. we’re too immature to ever make up) during this current round of promo.

After not talking about Zayn at all, Harry was suddenly negative during his first round of promo (I think it was the Rolling Stone print interview, but I’m not sure) and brought it up negatively again, unprompted, during this round of promo on SNL.

It’s not like Zayn ever HAS promo anymore, but when he does have interviews, there’s generally some sort of dig at One Direction somehow (pretty much all print interviews, of course).

The only one to escape the pattern is Niall, but Teflon Niall is a real thing, enough said.

It’s ALWAYS during promo for a single or album that things get nasty again. My best guess is that their teams think that the “feud” = drama = attention = sales. To me, it seems dumb, repetitive, unrealistic, etc., but I guess a casual fan or the general public wouldn’t follow everything they do, so it’s not as repetitive to that type of consumer.

Conclusion

I am 100% aware of how exhausting, frustrating, and infuriating this whole situation is. There’s no need for the negativity, it makes no sense, it paints all of the boys in a bad light, it basically requires someone to assume the worst of Zayn in order to believe any of it, and yet there are tons of people who still do believe all of it without any critical thought.

This is why I still write posts like these over and over again. I have to get those negative emotions out somehow, and the best way for me to feel better is by countering the official narrative by using logic. It reassures me that even though I’m made to feel like crap about the situation, my initial and continuing judgments about the situation haven’t been wrong. If you remind yourself of the actual proven characters of the people involved and work things out logically, it’s not dire like all the negativity makes it feel.

When things are loud, they tend to be for show. That’s what this all is. This negativity is for show, which means it’s not real.

TLDR;

The fact that there’s still so much public negativity between the boys and Zayn is unrealistic, and therefore suspicious, because:

the boys are too good to be acting like this

this supposed fight would be too intimate and painful to bandy about publicly like this

supposedly the boys haven’t been in contact and so all of this is over a single fight that happened 5 years ago

the boys are too smart to not know that acting like this makes them look bad

their teams have to be in favor of the badmouthing because otherwise they could easily have just not talked about it at all

there’s generally a sharp increase in negativity when one of the boys has single or album promo

there’s more badmouthing of Zayn because it’s framed as 4 v. 1 and also Zayn never has any promo

My conclusion from these points (and also from previous facts and experience) is that the badmouthing isn’t because 1D and Zayn want to be badmouthing each other. Rather, the drama of the “feud” is being used for promo and possibly other purposes. I firmly believe that if there were a real falling out, the 1D boys would have handled it far more gracefully than this, given the chance.

I suppose it’s possible that there was a real fight and that the boys were forced to handle it ungracefully by their team, but I would point to Occam’s Razor. The simplest explanation that fits ALL the facts related to this situation (from the time of Zayn leaving through now) is that Zayn was forced out of 1D as a stunt and that there was never an actual feud between Zayn and the rest of the boys.

So yes, this situation sucks, but no, I don’t blame either side for it because there are NO sides when there is no actual fight. I blame old 1DHQ and I blame society in general and I blame the ignorance of the general public. But I’m not here for them, I’m here for 1D, so I keep my head down and keep waiting for things to get good again.

#one direction #zayn leaving #zayn v. 1d feud #speculation #bakagamieru #masterpost #I wrote a massive post again #sob #why do I always do this?#when will I ever learn?#I also can't stay on topic for the life of me #Anonymous

75 notes · View notes

homenum-revelio-hq · 4 years

Photo

Welcome to the Order of the Phoenix, Beth!

You have been accepted for the role of SIRIUS BLACK with the faceclaim of Jade Hassoune! We really enjoyed your discussion of Sirius’ relationships, particularly how his adult relationships (both negative and positive) have shaped his life. We also loved his biases and privileges section and thought it showed both strengths and flaws! We are so excited to have you as part of this roleplay!

Please take a look at the new member checklist and send in your account within 24 hours! Thank you for joining the fight against Voldemort!

OUT OF CHARACTER:

NAME: Beth

AGE: 24

TIMEZONE: CST

ACTIVITY LEVEL: I do work full time, but having a strong writing community is important to me and something that I actively make time for. Even on a bad week, I’ll check in at least two or three times to write, and I try to be around when I can to check the dash and talk even if I don’t have time for a reply. Also, I am that person who goes on semi-hiatus during a particular season and still tries to make regular activity because it’s important to me to try and stay on top of owed replies.

ANYTHING ELSE: I have no major triggers or squicks.

CHARACTER DETAILS:

NAME: Sirius Black

AGE: 21

GENDER, PRONOUNS, and SEXUALITY: Cis-male, He/Him. Sirius is bisexual, and while it isn’t something he hides, it also isn’t something he advertises. He’s been accused of being willing to flirt with anything that moves. While he finds that accusation unfair, he knows it’s not always untrue.

BLOOD STATUS: Pureblood

HOUSE ALUMNI: Gryffindor

ANY CHANGES: I would like to request an FC change to Jade Hassoune. I have a few reasons for this. The lazy one is that I already have gifs for him. That said, I think he can bring an interesting range for Sirius because some of his gifs are a little more brooding while others are big and expressive. He has a certain edge to most of the characters he has played that can work for situations where Sirius is being defiant or stubborn. I also like that because he is a person of color, it continues the tradition of taking what JKR gave us and making it more diverse. Plus, he has the hair (well, had) and effortless looks Sirius is known for.

CHARACTER BACKGROUND:

PERSONALITY:

Sirius has always been too big for some people to handle, and his response has always been that it isn’t his problem. Toning himself down for a situation is easier said that done, especially given Sirius’ tendency to speak first and think after. That impulsiveness has been there since he was young, and it can be a big disadvantage to him, especially when combined with his stubbornness. Sirius will say something without thinking of consequences, then dig in his heels about whatever it was rather than admit he might be wrong. This also means that he’ll sometimes go in-depth with planning for something that started out as a joke comment. He doesn’t know when to quit.

Choosing to instead focus on the positive, Sirius would argue that he isn’t impulsive but rather instinctual. He doesn’t always think things through before he does them, but that has worked out well for him, especially during duels.

Sirius would consider himself incredibly loyal, but the shadow side of that might be that Sirius can be a bit possessive. He makes strong assumptions that such loyalty will always be reciprocated, and he has a hard time understanding when that isn’t the case.

It frustrates him greatly that it feels like people around him focus on his flaws and don’t appreciate his strengths because he’s a fairly gifted duelist and fast thinker. Plus, his transfiguration skills are pretty great. Sirius never had to study in school because things came easy to him, and now that he’s out of school, it seems like everyone else is still “studying” at war when Sirius just wants to make a decision and go do.

Sirius doesn’t have a lot of patience for time or for people. When he gets frustrated or otherwise emotionally overwhelmed, it tends to make him rash and angry. Sirius would respond to one of his friends getting hurt, for example, by shouting at whoever their patrol partner was that should have been protecting them. He knows he’s no diplomat, but Sirius spent his formative years purposefully being the opposite. He can’t suddenly change it now.

BRIEF OVERVIEW OF FAMILY: (child abuse tw, but it’s minimally referenced)

Sirius spent his early days fighting against anything and everything. His father was once someone Sirius looked up to, but he doesn’t remember a time now of it being fondly. Instead Orion was someone to look at with fear, someone to flinch away from when he raised his voice or his hand. Sirius didn’t always know what he did wrong in those early days, but he quickly learned that sometimes it was better to be wrong on purpose because at least it felt earned. His mother was just as bad but in different ways. Sirius tended to hear her screaming more often, but he flat out ran once when he was nine because he knew one of her punishments was coming. Walburga was more creative than her husband, but she was also more of a perfectionist. Thanks to her, Sirius felt policed constantly.

His only shelter in those days was Regulus. Most days it was the two of them against the world. They didn’t always publicly get along, especially when Sirius’ antics landed them both in trouble. Still, they had each other on nights when it hurt to be alone or the nightmares crept in. They could sit side by side in the dark and whisper about what life would be like someday when they had magic of their own. Hogwarts changed everything for Sirius, and while that was mostly positive, it unfortunately meant that he lost Regulus. He couldn’t talk to his brother anymore; the language was gone. Even over the summers, things could never be the same. When Sirius ran away, he didn’t even tell Regulus he was going (although to be fair, he didn’t realize he was until a moment blew up too big with his parents to ever turn back). While he spent the rest of the summer wishing he had, the two didn’t even look at each other when they were first in the Great Hall together again at school. That childhood bond felt like it had finally severed completely.

The one person who seemed to humor Sirius at family events when he was young was Uncle Alphard, who always stuck out just a little bit. Sirius remembered hearing whispered about how Alphard was ‘peculiar,’ which wouldn’t have been a problem, except that he wouldn’t put duty first and produce an heir, which was a problem to a family as obsessed with legacy as the Blacks. Sirius had loved to hide in his shadow to avoid Orion and Walburga. He died a year after Sirius ran away, but Sirius had never imagined he’d be left Alphard’s fortune.

He immediately tried to use that fortunate to try and pay back the Potters for taking him in. While he’d suspected they wouldn’t accept anything, it choked up Sirius that they insisted that would be taking money from family. In many ways, Sirius considers James as much a brother as Regulus. Maybe they didn’t have the childhood history, but they had the important stuff. They had shared values and adventures, similar ideas and likeminded attitudes. At least they used to. Some days Sirius isn’t sure he knows who James is anymore. He doesn’t know what happened to the carefree James he used to know. Regardless, he isn’t about to let him go the way he once did Regulus.

OCCUPATION:

Employee at Florean Fortescue’s Ice Cream Parlour—Sirius has some money left from his uncle’s inheritance, but he needed something to keep him busy. He has toyed with applying for the Auror training program, but Sirius rationalized that he can do more for the Order with a less specific work schedule. Plus, he is aware of his own authority issues and feels like that might not be the best option to push himself at the Ministry with everything else going on. The job might not seem very punk rock, but working for Florean gives him something to do, people to interact with, and a fairly easy schedule to slide around.

ROLE WITHIN THE ORDER/THOUGHTS ABOUT THE ORDER:

Sirius has always been a bit self-absorbed about his role within the Order. He has always known he’d never make the inner circle, but he hadn’t wanted to. In school, Sirius had cultivated a careful rebel-without-a-cause attitude. He has a cause now, but he’s still a rebel first and foremost. Of course, Sirius is fighting for muggles and muggleborns. They just aren’t his first priority. Sirius’ first priority is fighting against the pureblood society he was raised in because he sees nothing good about it. The two causes aren’t necessarily the same thing. He often feels frustrated by the lack of progress because it feels like the people he grew up resenting just continue to grow more powerful. He sees no progress for the real cause nor progress for his own. Much of the time, Sirius would like to just do something big. If they can’t make progress, he’d like to at least make a statement, but he doesn’t even seem to be able to do that. Too much fine print in what’s supposed to be vigilante justice.

SURVIVAL:

If you asked Sirius what his plan was for tomorrow, he’d says the present is all that matters. That’s how he lives his life in most aspects. No matter what the war looks like, Sirius doesn’t look forward and see a bleak future because he doesn’t think that far away.

Right now, he’s living in an apartment that’s technically in Muggle London but as close to the Leaky Cauldron as he could find. He lives there alone and likes that only one of his neighbors complains about the loud music. He prefers muggle music, but the occasional wizarding rock album is similar enough to not give anyone pause. Sirius can mostly cook for himself, although his cooking does tend to be a bit basic. He can do pasta and protein with the occasional veggie when he feels like he has to. He can, though, make a mean cocktail, and that’s a skill Sirius has used often.

RELATIONSHIPS:

James was the first person Sirius had ever really found that understood him completely and totally. He saw James as this magnetic person he always wanted to have around. As they got older, things shifted, but Sirius never wants to lose that. Right now he feels like James is beginning to pull away and leave him behind. For what, Sirius isn’t sure. Stuffy meetings and worrying about people who take you for granted seems ridiculous to Sirius, but he tries not to say anything. James might act the part, but Sirius knows deep down he has to still be the same person. But Sirius has lost a brother before because of growing differences. He doesn’t want to do it again.

Remus is something that Sirius has always admired and thought the best of. Lately things have changed as Remus seems to make choices that Sirius doesn’t understand, and he also can’t figure out if they’re actually Remus’ choices or things being dictated to him. Sirius doesn’t like the idea that Remus is spending all his time around werewolves and wanna-be Death Eaters. Sirius doesn’t trust it and doesn’t like that Remus doesn’t have anyone with him to have his back. Lately he’s had a nagging thought that he wants to push down. If Remus won’t talk about it, what isn’t he saying? What’s going on when the Order isn’t around? Some days Sirius is afraid to find out. Others he can’t believe himself for ever doubting.

Then there’s Peter. Sirius has always suspected he’s too loud for Peter, too much. But Peter has been a loyal friend for years, always there when Sirius needs him. Lately he doesn’t see Peter as much, and while that’s hard, at least Sirius doesn’t have to worry about who he’s with. Peter’s too smart to accept a mission that sends him undercover among people with sharp dark magic skills and sharper tongues.

Lately Sirius has become enamored with the things Dorcas says, enjoying the lack of care in her voice. He remembers those days. He remembers when he wasn’t trying to temper himself to help James keep an image. She seems to agree with his frustration about the lack of progress. Her methods perhaps seem questionable, but in Sirius’ experience, the best things in life often do. He wishes the rest of his friends would remember that.

OOC EXPLORATION:

SHIPS/ANTI-SHIPS:

I ship chemistry above all else. I really like the idea of potentially exploring an m/m relationship with Sirius but am really just open to whatever comes up with a partner of any gender identity. The only specific ship I am mildly interested in is Sirius/Remus, but looking at the bio materials, the at-odds angle seems like it will be much more fun.

WHAT PRIVILEGES AND BIASES DOES YOUR CHARACTER HAVE?

Sirius grew up being taught that muggles were inherently primitive and uncivilized, despite the neighbors sharing their very walls at 12 Grimmauld Place being muggles. He learned pretty quickly to fix his own perspective on that in school, especially when surrounded by supposedly inferior magic users like Lily who were so gifted. It was one more reason his parents were wrong, and Sirius did so love when his parents were wrong.

He had a harder time wrapping his head around the idea that not everyone could just decide to be something different than what they were used to. Sirius always had a safety net to catch them when he was about to fall. When the final straw hit and he ran away from home, he had the Potter household to turn to, an equally pureblood, equally rich family who had the means to take him in. At a critical point when he needed his own money, Sirius received his inheritance from Alphard’s passing. Sirius has always managed to bounce up when he was at a crossroads that could have ended disastrously. The idea that someone else could be in a tricky situation with an “obvious right choice” and choose wrong because they didn’t have the resources to choose right is completely foreign to Sirius.

This sense of choice also fits into Sirius’ opinions on werewolves. He’d grown up hearing they were nothing but savage monsters, but Remus had never seemed that way. Once the other Marauders had become animagi, Sirius saw the full moons as proof that while Remus as a werewolf was wild, he was still Remus in some ways. They needed a different form, but the wolf didn’t attack them on sight. The knowledge, though flawed, gave Sirius a strong believe that the choices Remus and any other werewolf made on a full moon could be changed with the right leadup and decisions.

Back on the subject of muggles, Sirius has tried to embrace muggle culture, but he’s done so in a way that almost borders on fetish. He has spent time in muggle spaces, but it’s usually bars, movies, and other places that give him some kind of entertainment or satisfaction. He’s embraced muggle transportation, even if it did mean tweaking the motorcycle as soon as he bought it. Sirius would like to believe he has completely understood muggle culture, but in some ways he still holds on to that muggles-are-primitive mindset without realizing it. He doesn’t think they’re lesser; he just only pays attention to the things that can be of use to him.

WHAT ARE YOU MOST LOOKING FORWARD TO?

I love the concept of it being just the Order and the nuances that come from that. In the books, we see glimpses of just how much friction for the organization we see in Harry’s time. I can only imagine the first time around when not everyone believed he could be beaten. Everyone has a slightly different agenda, and since this rp focuses so specifically on the good, it means more time to devote to complicating what that means.

PLOT DROP IDEAS:

I have no specific ideas, although it would be interesting to see Sirius having to deal with family-related consequences, whether that’s something like dealing with Orion’s death eventually or maybe the consequences of something anti-muggle/pro-Death Eater that his parents sponsored or created.

ANYTHING ELSE: Not that I can think of!

#homenumaccepted #harry potter rp #marauders rp #marauders era rp #hp rp

3 notes · View notes

windingdrabble · 5 years

Text

“Y’ look nice.”

‘Nice’ doesn’t exactly cut it. It works, sure-- Ruby’s crossed the ‘nice’ bar easily, it isn’t incorrect, but it isn’t enough. His fur looks nice when the light from the moon hits it. The nurses gave him pain medication, and it’s working well enough to where his smile is small but constant and there and soft and calm and nice. Ruby makes a joke at his eyes’ expense every time he gets the opportunity to, but he keeps fluttering them open and closed and the quick, delicate blinks are curtains to his foggy eyes that Sonic can’t bring himself to think aren’t nice still. Maybe he’s covered in bandages and bruises but he’s still nice, even if calling it ‘nice’ adds to the bubble of frustration and confusion in him. Nice isn’t quite right, but it’s the only thing he can bring himself to think of, and that’s already enough to make him break eye contact.

Ruby’s eyes open and stay open for longer this time, looking up at Sonic. There’s a bandage on his cheek, but Sonic grins a little stiffled grin when he bets to himself the blush could probably show through the gauze.

“I look like shit,” the other deadpans, turning his head a little to the right on Sonic’s lap. The motion gets him a little closer to the hand Sonic has hovering over that side of his face. Sonic’s reluctant thumb tucks in closer to graze over Ruby’s nose, and after a few beats of serene (odd, misplaced, but not unwelcomed serene-- serene is a luxury to them both) silence, Ruby buries his muzzles into Sonic’s palm with a sigh. Sonic can’t help but not be able to stiffle the grin any longer, chest warm and cheeks red. He can’t tell yet if Ruby’s naturally this touchy or not-- he’s more often than not on some sort of pill or pain killer and SOnic knows from experience that definitely is a factor to consider-- but it’s-- also nice. Sometimes, when they both seem to gravitate towards sitting in the same spot and lean into eachother, it’s nice.

“How would you know?” Sonic replies, a little amusement in his voice. Ruby just... ending up half-asleep on his lap was already endearing (endearing-- endearing is nice, and it’s a little better than nice, but endearing doesn’t fill up the space in his heart Ruby has carved himself a home into) but hiding his face in his hand makes him smile crooked-- he can feel it.

“I just do,” Ruby replies, in his endless, stubborn wisdom. Sonic rolls his eyes, tracing the outline of Ruby’s eye with a stray thumb.

“Flawless logic, O’ Wise One. I’m the only one who can tell if y’ look like shit or not.”

He feels Ruby smile the smallest bit wider, and his heart skips a beat, and Ruby hides in his palm again and sunlight falls over Sonic’s back.

“You are biased,” Ruby replies not-exactly-incorrectly (he still looks nice, still looks endearing wrapped up in all the bandages and casts), quiet and muffled. “You are the second least qualified to tell me if I look like shit or not.”

“Hey, I’m not second best at anything,” Sonic feigns insult, despite the smile in his voice. Ruby’s face isn’t as warm as it was when he was in the throughs of sickness weeks ago, but Sonic prefers it this way. If Ruby’s fever had come back that quickly that fast he would’ve been kicking down the doctor’s door forever ago. “If I gotta be unqualified I gotta be the most unqualified or no dice.”

Ruby opens his right eye to roll it, and Sonic huffs. Ruby complains that his eyes are useless now, but of course he doesn’t skip out of putting up a show of annoyance.

“You make no sense,” he comments, closing his eye again when Sonic’s other hand gently brushes the fur near his ear. Sonic’s familiar with longing now, or familiar with it enough to at least recognize its pull at Ruby so easily giving in to the affection, at his still-relatively-peaceful smile under the moonlight still streaming in through the window, at the breath he feels dance over his hand as Ruby eases into him more. Sonic hasn’t made sense for a long time now, and for once, it isn’t daunting or scary or stressful.

“You don’t either,” Sonic shrugs, brushing over the pathways on the side fo Ruby’s face that are starting to become somewhat familiar, that are still drawing out that longing.

It shouldn’t be too long before the hospital discharges Ruby. He’s getting his casts removed... in a few weeks (Sonic tries to keep track of all the dates, but for the life of him everything is still so liquid and runny and it blends together a lot), he’s been face mask free for a while now, he’s allowed to be carried outside and to hobble around more and more with Sonic to keep an eye on things. He won’t need to be tied down to a bed pretty soon, he won’t have to take as many medicines, he won’t have to move so little. He won’t have to get pain meds and curl up like this and joke in a quiet voice, the only voice in the room, and the only voice in the world Sonic wants to listen to at the moment. He won’t need distractions from the hospital at night, he won’t need conversations at four am (it was four last time he checked, before climbing on the bed), he won’t need Sonic to brush his quills absentmindedly (he isn’t absentminded-- he’s very present and very aware and very invested in where Ruby moves, what he says, how his fur moves against Sonic’s fingers, how his lips move against Sonic’s palm, how he looks so okay for once in forever and Sonic wants him to be okay forever), he won’t need Sonic to ‘accidentally’ have to stay where he is for the rest of the night, back to propped up pillows and hands gently discovering where he can scratch to get Ruby to be less grumpy.

The longing tugs, familiar anxiety seeping into the calm atmosphere.

Where would Ruby go after this? Sonic may be working on the whole Chaos Control... Control thing, but he can’t manage as much back and forth as he does from the hospital to anywhere else in his world. That’s his world, where everything is a five minute run away at most. Ruby’s home is in his corner of the multiverse, and Sonic shifts uncomfortably at the thought of leaving Ruby (stubborn, way too godamn stubborn Ruby) to his own devices with a hole in his chest, alone in a world Mephiles likes to frequent. Sonic hasn’t been able to track down that thing since the whole mess went down-- his Super Sonic memories have always been a little... dreamlike.

Ruby could want him to stay away, now that he won’t need as much care. Sonic is the emergency contact for a whole host of reasons, but half fo them are for the safety of everyone around Ruby. Sonic woudl be hard-pressed to find someone as explosive during a panic attack as Ruby is, and when you’re a ticking time Chaos Energy time bomb who was made to sock people’s jaws in his sleep, only someone with the same jaw-socking dayjob can keep you at bay. Ruby would still need someone to keep him from hurting /himself/, yeah, but... Ruby’s stuck here, one way or another. When he bails out fo the hospital, he won’t be stuck anymore-- stuck with the hopsital, or stuck with Sonic.

“Hey, uh-- you,” he licks his lips, twirling a few strands of Ruby’s fur. “You.. going to stay.. at your place when they let you outta here?”

“You mean I am not here for the rest of my endless life?” Ruby laughs, and this time the skip in Sonic’s heart is bittersweet. There’s something about hearing Ruby laugh and it being the only sound in the room.

His eye opens again, and he shifts in Sonic’s lap. “I... no.” Something taints the peace that had blanketed Ruby for most of the night, something shadows over his face and knits his brows. “No, I... I will look for somewhere to stay here, I guess.”

They’ve talked about a lot of things in Ruby’s hospital stay. Guilt, anger, hurt, regret, mistakes, apparently mutual feelings (though they haven’t said they’re anything other than friends, which Sonic doesn’t complain about), but Sonic doesn’t think it’s ever going to be a comfortable subject to bring up. Given what he knows now about Ruby’s history, he doesn’t blame Ruby for skipping out on home visits. Sonic runs his fingers down Ruby’s face, trying to draw the tension from his expression and shoulders again, somehow.

“I-- You--” he stutters, never a good thing to be unable to keep back. Sonic the Hedgehog is witty and fast-talking and confident, and when Sonic the Hedgehog isn’t witty and fast-talking and confident the red flag it raises sticks out like a sore thumb. “You-- Y’know, I don’t... I don’t know if..”

“Spirit, relax.” Ruby’s head tilts, away from Sonic’s hand to attempt to make eye contact. Sonic bites on the inside of his cheek, ears flicking like an anxious beat pacer. Ruby’s hand lifts from the messy blankets all around them, enough telegraphing to tell Sonic to meet him halfway. Blind, and all. Sonic rolls his shoulders, holding onto Ruby’s outstretched hand, which squeezes when they made contact.

“Stuttering does not sound like you,” Ruby continues, softly enough to where Sonic doesn’t start thinking the same thing, to his own detriment. He stutters rarely, although if he does it’s usually around Ruby. “What is it?”

Sonic blinks down at him, at the glassy eyes he hasn’t come to appreciate any less, at the genuine emotion in them despite their lack of eyesight, at Ruby’s slight head tilt, concerned and curious and nice and endearing and cute. Cute also doesn’t occupy the space he needs it to occupy, but it slots in a little better. A more snug fit, even if the longing is making it cold and Sonic involuntarily holds Ruby’s hand tighter. Ruby rubs his knuckles with his thumb, still inquisitive. Still allowing Sonic his own pace.

“Tails’ house,” Sonic manages, blinking down and then away from Ruby at the door of the pale white room. “I.. have a room. In Tails’ house. He could... I think I can cash in a few favors, and you could.. crash there, for a bit.”

Sonic laughs without intending to. “If you aren’t tired of having me around so much.”

Ruby shifts again, a little more than the last few times. He’s still frowning, but still inquisitive-- curious if anything. Curious, confused. “Why would I be tired of that?”

Sonic blinks, scrambling through the logic in his thought process for an explanation. He laughs again, nervously. “Well, I dunno. If you’re just.. making due with what ya’ got here, I mean. It isn’t like you sleep much at all-- or if I sleep much at all, either-- and if you’re stuck in the hospital and not moving, and I’m not moving to make sure you don’t run away, then you- might as well.. do this, I guess.”

He shrugs again, ear twitching. “I dunno if this is your-- first choice for spending the night. I’m just a free pillow and conversation.”

Ruby shakes his head, taking back his hand to blindly hover over where he probably imagined Spirit’s cheek to be, and when he makes contact, he finds his way to Sonic’s chin to tilt it enough to get Sonic’s runaway eyes.

“Making due? Spirit, did you miss out on that whole conversation we had where we both said we were hypocrites and liked eachother?”

The question and the hand at his chin make Sonic run a blush. “No, ‘course not, but.. it ain’t like I know how this works, and you don’t either, and we’re both not exactly the ‘let’s immediately get married immediately and never leave until we get sick of eachother’ kind people, y’know?”

With his hands free, Sonic tugs on the cuff of his glove. “We both need our space, we already talked about that, and I don’t.. I don’t know how much y’re doing this cause you’re bedridden?”

“No, I know, but why would I be tired of you? I... like spending time with you, I told you that. You make staying here bearable...”

Sonic shifts again, opposite ear twitching. “Just a hunch.”

He looks away again, despite Ruby’s eye contact being mostly for show. His stomach twists into familiar anxiety. “A few months ago I barely figured out if I woudl throw up if you held my hand or not, dude. I ‘unno where your line is drawn.. If you’re just here right now cause it’s convenient or...”

He twitches, not exactly discreetly. “You know I’m bad at this.”

“I know,” Ruby replies, a little fond and a little concerned and a little in thought. His ears swivel towards Sonic. “...You think this is going to stop.”

Sonic tilts his head, a ‘so-so’ kind of thing. “Hell if I know.”

And he doesn’t really know, not clearly. It isn’t a clear cut deal, sorting through his thoughts when they get tangled up in the mess that is emotions. It’s-- a lot, a lot of overwhelming, anxious stuff and things and Sonic can’t even differentiate the stuff from the things, but it sounds close enough, it sounds resonant enough, it sounds familiar and sort of... close. He didn’t think Jules was going to stop. He didn’t think Bernie was going to stop.

“It... at least sounds like it,” Ruby sighs, cupping Sonic’s cheek, to which Sonic replies by nuzzling into his palm like Ruby had done earlier with him.

“...I worry about that, too,” he says, vaguely like a confession. “That this will stop. That you will change your mind.”

Sonic blinks, leaning into Ruby’s hand. Smiles a little, a little sad. “That it’s temporary, yeah?”

As if he can detect it, Ruby returns the sad, empathetic smile a little. “Yeah.”

Sonic sighs in the quiet of the night, slipping his fingers inbetween the ones Ruby has on his cheek. They hold eachother’s remaining hands. “Do you.. think it’ll stop?”

Ruby shakes his head, bringing their held hands closer. “Why would I say no to a free pillow and conversation? You are annoying, but not that annoying.”

Sonic laughs, louder and more genuine than his nervous, awkward laughs. He fully tangles his fingers with the hand Ruby keeps on his cheek, pulling it down. His head falls, his nose bumps against Ruby’s where he closes his eyes and breathes through the insecurity clouding his head. Ruby worries about the same thing. He opens his eyes again, and inhales a little relief when Ruby smiles.

“The.. line. The 'this isn’t my thing’ or ‘I got bored, I guess’ line. D’you know where you draw it yet?”

Ruby’s eyes are close and Sonic can see him thinking, ears twitching, blushing. It’s... cute. “Do you?”

“Well-- doing this isn’t the end of the world,” Sonic says, somewhat playfully, and more relief filters in when he recognizes his own playfulness. “I think it’s... a mood-dependant thing, but.. you?”

Ruby leans up a little, enough to nuzzle their noses together, and Sonic snorts as he answers. “I think I can make do.”

#i didnt intend for them to talk abt their abandonement issues but i guess theyre talking about their abandonement issues now #its all over the place cause its 4 am but spirit doesnt know how to organize his thoughts and emotions much so ultimately its eh

1 note · View note

miss-maela · 5 years

Text

Why am I drawn to them?! I found another one to rescue, but this time I realized it before I got in too deep.

14 Signs You're Dealing With A Narcissist

Dr. Margalis Fjelstad

What makes it simple is the fact that we know exactly what a narcissist looks like. Below, I've listed all the symptoms and behaviors you should look for. Keep in mind that not all of these have to be present to make a determination of narcissism. According to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual, which therapists use as a guide, a person needs to exhibit only 55 percent of the identified characteristics to be considered narcissistic. The list I've made here is descriptive, so you can get a more in-depth picture of a narcissist’s common behaviors.

1. Superiority and entitlement

The world of the narcissist is all about good/bad, superior/inferior, and right/wrong. There is a definite hierarchy, with the narcissist at the top—which is the only place he feels safe. Narcissists have to be the best, the most right, and the most competent; do everything their way; own everything; and control everyone. Interestingly enough, narcissists can also get that superior feeling by being the worst; the most wrong; or the most ill, upset, or injured for a period of time. Then they feel entitled to receive soothing concern and recompense and even the right to hurt you or demand apologies to “make things even.”

2. Exaggerated need for attention and validation

Narcissists need constant attention—even following you around the house, asking you to find things, or constantly saying something to grab your attention. Validation for a narcissist counts only if it comes from others. Even then, it doesn’t count for much. A narcissist’s need for validation is like a funnel. You pour in positive, supportive words, and they just flow out the other end and are gone. No matter how much you tell narcissists you love them, admire them, or approve of them, they never feel it’s enough—because deep down they don’t believe anyone can love them. Despite all their self-absorbed, grandiose bragging, narcissists are actually very insecure and fearful of not measuring up. They constantly try to elicit praise and approval from others to shore up their fragile egos, but no matter how much they’re given, they always want more.

3. Perfectionism

Narcissists have an extremely high need for everything to be perfect. They believe they should be perfect, you should be perfect, events should happen exactly as expected, and life should play out precisely as they envision it. This is an excruciatingly impossible demand, which results in the narcissist feeling dissatisfied and miserable much of the time. The demand for perfection leads the narcissist to complain and be constantly dissatisfied.

4. Great need for control

Since narcissists are continually disappointed with the imperfect way life unfolds, they want to do as much as possible to control it and mold it to their liking. They want and demand to be in control, and their sense of entitlement makes it seem logical to them that they should be in control—of everything. Narcissists always have a story line in mind about what each “character” in their interaction should be saying and doing. When you don’t behave as expected, they become quite upset and unsettled. They don’t know what to expect next, because you’re off script. They demand that you say and do exactly what they have in mind so they can reach their desired conclusion. You are a character in their internal play, not a real person with your own thoughts and feelings.

5. Lack of responsibility—blaming and deflecting

Although narcissists want to be in control, they never want to be responsible for the results—unless, of course, everything goes exactly their way and their desired result occurs. When things don’t go according to their plan or they feel criticized or less than perfect, the narcissist places all the blame and responsibility on you. It has to be someone else’s fault. Sometimes that blame is generalized—all police, all bosses, all teachers, all Democrats, and so on. At other times the narcissist picks a particular person or rule to blame—his mother, the judge, or laws that limit what he wants to do. Most often, however, the narcissist blames the one person who is the most emotionally close, most attached, loyal, and loving in his life—you. To maintain the façade of perfection, narcissists always have to blame someone or something else. You are the safest person to blame, because you are least likely to leave or reject him.

6. Lack of boundaries

Narcissists can’t accurately see where they end and you begin. They are a lot like 2-year-olds. They believe that everything belongs to them, everyone thinks and feels the same as they do, and everyone wants the same things they do. They are shocked and highly insulted to be told no. If a narcissist wants something from you, he’ll go to great lengths to figure out how to get it through persistence, cajoling, demanding, rejecting, or pouting.

7. Lack of empathy

Narcissists have very little ability to empathize with others. They tend to be selfish and self-involved and are usually unable to understand what other people are feeling. Narcissists expect others to think and feel the same as they do and seldom give any thought to how others feel. They are also rarely apologetic, remorseful, or guilty.

But narcissists are highly attuned to perceived threats, anger, and rejection from others. At the same time, they are nearly blind to the other feelings of the people around them. They frequently misread subtle facial expressions and are typically biased toward interpreting facial expressions as negative. Unless you are acting out your emotions dramatically, the narcissist won’t accurately perceive what you’re feeling. Even saying “I’m sorry” or “I love you” when the narcissist is on edge and angry can backfire. He won’t believe you and may even misperceive your comment as an attack.

In addition, if your words and expressions aren’t congruent, the narcissist will likely respond erroneously. This is why narcissists often misinterpret sarcasm as actual agreement or joking from others as a personal attack. Their lack of ability to correctly read body language is one reason narcissists are deficiently empathetic to your feelings. They don’t see them, they don’t interpret them correctly, and overall they don’t believe you feel any differently than they do.

Narcissists also lack an understanding about the nature of feelings. They don’t understand how their feelings occur. They think their feelings are caused by someone or something outside of themselves. They don’t realize that their feelings are caused by their own biochemistry, thoughts, and interpretations. In a nutshell, narcissists always think you cause their feelings—especially the negative ones. They conclude that because you didn’t follow their plan or because you made them feel vulnerable, you are to blame.

This lack of empathy makes true relationships and emotional connection with narcissists difficult or impossible. They just don’t notice what anyone else is feeling.

8. Emotional reasoning

You’ve probably made the mistake of trying to reason and use logic with the narcissist to get him to understand the painful effect his behaviors have on you. You think that if he understands how much his behavior hurt you, he’ll change. Your explanations, however, don’t make sense to the narcissist, who only seems able to be aware of his own thoughts and feelings. Although narcissists may say they understand, they honestly don’t.

Therefore, narcissists make most of their decisions based on how they feel about something. They simply must have that red sports car, based entirely on how they feel driving it, not by whether it is a good choice to make for the family or for the budget. If they’re bored or depressed, they want to move or end the relationship or start a new business. They always look to something or someone outside themselves to solve their feelings and needs. They expect you to go along with their “solutions,” and they react with irritation and resentment if you don’t.

9. Splitting

The narcissist’s personality is split into good and bad parts, and they also split everything in their relationships into good and bad. Any negative thoughts or behaviors are blamed on you or others, whereas they take credit for everything that is positive and good. They deny their negative words and actions while continually accusing you of disapproving.

They also remember things as completely good and wonderful or as bad and horrible. They can’t seem to mix these two constructs:

Marty labeled the whole vacation ruined and the worst ever because the hotel room didn’t meet his expectations and the weather wasn’t perfect. Bob was blamed for 20 years because he wasn’t there when his wife had their first child even though he was stranded in Chicago in a snowstorm. Marie’s husband dismissed her concerns about the $30,000 cost for the new landscaping because he loved it.

Narcissists aren’t able to see, feel, or remember both the positive and the negative in a situation. They can deal with only one perspective at a time—theirs.

10. Fear

The narcissist’s entire life is motivated and energized by fear. Most narcissists’ fears are deeply buried and repressed. They’re constantly afraid of being ridiculed, rejected, or wrong. They may have fears about germs, about losing all their money, about being emotionally or physically attacked, about being seen as bad or inadequate, or about being abandoned. This makes it difficult and sometimes impossible for the narcissist to trust anyone else.

In fact, the closer your relationship becomes, the less he will trust you. Narcissists fear any true intimacy or vulnerability because they’re afraid you’ll see their imperfections and judge or reject them. No amount of reassurance seems to make a difference, because narcissists deeply hate and reject their own shameful imperfections. Narcissists never seem to develop trust in the love of others, and they continually test you with worse and worse behaviors to try to find your breaking point. Their gripping fear of being “found out” or abandoned never seems to dissipate.

11. Anxiety

Anxiety is an ongoing, vague feeling that something bad is happening or about to happen. Some narcissists show their anxiety by talking constantly about the doom that is about to happen, while some hide and repress their anxiety. But most narcissists project their anxiety onto their closest loved ones, accusing them of being negative, unsupportive, mentally ill, not putting them first, not responding to their needs, or being selfish. All this is designed to transfer anxiety to the loved one in an attempt to not feel it themselves. As you feel worse and worse, the narcissist feels better and better. In fact he feels stronger and more superior as you feel your anxiety and depression grow.

12. Shame

Narcissists don’t feel much guilt because they think they are always right, and they don’t believe their behaviors really affect anyone else. But they harbor a lot of shame. Shame is the belief that there is something deeply and permanently wrong or bad about who you are. Buried in a deeply repressed part of the narcissist are all the insecurities, fears, and rejected traits that he is constantly on guard to hide from everyone, including himself. The narcissist is acutely ashamed of all these rejected thoughts and feelings. For example, I had one narcissistic client who was into skydiving and other intense risk-taking behaviors tell me that he never felt fear. “Fear,” he said, “was evil.” He was clearly on a crusade to defeat it.

Keeping his vulnerabilities hidden is essential to the narcissist’s pretend self-esteem or false self. Ultimately, however, this makes it impossible for them to be completely real and transparent.

13. An inability to be truly vulnerable

Because of their inability to understand feelings, their lack of empathy, and constant need for self-protection, narcissists can’t truly love or connect emotionally with other people. They cannot look at the world from anyone else’s perspective. They’re essentially emotionally blind and alone. This makes them emotionally needy. When one relationship is no longer satisfying, they often overlap relationships or start a new one as soon as possible. They desperately want someone to feel their pain, to sympathize with them, and make everything just as they want it to be. But they have little ability to respond to your pain or fear or even your day-to-day need for care and sympathy.

14. An inability to communicate or work as part of a team

Thoughtful, cooperative behaviors require a real understanding of each other’s feelings. How will the other person feel? Will this action make both of us happy? How will this affect our relationship? These are questions that narcissists don’t have the capacity or the motivation to think about. Don’t expect the narcissist to understand your feelings, give in, or give up anything he wants for your benefit; it’s useless.

#narcissist #narcissism #maela

17 notes · View notes

it-goes-both-ways · 6 years

Text

Over the last few years I've been posting more and more of my actual views, which I'm not exactly ashamed of but realise they're not so much unpopular opinions as downright rejected ones. I pretty much know why I have them, I'm aware of my biases and make every effort to restrict them to words, not allowing them to affect my relationships or treatment of others, restricting the hyperbole and rants to this blog and my long suffering partner. Unfortunately I seem to attract the worst kind of women in real life, which is not at all helping. Every time I reveal something I worry about being rejected, told I'm a monster, a failure, a disgrace, an embarrassment, but each and every time I've gotten nothing but acceptance. I am greatly honoured by your support thus far, for tolerating my increasingly frustrated outbursts and hope I won't push you away with this, but it's been all consuming for almost my whole life, and part of “cleaning up my room” is putting all that baggage out there to be scrutinised and hopefully understood, sometimes all that is needed is a willing ear, suppression only breeding resentment and isolation.

All the bullshit feminism has caused, from protesting the male pill and shutting down shared parenting efforts to the Duluth model and erasing men who are raped by women or by counting them under "violence against women" stats to boost the female victim numbers. Mary Koss, the progenitor of the 1 in 5/4/3/-69/ π r2 stat claiming that it's "inappropriate" to consider male victims of forceful envelopment by women as they are merely ambivalent about their own desires. Lobbying for laws that regard mutually drunk sexual encounters as automatically rape by men, underage consensually sexually active couples (even if they're months away from age of consent or the girl is older) as child rape on the part of the boy, guilty until proven innocent, accusation is the evidence, kangaroo courts, sentencing discounts on top of the preexisting bias which causes a 63% disparity and difference in treatment to the point where if you take every step of the justice system into account the crime rate is pretty damned even (with women often using proxy violence so they have plausible deniability, and avoid responsibility/physical risk). Treating women as the definitive victims of prostitution no matter which side of the transaction they're on. Banning men from charity fundraising events, transpeople only allowed if they provide evidence that they are biologically female. Having the NHS class women choosing to have genital piercings as being victims of female genital mutilation, while male genital mutilation performed at birth is not so much as frowned upon let alone illegal by any single country on the entire twatting planet. In fact you can buy some baby foreskins if you want to, or rub them on your face, the target market being protected from the very process that brought them their anti-ageing face cream, complaining that it costs more than men's moisturiser.

The innate gynocentrism of humanity has always led to women being their top priority, now even above children, it tries to pander, and acquiesce to their every demand while being told it hates them. The cases like the woman who filmed herself raping her own baby and getting the oh so harsh sentence of community bloody service and house arrest. The "poor, neglected" woman whose husband had become distant from her (wonder why) so she raped her son's friend, whose punishment was being banned from his school, which she considered too harsh as she missed her son's graduation. An audience of hundreds of normal regular women cheering and celebrating a man being drugged by his wife, who then cut off his penis and threw it in the "garbage disposal" permanently destroying it, just for asking for a divorce (can't think why he'd want to leave), despite no further context it was declared "fabulous" to the ecstatic jubilation of the empathetic sex. There's the idea that men commit the vast majority of rapes while calling female teachers "seducing" their students mere trysts, shameful liaisons that do not deserve prison, female prison guards committing the overwhelming majority of rape of male children and youths in juvenile detention (89%), among other women who rape men and boys (my own mother being one of them), this in addition to the rape rate among female prisoners being 3 times that of male ones, not a single damned thing is done about the propagation of the bullshit narrative. Somehow the fact that female rapists tend to target children is irrelevant because male ones target adult women, and "you don't see women going around raping adult men" (even though the stats are still around 50/50 because it's a human problem, unless those women are exhibiting toxic masculinity or something). There's the 10,000 men and boys slaughtered in their schools by Boko Haram while girls were released and allowed to go home, the boys being set on fire, their throats slit, or shot if trying to escape, no one giving the slightest hint of the merest ghost of a toss, until they realised that they weren't getting the attention they craved so they kidnapped girls, causing an international outcry and the media/celebrities changing their motivation from "eradicate western education" to "oppress women and stop them getting an education". There's the refusal by both the left and the right to look beyond the plight of women when it comes to Islam, they not only ignore the laws which oppress men, but declare those men the "real" misogynist patriarchal oppressors and innately sociopathic rapists. There's the refusal to recognise that women are a part of society and have far more influence than anyone wants to admit. There's Muslim men's obligation towards women, the segregation in Saudi where they have many public places from which men are banned unless accompanied by a female family member, where they'll be arrested for accompanying a woman to whom he is not related while the woman is merely sent home, where men face potentially fatal consequences for the same "crimes". Where homeless boys in Pakistan are pretty much guaranteed to be repeatedly raped day after day.

Then in my own life, being 6 or 7 years old, my sister 8 or 9 and told to stay put as our Reliant Robin went up in flames, having to be pulled out by a stranger, a man, because we were more afraid of disobeying than of burning to death, mother not even sparing us a glance as she grieved the loss of her car, later keeping it in the garden like some sort of shrine. Around the same year, at an LRP event (Lorien Trust's The Gathering), being left in the tent alone late at night and going to look for her, finding her on top of an unconscious man, she at least picked up on the fact that I was revelling in her severe hangover the next morning. Sneaking downstairs one night to see the aftermath of one of her "encounters", the man was broken, so started my extreme protectiveness of men and distrust of women, to the point of being called a gender traitor for the first time at around 7 years old by my 60+ year old year 1 teacher (who also wouldn't allow me to use left handed scissors or to write left handed, unwittingly making me ambidextrous. Being left with a violent babysitter who made me sleep under the table, or on the floor beside her bed (despite having 4 bloody beds), who wouldn't let me eat since burning the toast, beat me for asking for a glass of water and wouldn't even allow me to drink out of the tap, she once threw me in a wheely bin and poured dishwater over me, mother was in the garden just a few doors down, yet did nothing. She’d always try and get her boyfriends to beat us but they always just laughed it off (they’d put up with abuse themselves but never lasted long after she started bringing us into it), one in particular was into BDSM and later got mother a job as a dominatrix (she was disappointed by our complete lack of surprise), and even he had to draw the line at demonstrating how sexual intercourse works to his girlfriend’s 6 and 8 year old daughters.

My sister and I as little more than toddlers, mother putting our onesies on backwards so we couldn't take them off, having to go to the loo with them still on. Having the door handles put on upside down so that we couldn't reach up enough to open it to get to the loo so we ended up pissing ourselves. Having a daily diet of four slices of bread and the cheapest of generic vegetable spread as we weren't allowed mother's butter, being starved as punishment or just because she felt like it (having won custody of us only to spite dad), leading to malabsorption and osteoarthritis at the grand old age of twenty bloody six (3 years ago now), once a week we got an actual meal. Being around 8 or 9, visiting my auntie who was in hospital after having a stroke, having already had MS she was left paralysed, just 23 years old, granddad put together a system for her to speak by grouping letters and having her blink once for the stated grouping or letter or twice for basically undo. I gave her my only teddy which I carried everywhere, a stuffed donkey I got from Spain, she kept it. Staying in her house, continuing my habit of accidentally setting fire to the toaster, being left alone most of the night and going to look for mother in the village pub, finding her in one of her drinking competitions, walking in and vagblocking her, much to her frustration and anger. Being treated like a replacement husband, even trying to talk me into having a sex change despite only mild dysphoria, which was later greatly lessened by having an implant which stopped periods, eliminating most of the feeling of wrong (most cases of sex change regret are people who were abused, either treated like shit for their biological sex, treated as if they are opposite sex, or sexual abuse). Hearing about how the only way she'd get any when she was with dad was when he was asleep. Why did he end up dying a slow, agonising death while she gets to carry on regardless? Asking me about who I liked, later discovering exactly why she wanted to know, a man I care about was raped because I didn’t pick up on her ulterior motives. Having mother and her friends try to teach me to manipulate men, get them to pay for me, trying to turn me into a gold digger, only making me hate them even more. Coming of age (16), no longer eligible for child benefit, mother having been visiting friends more and more often until she didn't come back, only finding out that she'd been gradually moving out when we got the eviction order.

I'd been training myself to eventually join the army from the age of 5, once when I was 6 mother had asked me to go to the supermarket to get a bag of potatoes, she usually got a 20kg sack, must have taken me an hour to get it home, a man helping me carry it some of the way. When I finally enlisted I had to stop taking codeine for the malabsorption, it wasn't as much of a problem if I was eating every day (I usually forget as my body had been conditioned by neglect, not even bothering to remind me to eat any more), my hips had always made crunching and cracking sounds when I move, but as my body adjusted to the lack of codiene the pain became unbearable, upon being diagnosed with osteoarthritis I had to give up any hope of ever being a soldier, I've lost my purpose, and have nothing to replace it with, couldn't even work a whole shift when I got a factory job, humiliating, I'd informed the woman of my condition and she'd assured me that it was just a machinist job. It wasn't. It was everything you shouldn't do if you have any sort of hip problems. I'd never felt such agony and I'd fractured my bloody skull (at an LRP event). The woman was such a nasty bitch about it, she went from compassionate and understanding to mocking me for being upset that I was so damned useless now. I offered to forfeit my pay but her colleague, who also had arthritis and could no longer work the floor, was obviously far more genuinely empathetic than the woman, my brief boss was also sympathetic and even paid for a taxi to take me home after I refused an ambulance. The pain didn't subside for days.

I've never had a female friend who hasn't betrayed me, my "best friend" in school found it hilarious to punch me in the back in the middle of class, causing me to yell inadvertently as the air was knocked out of me. In year 8 the other kids stepped up their game and went from throwing stones to a house brick, when I got back to school she asked where the stitches were, just so she could punch me and reopen the wound. I was never allowed to retaliate, it would always be me who would be threatened with expulsion even if I only snapped after years of beatings which everyone knew was happening. Every birthday the other kids would falsely accuse me of something so I'd have to spend break times stood outside the headmaster's office, the equivalent of the stocks. Whether it was asperger's making me so unlikeable or if I genuinely am just a massive thundercunt, I never found out what I did to provoke them. Every time I put my trust in a woman it gets thrown in my face. My neighbour decided she was my best friend for life and would call at all hours of the day and night to get me to pick up her bloody methadone twice a bloody week, go to the chippy at 11 o'bloody clock at night, she's always trying to get me to take the pills she buys off a disabled neighbour. There are three things I refuse to take, hormones, anti-depressants, and sleeping tablets and she's always trying to get me to take them. The last straw was when her husband, who I got on very well with and whom she abused constantly, died, I told her to be careful what she wished for. When I finally called her out on using me she leapt immediately to the "after all I've done for you" bollocks.

Time after bloody time it's the same damned story, even regular everyday normal women will talk about things that would get a man arrested or at least publicly lambasted, that erections equal consent, that MGM is not at all a violation of the right to bodily autonomy, that it's absolutely fine and dandy to hit your male partner only to call the police if he defends himself, that female paedophiles shouldn't be punished because boys always want sex no matter what age they are but girls mature younger, right the way back to "We should have the vote but not have to pay with our lives as men had to in their millions while we shamed men and even underage boys into doing the same". What terrified me as a child was women's ability to completely turn off their empathy, the "woman scorned" is seen as karmic justice, there are people defending even the most brutal crimes: assault, murder, rape, mutilation, over something as minor as rejection, or an accidental drive by fart, or just the crime of being a man who wanted a divorce. Empathetic sex my absolute arse.

A fellow MRA publicly humiliated Adam on a livestream when we went to the men's day march and conference, we were staying in an air B&B, Adam and Will Styles still riding the high of giving their first speeches, only for the woman to dredge up shit that was no one's bloody business and ruin the whole mood for no bloody reason, she also attacked 6oodfella on one of the hangouts. Another one was giving private information, with a vicious twist, poisoning the community against one of our group, Paul Elam didn't want to get involved and Janice Fiamengo immediately cut ties, treating him like a bloody criminal, what the hell did the woman say to her? I could see the Woolly Bumblebee thing coming a mile off, I worry whenever youtubers I like get girlfriends because they seem to either completely change or disappear, like Spino and Bread and Circuses respectively. I'm suspicious of female MRAs, I don't want to be but often even the sane ones are just tradcons. If it weren't for the Honeybadgers and you lot I'd have no hope at all.

The constant stream of "toxic masculinity", oppression, patriarchy, of women complaining that their air conditioned (which is also bloody sexist somehow), seated jobs at a till are paid less than the men (and women but they're not going to mention that) carrying heavy boxes, driving forklifts, working in a cold warehouse, and risking serious injury or death infinitely more than they ever will. The selfishness, solipsism, and sociopathy is too much. Throughout history women have never cared about men aside from ones they have a bond with, have never appreciated a damned thing men have done yet they demand that men prioritise them. Why should they?

I’ve seen and experienced the worst examples of female nature in action, “toxic femininity” if you will, and the difference in reaction to it, never being believed as a child no matter how many times I begged other family members and even strangers to please let me live with them instead, I’ll sleep in a tent, look I brought it with me. Pathetic, but you’d have thought someone would have cottoned on. I'm not going down the anti-women route as my sister has, given her own treatment of her partners and her own admission, she’s not so much pro male as anti-female, but it’s increasingly difficult not to resent them even if everything has a biological explanation. I still defend women if the facts bear it out, even if I don’t necessarily agree on a personal level, reals over feels, the people I agree with most also being female has definitely helped me not fall over the edge, one of whom feels very much as I do to the point where she doesn’t consider herself to be a woman due to her own observations and experiences. But the longer this goes on, the more laws are changed, media is poisoned, speech is suppressed, how the hell do I stop myself from just giving up entirely? How on earth can I stop myself from becoming an all out misogynist? Because it is women, not just feminists. It’s female nature being allowed to go unchecked, even when the same happens with male nature women are still prioritised. There are exceptions on both sides but it’s not enough to change the overall trend. There’s never been a balance, and because of human nature there never will be, which is where the problem lies. I know there’s no hope, that it’s utterly futile, completely pointless, and it’s driving me more towards extremism. I completely understand why we’ve lost so many MRAs to suicide. But I’m still going, even if the only way to make even the slightest change is to appeal to female self interest I’ll still do it. Everything I’ve been passionate about throughout my life is a pointless endeavour, I can’t stop myself from caring or change my fundamental character, it’s a downward spiral and there doesn’t seem to be anything I can do about it.

#Personal #Very personal

48 notes · View notes

trecblog · 3 years

Text

The Good Immigrant: A Collection Of 21 Essays - Review

Recently (as of the time of writing this review) Sainsbury’s released their Christmas advert for the 2020 holiday season. The advert features a family talking about how excited they are to celebrate Christmas together. It is nice, and positive, and basically what you would expect from a typical Christmas advert. The advert has however received complaints from some viewers because the family featured are black. While the complaints have been the minority they have been loud with people saying they plan to boycott the supermarket chain as a result. I know this is a book review but I want to let that sink in for a moment. There are people who saw an advert featuring a black family celebrating Christmas and are offended enough to boycott a supermarket chain. A boycott because of an advert.

This reaction shows in Britain White (and if you want to get more specific straight white male) is still considered the default and for lack of a better term “normal”. Anything else is considered “other”, and a break from what is normal. This Britain, where a Christmas advert can be considered offensive is the Britain in which The Good Immigrant was written in 2016, and is the one we are still living in in 2020. The Good Immigrant is a collection of 21 essays from Black, Asian, and Minority Ethnicity writers from across literature, and the media curated by editor Nikesh Shukla. It is an anthology focused on the experiences of immigrants, the children and grandchildren of immigrants, refugees, and asylum seekers living in the UK. These essays are a mixed bag as could be expected, and differ in tone, subject matter, and focus but a few shared themes, and subjects emerge over the course of the collection.

One of the themes that comes up multiple times throughout the different essays is a deep frustration and anger, but also the inability to express that anger. Anger and particularly public displays of anger are unfortunately still the privilege of White men specifically. When a white man is angry he is called passionate, when a white woman is angry she is called hysterical. When a Black person is angry they are called a thug. When an Asian person is angry they are called a terrorist. These are but a few examples of the way words are used to defend the anger of white men as righteous and justified, and to dismiss and invalidate anger from anyone else. Throughout these essays to be a “Good immigrant” seems to be synonymous with being quiet and taking the everyday indignities, biases, and micro-aggressions without complaint such as the question which is called out several times in these essays as a particular source of frustration: “No, where are you really from?” This book offers the relatively rare opportunity for the writers to complain, to express anger, to pour their completely justifiable frustrations onto the page. However it is important to note that this is not a purely angry book just shouting at the reader from start to finish. Each writer brings their own voice and their own writing styles. Many are funny, and each is unique, and as a white reader they are eye opening and reveal life experiences I have not considered, or at least have not considered as much as I should.

Alongside this anger, and frustration there is an undercurrent running throughout the book about the struggles with assimilation. To be a “good immigrant” seems to not only be quiet, and non-threatening, but to fit in with the mainstream as much as possible. White British people are generally held as the judges of culture and behaviour in this country. As said above we are considered “normal” anything outside of that from non-anglicised names, to cultural practices is categorized as “other” as a result. To live outside of the norm, to be in the box labelled other means living under an extra level of scrutiny that never goes away, an extra burden for these writers to prove that they belong in Britain, even when they were born here. Reading these essays a commonality comes through of the push and pull between wanting to belong with wanting to retain your own cultural identity. It is a balancing act all of the writers have had to hone and perfect as a matter of survival in a society which does not always react well to difference. It is a balancing act which I as a reader have never really had to learn, and an added burden that I have never had to carry.

Given the rise of the stereotype of the “immigrant” as somehow being a lazy benefit sponge while simultaneously taking seemingly all the jobs this book serves an important purpose. It casts a light on the sneakier form of racism that has become more prevalent in modern day Britain. While open and proud racists still exist racism has evolved to fit in a Britain that will proudly tout its commitment to multiculturalism while quietly enforcing conformity. This quieter racism is names being mispronounced. It is words being misunderstood and misused. It is actors being pigeonholed into certain parts because of their skin colour. It is not seeing yourself represented in the media as anything other than a stereotype or token best friend. It is small comments and digs here and there which multiply over time like racist compound interest. This book gives valuable insight as to what it is like to live in a country that does not seem to want you living in it, and always considers you an outsider even if you were born in it.

To conclude this piece these essays are at times funny, at times sad, and at times anger inducing at the state of the world the writers have to live in. We all live in our own lives created by our own experiences, and perspectives. The racism and anger seen in reaction to Sainsbury’s advert shows this. Some people have such a lack of understanding for what exists outside of their worldview that what they have categorised as “other” entering their lives is cause for anger, and a boycott. Ultimately what this book offers is an opportunity to step out of our lives and into the lives of these 21 writers. It is a chance to gain some much needed perspective and awareness. Given the reception the advert received this chance to see how the “other” lives is one we need more of right now, and while it will not magically fix everything on its own, this is a book more people should absolutely read.

0 notes

froggydarren · 7 years

Text

as a friend

Dylan/Tyler || 1.8k || M || AO3

Summary: (989): I miss your penis. I'm telling you this as a friend, like its just a really great penis. You should be proud of it.

A/N: Y’all can blame @literaryoblivion for this one. That is all.

At first Tyler thinks the text came from Posey. It’s something he’d expect from him, completely without context or preamble, but with enough history that it wouldn’t seem super creepy. They did live together, after all, and occasional accidental nudity -- well, accidental sighting of said nudity -- was something that did happen. And sending something this random that’s this personal is absolutely Posey’s style.

Then he looks at the top of the screen again, and almost chokes on the water he’s drinking. Because the text didn’t come from Posey.

That’s it, that’s how Dylan’s number is saved in his phone, because not only is it what Tyler calls him, but it’s also unassuming enough that only some people would match it to the person. He’s had enough people looking over his shoulder to know better, and to save people’s numbers either by nicknames like this, or by full names to keep things appropriate. Dylan is one of those who gets a nickname -- and not a cutesy one that’d give too much away -- because he’s the one whom Tyler texts a lot, and it’s not like he wants to advertise it. And “D” could be anyone, really. At least that’s what he tells himself.

I miss your penis.

Tyler stares at the phone some more, slumped in his chair on set as he’s waiting to be called for the next shot. The penis in question twitches in his shorts, and he winces because now is not the time, dammit. Sure, the competition on who’s gonna wear the shortest of shorts seemed fun when it started, but he wasn’t counting on Dylan texting things like this. And he can’t reply now. Can’t, because he has no idea where that conversation might lead, and if it goes any further than what his mind is already trying to come up with, the shorts will be very inconvenient.

It’s his own fault, really, for not checking all his texts before he got to set.

Tyler reluctantly taps into the reply space, and tries to think of a reply that’s not going to start an immediate conversation. Then he spots the time the text was sent -- 2am -- and it suddenly makes a little more sense.

I see your reunion with the Maze Runner crew went well.

He locks the phone’s screen right after he exits the messaging app, and when the PA calls his name, he’s relieved that he can leave the phone behind. It does take the whole walk around the house they’re filming at to clear his head though. Because penis talk from Dylan.

The shoot and the rest of the guys keep his mind occupied with normal things, and it's only on his way to the hotel that he thinks about the text again. He's checked his phone during breaks and lunch, but there was no response. There still isn't one, but Tyler isn't surprised. Considering that Dylan was still coherent enough to be texting at 2am, chances are that his hangover is of the “leave me alone to die” kind.

Once he's out of the shower -- a long one, to give his body some hydration back after the whole day in the sun -- there is a bunch of notifications right in the middle of his phone screen.

Shit dude, sorry.

But I do.

I mean, I do think you should be proud. Your dick is awesome.

Fuck. Sorry. Will I get away with saying I'm still drunk?

Tyler chuckles at the texts and the rambling. Dylan’s not Stiles, but sometimes they have things in common, and the chattiness -- with people he knows well -- is one of them. He’s yet to understand why some people find it annoying or anything but charming. Then again, he’s maybe a little biased when it comes to Dylan’s… anything.

No.

It’s a simple text, and yet it takes him a good few minutes to press send. Because it means that he’s opening a conversation which could lead just about anywhere.

The reply comes faster than he expected it to.

Shit. Thought you’d let my stupidity go this time.

You’re not stupid.

Maybe not now. I was a drunk idiot last night though.

I mean, it wasn’t a false statement. Just not something I meant for you to know.

Well, no, I want you to know that your dick is awesome. You probably do.

Okay, please text back to stop me.

LOL

That’s not funny. You’re not funny.

Lies. I’m hilarious.

I believe that’s my line.

Except when you say it, it’s a lie.

I am wounded Hoech. Wounded.

LOL

You’re laughing at me. I’m mortally offended.

And yet you’re still texting me.

I can stop. I just wanted to make sure that you know that I meant that text. Just didn’t mean to actually send it. Because awkward.

Maybe a little. Didn’t know you paid attention. Didn’t expect you to pay attention.

I don’t have your locker room “no homo” training. I liked what I saw then.

I feel like I should be offended by the “no homo” comment. But strangely I get what you mean.

Locker room training to not view other guys that way. You’ve got it. I don’t.

Who says I do?

Doubt you’ve ever seen me or Posey naked and saw us as anything else but your team buddies.

Not Posey, no.

He pauses and looks away from the screen, trying to catch his breath. It’s a confession, what he just said, and he’s… he wasn’t expecting the conversation to lead to that today.

Oh.

Me?

Tyler stares at the question and hovers his fingers over the phone screen. Because yes, Dylan. Yes, he noticed back then. He just wasn’t planning on ever admitting it, because for all he knows, Dylan’s never been into anything but girls. And admitting bisexuality was a surefire way to make things awkward. Only a few people in Tyler’s life know, and one of them is Colton, who’s been sworn to secrecy. Colton, and who isn’t out either.

Yes.

Again, sending the reply takes a while. Tyler types it, then deletes the word, then types it again. It’s the only word on his mind, so he eventually bites the bullet and hits send. Then he tries to ignore the dots indicating that Dylan’s typing a response, and he fails miserably, eyes glued to the ominous sign of… well, nothing good. It either means that Dylan’s writing a long-winded rejection, or that he doesn’t know how to write it.

He’s about to toss the phone on his bed and ignore it for the rest of the night when a text finally comes through.

Me too.

Tyler stares, and then another text comes.

Not me, obviously. You. I noticed. As I made painfully clear with the text last night.

When he reads it, Tyler chuckles quietly, a little from the shock of Dylan’s admission, a little from relief that it wasn’t a flat out rejection.

I’m surprised you remember. It’s been years.

Too long, if anyone was to ask Tyler. It’s been way too long since they were living in the same space, since he had a chance to be around Dylan for that amount of time. Sure, on set, they were still close and hung out the year after the move to LA, and they had on set time together too. But the last season was… well, there were multiple reasons for why they weren’t spending as much time together anymore. Tyler refuses to acknowledge his own avoidance of anything Dylan-shaped during the filming of that season. Or during the breaks, when he’d hide in his trailer and complained to Colton about the lack of screentime for him and Dylan together.

It has. I might need a memory refresher.

Tyler is glad he’s not drinking or eating, because the response from Dylan would’ve made him spit out anything that was in his mouth. It’s not like it’s a shocker for Dylan to be direct, Tyler’s just never had it directed at him. Not in this way. Not when it feels almost like flirting. He wonders for a beat if that’s what the conversation has turned into.

Only if that’s something you’d be okay with.

Maybe not like, texting, but meet up?

Normal meeting up, I mean. You’re in Texas, right? We could, if you have a free weekend coming up. It’s been months, man.

Okay, please say something before I propose something too embarrassing, like that I won’t blow you on the first date.

Shit, how do I unsend a text?

Hoech?

Sorry.

Tyler winces, because he’s imagining Dylan’s face going from eager and amused to panicking and worried. He quickly presses on the screen so that Dylan can at least see that he’s still alive, then realises that seeing the ominous dots on the screen is probably worse. But he’s not sure what to reply, since his mind has been utterly blown by Dylan’s words.

BJs are a third date thing.

He almost facepalms when he sends the text, but it’s done. And it was Dylan who mentioned the date thing in the first place, so Tyler isn’t reading too much into where their conversation has gone. At least he hopes he isn’t.

Right. So, breakfast, lunch, and dinner? Then BJ?

I’ve been told I have the mouth for it.

Tyler falls onto his bed and breathes for a moment, one arm thrown over his face, fingers wrapped tightly around the phone. Because Dylan isn’t wrong, and Tyler is all too aware -- thanks to several unmentionable dreams and fantasies -- just how much of a mouth for blow jobs Dylan has. He’s not going to ask where Dylan heard it, or who it was that told him, but it’s not something that Tyler hasn’t thought about before.

He takes a few deep breaths before he looks at his phone again.

And well, we already established that I think your dick is great.

Tyler groans again, his dick very much interested in the imagery that Dylan’s texts are providing.

Date first? I could fly over two weeks from now, long weekend. Or you could, when you get time off. It’s off the radar here.

I’m off this weekend, we’re still just rehearsing. That OK? Too soon?

Let me know when, I’ll come get you from Austin. And it’s been years. Not too soon.

Sap. Can’t wait. I’ll text you the deets when I get them. It’s a date.

Tyler is still grinning when he puts the phone down on his nightstand. He didn’t think they’d ever get there, let alone that it’d take drunk-texting, but he’s not going to complain.

When his phone beeps with a text from Dylan a little while later, it makes Tyler downright giddy to see the flight confirmation.

See you soon.

Can’t wait.

He would say that he doesn’t spend the rest of the evening smiling, but it would be a blatant lie.

#hobrien #eternalhobrien #otp: tension and the spark #jen's attempts at words

10 notes · View notes

psychicmedium14 · 7 years

Photo

When it comes to determining whether someone you know is a narcissist, most people make it more complicated than it needs to be. I use the duck test—that is, if it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it probably is a duck. There are no physical blood tests, MRIs, or exact determinations that can identify narcissism. Even therapists have to go on their observations of the behavior, attitudes, and reactions that a person presents to determine narcissism. What makes it simple is the fact that we know exactly what a narcissist looks like. Below, I've listed all the symptoms and behaviors you should look for. Keep in mind that not all of these have to be present to make a determination of narcissism. According to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual, which therapists use as a guide, a person needs to exhibit only 55 percent of the identified characteristics to be considered narcissistic. The list I've made here is descriptive, so you can get a more in-depth picture of a narcissist’s common behaviors. 1. Superiority and entitlement: The world of the narcissist is all about good/bad, superior/inferior, and right/wrong. There is a definite hierarchy, with the narcissist at the top—which is the only place he feels safe. Narcissists have to be the best, the most right, and the most competent; do everything their way; own everything; and control everyone. Interestingly enough, narcissists can also get that superior feeling by being the worst; the most wrong; or the most ill, upset, or injured for a period of time. Then they feel entitled to receive soothing concern and recompense and even the right to hurt you or demand apologies to “make things even.” 2. Exaggerated need for attention and validation: Narcissists need constant attention—even following you around the house, asking you to find things, or constantly saying something to grab your attention. Validation for a narcissist counts only if it comes from others. Even then, it doesn’t count for much. A narcissist’s need for validation is like a funnel. You pour in positive, supportive words, and they just flow out the other end and are gone. No matter how much you tell narcissists you love them, admire them, or approve of them, they never feel it’s enough—because deep down they don’t believe anyone can love them. Despite all their self-absorbed, grandiose bragging, narcissists are actually very insecure and fearful of not measuring up. Theyconstantly try to elicit praise and approval from others to shore up their fragile egos, but no matter how much they’re given, they always want more. 3. Perfectionism: Narcissists have an extremely high need for everything to be perfect. They believe they should be perfect, you should be perfect, events should happen exactly as expected, and life should play out precisely as they envision it. This is an excruciatingly impossible demand, which results in the narcissist feeling dissatisfied and miserable much of the time. The demand for perfection leads the narcissist to complain and be constantly dissatisfied. 4. Great need for control: Since narcissists are continually disappointed with the imperfect way life unfolds, they want to do as much as possible to control it and mold it to their liking. They want and demand to be in control, and their sense of entitlement makes it seem logical to them that they should be in control—of everything. Narcissists always have a story line in mind about what each “character” in their interaction should be saying and doing. When you don’t behave as expected, they become quite upset and unsettled. They don’t know what to expect next, because you’re off script. They demand that you say and do exactly what they have in mind so they can reach their desired conclusion. You are a character in their internal play, not a real person with your own thoughts and feelings. 5. Lack of responsibility—blaming and deflecting: Although narcissists want to be in control, they never want to be responsible for the results—unless, of course, everything goes exactly their way and their desired result occurs. When things don’t go according to their plan or they feel criticized or less than perfect, the narcissist places all the blame and responsibility on you. It has to be someone else’s fault. Sometimes that blame is generalized—all police, all bosses, all teachers, all Democrats, and so on. At other times the narcissist picks a particular person or rule to blame—his mother, the judge, or laws that limit what he wants to do. Most often, however, the narcissist blames the one person who is the most emotionally close, most attached, loyal, and loving in his life—you. To maintain the façade of perfection, narcissists always have to blame someone or something else. You are the safest person to blame, because you are least likely to leave or reject him. 6. Lack of boundaries: Narcissists can’t accurately see where they end and you begin. They are a lot like 2-year-olds. They believe that everything belongs to them, everyone thinks and feels the same as they do, and everyone wants the same things they do. They are shocked and highly insulted to be told no. If a narcissist wants something from you, he’ll go to great lengths to figure out how to get it through persistence, cajoling, demanding, rejecting, or pouting. 7. Lack of empathy: Narcissists have very little ability to empathize with others. They tend to be selfish and self-involved and are usually unable to understand what other people are feeling. Narcissists expect others to think and feel the same as they do and seldom give any thought to how others feel. They are also rarely apologetic, remorseful, or guilty. But narcissists are highly attuned to perceived threats, anger, and rejection from others. At the same time, they are nearly blind to the other feelings of the people around them. They frequently misread subtle facial expressions and are typically biased toward interpreting facial expressions as negative. Unless you are acting out your emotions dramatically, the narcissist won’t accurately perceive what you’re feeling. Even saying “I’m sorry” or “I love you” when the narcissist is on edge and angry can backfire. He won’t believe you and may even misperceive your comment as an attack. In addition, if your words and expressions aren’t congruent, the narcissist will likely respond erroneously. This is why narcissists often misinterpret sarcasm as actual agreement or joking from others as a personal attack. Their lack of ability to correctly read body language is one reason narcissists are deficiently empathetic to your feelings. They don’t see them, they don’t interpret them correctly, and overall they don’t believe you feel any differently than they do. Narcissists also lack an understanding about the nature of feelings. They don’t understand how their feelings occur. They think their feelings are caused by someone or something outside of themselves. They don’t realize that their feelings are caused by their own biochemistry, thoughts, and interpretations. In a nutshell, narcissists always think you cause their feelings—especially the negative ones. They conclude that because you didn’t follow their plan or because you made them feel vulnerable, you are to blame. This lack of empathy makes true relationships and emotional connection with narcissists difficult or impossible. They just don’t notice what anyone else is feeling. 8. Emotional reasoning: You’ve probably made the mistake of trying to reason and use logic with the narcissist to get him to understand the painful effect his behaviors have on you. You think that if he understands how much his behavior hurt you, he’ll change. Your explanations, however, don’t make sense to the narcissist, who only seems able to be aware of his own thoughts and feelings. Although narcissists may say they understand, they honestly don’t. Therefore, narcissists make most of their decisions based on how they feel about something. They simply must have that red sports car, based entirely on how they feel driving it, not by whether it is a good choice to make for the family or for the budget. If they’re bored or depressed, they want to move or end the relationship or start a new business. They always look to something or someone outside themselves to solve their feelings and needs. They expect you to go along with their “solutions,” and they react with irritation and resentment if you don’t. 9. Splitting: The narcissist’s personality is split into good and bad parts, and they also split everything in their relationships into good and bad. Any negative thoughts or behaviors are blamed on you or others, whereas they take credit for everything that is positive and good. They deny their negative words and actions while continually accusing you of disapproving. They also remember things as completely good and wonderful or as bad and horrible. They can’t seem to mix these two constructs: Narcissists aren’t able to see, feel, or remember both the positive and the negative in a situation. They can deal with only one perspective at a time—theirs. 10. Fear: The narcissist’s entire life is motivated and energized by fear. Most narcissists’ fears are deeply buried and repressed. They’re constantly afraid of being ridiculed, rejected, or wrong. They may have fears about germs, about losing all their money, about being emotionally or physically attacked, about being seen as bad or inadequate, or about being abandoned. This makes it difficult and sometimes impossible for the narcissist to trust anyone else. In fact, the closer your relationship becomes, the less he will trust you. Narcissists fear any true intimacy or vulnerability because they’re afraid you’ll see their imperfections and judge or reject them. No amount of reassurance seems to make a difference, because narcissists deeply hate and reject their own shameful imperfections. Narcissists never seem to develop trust in the love of others, and they continually test you with worse and worse behaviors to try to find your breaking point. Their gripping fear of being “found out” or abandoned never seems to dissipate. 11. Anxiety: Anxiety is an ongoing, vague feeling that something bad is happening or about to happen. Some narcissists show their anxiety by talking constantly about the doom that is about to happen, while some hide and repress their anxiety. But most narcissists project their anxiety onto their closest loved ones, accusing them of being negative, unsupportive, mentally ill, not putting them first, not responding to their needs, or being selfish. All this is designed to transfer anxiety to the loved one in an attempt to not feel it themselves. As you feel worse and worse, the narcissist feels better and better. In fact he feels stronger and more superior as you feel your anxiety and depression grow. 12. Shame: Narcissists don’t feel much guilt because they think they are always right, and they don’t believe their behaviors really affect anyone else. But they harbor a lot of shame. Shame is the belief that there is something deeply and permanently wrong or bad about who you are. Buried in a deeply repressed part of the narcissist are all the insecurities, fears, and rejected traits that he is constantly on guard to hide from everyone, including himself. The narcissist is acutely ashamed of all these rejected thoughts and feelings. Keeping his vulnerabilities hidden is essential to the narcissist’s pretend self-esteem or false self. Ultimately, however, this makes it impossible for them to be completely real and transparent. 13. An inability to be truly vulnerable: Because of their inability to understand feelings, their lack of empathy, and constant need for self-protection, narcissists can’t truly love or connect emotionally with other people. They cannot look at the world from anyone else’s perspective. They’re essentially emotionally blind and alone. This makes them emotionally needy. When one relationship is no longer satisfying, they often overlap relationships or start a new one as soon as possible. They desperately want someone to feel their pain, to sympathize with them, and make everything just as they want it to be. But they have little ability to respond to your pain or fear or even your day-to-day need for care and sympathy. 14. An inability to communicate or work as part of a team: Thoughtful, cooperative behaviors require a real understanding of each other’s feelings. How will the other person feel? Will this action make both of us happy? How will this affect our relationship? These are questions that narcissists don’t have the capacity or the motivation to think about. Don’t expect the narcissist to understand your feelings, give in, or give up anything he wants for your benefit; it’s useless. (Note: Article is from MindBodyGreen)

#narcissism #control freak #abuse

1 note · View note

thedeadflag · 7 years

Note

So, I'm reading this fic, a HP AU of The 100, and I'm not that far into it, but so far it's been very good, and then there's a fight between Raven, a muggle born, and Fox, a pure blood, because Raven keeps ranting about the purebloods awfulness, which I totally agree with her, in a general way, as if every pureblood is like that and it hurts Fox, because she is a pureblood and she's not like that, and Raven knows that she isn't, but she still talks in general terms about purebloods and (1/?)

like, I understand and agree with what she means, but, being myself a white man who sees a lot of generalization on tumblr about things white men do, I understand how it can hurt your feelings to be lumped together with people you disagree with, and so I don’t think Fox is wrong on this matter, but then Raven gets angry, because it’s not like Fox suffers any restrictions or reproaches from society, while Raven, because she is muggleborn has to deal with a lot of shit from purebloods and (2/?)

and Raven says a lot of hurtful, mean things, saying that purebloods are a bunch o inbreds and that, basically, Fox should just suck it up, because there are people, the muggleborns, that are persecuted just because they weren’t bred, and like, I understand Raven, I do, some purebloods can be downright disgusting, but like, saying this thing to your friend just because she is a pureblood just, to me, feels a little too much like being discriminated for being muggleborn, and I guess (¾)

what I’m asking is, what do you think on this matter, seeing that it can be translated to current issues, issues of color, religion, sexuality, gender. (4/4)

Okay, so this is going to be long, because there’s some important lessons here on interacting with marginalized people.

Muggle-born folks are, within the context of the magical world in the Harry Potter Universe, an oppressed group. That’s just facts. There’s purebloods, halfbloods, and then muggle-born. Only thing deemed worse in some ways is a Squib, due to being from magical parents but lacking magical prowess, who are considered traitors to their blood, the purity of their people. Squibs put the ‘natural superiority’ of their people (or, at least, the argument of superiority) at risk by not being magical, and thus not carrying their people’s power that’s used to prop up their standing in society as superior to halfbloods and especially muggle-born folks

This sets up a pretty easy race/ethnicity allegory (that is also inherently infused with classism) from what I’ve seen, heard, and read in the books (I made it partway through the books, watched all the films, have a large number of HP fanatic friends).

Which means Raven can talk shit about purebloods all she wants if she’s muggle-born in that story. Maybe it might be a little mean of her sometimes depending on her word choice if she’s directing it at Fox, but honestly, marginalized people need to be able to vent their hurt and anger and frustration in order to be healthy. It’s a legitimate need that’s backed up by decades of science. Our friends and allies need to understand this and not take it personally.

Like, even remarks like “They’re all inbred!”, which might seem to be an insult against purebloods, would really just be a commentary on how purebloods aggressively discriminate and wield their power to the point where even in their relationships, only other purebloods are good enough, pure enough, valuable enough, worthy enough to be their partners (or sometimes even just their friends). It’s letting out anger that you and your people are so thoroughly deemed worthless and lesser-than. it’s turning the discrimination she faces into an attack to try and reclaim the violence done to her people.

Marginalized groups tend to discuss their oppression at a social level, not an individual level, since discussing things like racism, homophobia, transphobia, etc. at an individual level basically never accomplishes anything except maybe, at best, a good venting session about a single person who upset them. These are social processes. They attack whole groups of people, not individuals, and by default, conversations and material about them will be on a social level unless explicitly noted otherwise.

When someone says, for instance (and to make this simple and easy for me to explain from my pov), that all cis people are transphobic, we’re saying intent does not matter, because society weaponizes cis people against trans people whether you’re aware of it or not, and usually promotes you being unaware of it (on top of all the largely invisible privileges that status offers). It doesn’t matter if someone wanted to hurt us, it just matters that we were hurt. Everyone’s raised in a thoroughly transphobic society, one cis people benefit from by being cis, and one where any inactivity or indifference or neutral stance on transphobia is, in effect, helping the reproduction of that oppression, because we do not live in a neutral society…we live in a society that actively oppresses large amounts of people in varying ways, and so any decision not to fight that oppression, not to attack the benefits cis folks gain from that oppression, is essentially a decision to permit that oppression. The marginalized, after all, are not responsible for overcoming their oppression…that’s the oppressing class’ responsibility, to work with the marginalized to dismantle those structures.

Society conditions us with thoughts and beliefs about marginalized peoples and buries them in our ‘common sense’ to be used via gut reactions, and unchallenged ‘truths’. Everyone, everyone needs to put in the work to unlearn these. It’s more visible for marginalized folks, since our oppressions tend to stand out when they’re directed at us, but it’s more important for those in power to put in the work to unlearn. That can be hard if they might not actually see themselves reproducing harm, or clearly recognize what is or isn’t harmful.

This is much larger than individual people. None of this is solely a single individual’s responsibility, but it is the responsibility of categories of people. Like, if you’re white, it’s your responsibility to be active in unlearning racism, and seeking out poc voices to manage that. Same deal for for privileged folks in relation to marginalized folks across just about any axis. If you’re not putting in the work, you’re effectively helping retain the status quo, and it’s important to be mindful of that. It’s important that folks do what they can, not just what they’re comfortable with, not just some notion of ‘if I treat everyone equally, I’m fine’ because that’s a non-solution, and it’s rarely that folks will end up treating everyone equally anyways, since they won’t have assessed the biases and stigmas guiding their common sense and instincts and gut reactions.

Cis folks can be visibly nice and still contribute to our oppression and harm us in ways they may or may not be unaware of. Malicious intent is not required for something to be transphobic, but even if it WAS, it’s very easy to attribute malicious intent to society as a whole, given it’s been operating a genocide against trans people for ages.

Far too often, when we vent about transphobia to our friends and family, we eventually experience hostility and aggression from them, and they experience burnout. Because I know my friends wouldn’t like me complaining a dozen plus times a day about varying instances of transphobia I face. Maybe a small handful every few days, but eventually I get the “Jeez, stop being so negative/sensitive/etc.” or the “well, I’m not like that!” remarks. Or, if I’m venting to coworkers, i could get complaints to my manager. Or my family members would stop picking up the phone when I call them, and/or stop answering when i text them. I, as well as well over a hundred trans folks I’ve known personally, have experienced being cut off from our social supports (whether temporarily or permanently) for trying to get support over the transphobia we face. Generally, people don’t want to hear about it, not on blast, not all the time, not every day for months and months, even though that’s our reality, and we need help managing that reality. Folks don’t want to hear it. And while it’s nice to feel validated by our local, in-person trans friends, sometimes that negativity can be draining on our relations with them. This is why having multiple outlets is good, and why we need good allies who know not to take it personally.

This is because stress is far more dangerous when it’s routine and relentless…major individual stress events like a death in the family can be difficult but there’s usually some form of supports in place to help manage that. But dealing with a dozen instances of minor to moderate stressors daily, ones that generally will not cease? That tends to have a more significantly negative impact on a person’s mental and physical health, especially since there’s rarely any support resources in place to help people deal with those. And those stressors, combined with social stigmas, and high rates of poverty, and high rates of unemployment and homelessness, and high rates of medical discrimination, tends to lead to us attempting suicide. These are the main reasons why 43+% of trans people have attempted suicide at least once (and that’s honestly a very conservative number). Not being permitted to manage our stress and pain without consequence is a huge reason for that. We’re attacked for expressing our pain, constantly, and that hurts.

Because when trans people vent “I fucking hate cis people!” they’re not thinking of each and every individual cis person alive, so it would be wrong to take such a statement personally. They’re likely speaking of the cis people that have harmed them recently, and how they wield transphobia against them. Because let me tell you, as a trans woman who has worked retail in numerous public positions, eventually, you just start to forget their faces. Too exhausting to be angry at each of them, and it’s much easier to just get upset at society for weaponizing cis folks against us, and use ‘cis people’ as shorthand, a form of metonymy, which is commonly used all across society in similar ways. And since the category of cis people is used to wield transphobia against us (remember transphobia exists at the social level first and foremost), it is logical for us to use metonymy. Easier than listing out the gritty details of each instance, each person involved, each form of transphobia, etc. When I’d come home from work and close the door, and loudly vent “UGH! FUCKING CIS PEOPLE I SWEAR TO GOD” my roommate would (if he was home) toss me a gummy worm and nod sagely, asking if the cis were at it again.

He, a cis dude, knew I wasn’t raging about him. He was well aware I was raging at all the cis people who wielded transphobia against me while I was away. Much in the way that when a friend of mine would slump down beside me after a failed date and complain about how “men are jerks”, I’d understand that she was not, in fact, attacking my best friend, who is a man, and a very good person. She was using hyperbole as a form of emotional expression. Just like someone who says “I hate litterers” does not in fact hate all people in the world who have littered, they are likely upset that littering is such a common, destructive thing that folks don’t really care much about. Hyperbole. Used all the time.

It’s healthy for us to do this. It’s important we have the ability to do this unrestricted, and without being attacked for it. it’s important that our allies jump through trans 101 hoops and recognize that when we vent like this, it’s not a personal attack.

It’s not necessarily actual hatred against cis people. Usually just anger, and we’re allowed to be angry when cis people harm us on the daily and rarely care to change what they’re doing or how they think of us. We’re allowed to express that anger, and we shouldn’t be attacked for it. Allies wouldn’t attack us for it, they’d understand it.

Recognize that this is bigger than your feelings, it’s bigger than you, it’s bigger than any single one of us. Recognize that we can be generally good people but still participate in widespread oppression. Recognize that you have a long way to go, and that’s okay, because so does everyone else.

The Fox in this story should work at understanding this dynamic better and getting past her initial defensive reactions, because no one’s attacking her, and it’s not personal

#long post #allyship 101 #education #hyperbole #racism #classicm #transphobia #metonymy #terminology #social justice

2 notes · View notes

beneath-the-mundane · 7 years

Text

Intercultural Communication I

I am studying abroad in a 4 month long program affiliated with my university. It is known as the Council on International Educational Exchange (CIEE). My specific program is Arabic Language & Culture in Amman, Jordan. They are changing the program a bit next semester, but if you want to check out the program, I will leave the link at the end of this post. Below is an article on the first intercultural communication session. I wrote it for the newsletter.

CIEE organizes many cultural events to ensure students have opportunities to learn about Jordanian culture. One event I really appreciated was “Intercultural Communication Session I,” which was led by Zeina Alkaraki. This session focused on the cultural lens that we all see through. Cultural lens refers to the various, overlapping identities that shape the way we perceive the world around us. For example, I identify as a Chinese American, a democrat, a woman, a global citizen, etc. These identities influence the way I understand different social and cultural situations.

It is important to be aware of the cultural lens we have. When we first arrived in Jordan, many of us experienced culture shock to varying degrees. In turn, we subconsciously tried to compare the new culture to our own cultural norms. We do this to understand our relationship with our new environment, however, the way we perceive our new environment can be very different depending on how we approach understanding it. We have a tendency to use our own culture as the standard by which we gauge other cultures. It is often too easily to dismiss new cultures and traditions as “archaic” or “weird.” But what is considered “modern” or “normal” is completely subjective.

We are in Jordan to learn, not to confirm our biases. If we truly want to learn as much as possible, we need to limit our expectations and try to peer through others’ cultural lenses. I have heard too many people say Jordan is “so modern!” Yes, Jordan is modern. It’s existing in the 21st century, is it not? Who gets to decide what is considered modern and what is not? People live differently. This does not make one group superior or inferior to another.

I’d like to share a real-life experience of how our cultural lens can influence the quality of our experience here. This is a story about my friend. Gender neutral pronouns are used to protect their identity.

I have a friend whose host family served a whole bodied, pan-fried fish. My friend was used to eating fillets. The experience of eating a lightly seasoned, fried fish from the bone seemed barbaric to them. This person complained that their host family didn’t know anything about hospitality and didn’t know how to cook. The issue was that my friend had a set of experiences related to cooking and eating fish. When the meal served did not meet these expectations, my friend was deeply upset. Little did this person know, many other cultures normally eat whole fish. There is also technique to de-boning fish as you eat. It may seem chaotic to someone who lacks experience.

Americans typically buy fillets. These fillets are processed–someone has removed the head, bones, and scales–and neatly packaged in plastic to be shipped off to a grocery store. The overall product is more expensive because of the extra steps it takes to get to your table. As people coming from the “Global North” (the 1% of the world), we are used to the luxury of paying extra to have a more convenient product. People in other countries may not be able to afford these luxuries. They may also prefer to consume their food differently—for taste, waste reduction, etc. Being aware of these differences is important.

My friend looked at the whole fish and complained. They decided the family was inhospitable (for several reasons, not just this incident) and complained about the food. It was the first time that their family had cooked a nice meal for them, yet all my friend did was complain. Frankly, their privilege and cultural biases showed. This person insisted on comparing the meal to meals they were used to. Instead of using the meal as an opportunity to learn about their host family, they drew quick conclusions about the culture.

My friend will probably always feel negatively toward the memory. If someone else was in this situation, it’s possible they might react the same way. But the important thing to note is that despite how strange eating a whole fish may seem, this kind of experience doesn’t have to be a negative memory. We are all capable of taking what makes us uncomfortable and learning from it. If we recognize our biases, we can ask ourselves why we are feeling uncomfortable. We can ask others questions about the situation to better understand it.

There is no need for us to like everything about unfamiliar cultures, but we can at least try to look through someone else’s lens. That is why we are studying abroad, right? I will leave you with a quote:

“Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one’s lifetime.” –Mark Twain

CIEE: https://www.ciee.org/go-abroad/college-study-abroad/programs/jordan

#jordan interculturalcommunication #ciee #cultural lens

0 notes

ma-ballin · 7 years

Text

“Lean In”, by Sheryl Sandberg

Verbatim from Blinkist:

The key message in this book:

Despite tremendous strides in gender equality in the past decade, women are still conspicuously absent from leadership positions. This is due to external factors such as lingering gender biases and stereotypes, as well as internal pressures such as lack of confidence and anxiety over the challenges of combining a career with raising a family. Working to address and correct these issues benefits not only

women,

but society as a whole.

The questions this book answered:

Does gender inequality exist today and what can we do about it?

Despite tremendous strides, we are still far from gender equality.

Women are still conspicuously absent from leadership positions, partially due to the leadership ambition gap.

Let’s talk openly about inequality and work toward correcting it, together.

What are the factors that can help or hinder women’s careers?

Women’s lack of confidence can hold back their careers.

Careers are more like jungle gyms than ladders; aim for the top but be flexible in your route.

Women must carefully navigate the razor’s edge of ambition and likeability.

To foster effective communication, practice and encourage authenticity and appropriateness.

Attract rather than accost mentors, and build a natural, reciprocal relationship with them.

What factors help combine a successful career with a fulfilling personal life?

Equality means a truly equal partnership at home, too.

Before you go on maternity leave, lean into your job as much as possible.

Don’t try to do everything perfectly; focus on what’s important.

Through a combination of entertaining anecdotes, solid data and practical advice, Lean In (2013) examines the prevalence of and reasons for gender inequality both at home and at work. It encourages women to lean into their careers by seizing opportunities and aspiring to leadership positions, as well calling on both men and women to acknowledge and remedy the current gender inequalities.

Despite tremendous strides, we are still far from gender equality.

In today’s developed world, women are better off than ever before, thanks largely to the women’s movement in the past century. But though at first glance it may seem like the battle against inequality has been won, there is still much to do.

Consider compensation: In 1970, American women made 59 cents for each dollar men made in similar jobs. While that figure has risen, progress has been slow: in 2010, it was still only 77 cents. As one activist noted wryly, “Forty years and eighteen cents. A dozen eggs have gone up ten times that amount.” Nor is this problem unique to the U.S.: in Europe, the current figure is little better at 84 cents.

In addition to being monetarily undervalued, studies show that women’s performance is also unfairly denigrated. When asked to assess the performance and growth potential of otherwise equal employees, both men and women discriminate against women.

But surely this applies only to the ignorant and misogynistic, whereas we enlightened individuals would be fair?

Surprisingly, the same studies show that the more impartial the evaluator claimed to be, the more they actually discriminated against women.

This kind of “benevolent sexism” is far more dangerous than the overtly hostile kind, for the perpetrator usually has no idea how his or her attitudes hurt female colleagues and thus feels no compunction to reassess them.

At home too, inequality lingers. For example, it is broadly assumed that it is a woman’s job to raise children. When asked whether they expected their spouse to step off their career track to raise children, 46% of the men surveyed said yes, compared to only 5% of the women.

Despite tremendous strides, we are still far from gender equality.

Women are still conspicuously absent from leadership positions, partially due to the leadership ambition gap.

Nowhere is gender inequality more evident than in leadership positions: Just 20% of parliament seats globally are held by women, and only 4% of Fortune 500 CEOs are women.

These figures are striking because in the realm of academic achievement, women, on average, fare better than men, earning 57% of all undergraduate degrees and 60% of master’s degrees in the U.S. Yet, somehow this flood of competent women entering the workforce becomes a trickle by the time they reach the leadership level.

Many factors contribute to this phenomenon, but one of the most important is the leadership ambition gap. Studies show that men are more ambitious and more likely to want to become executives than women. Why?

Gender stereotypes are one driver: Women are not expected to be ambitious and career-oriented, and those who violate these expectations can be labeled as “bossy” or worse. These stereotypes, enforced since childhood, can pressure women to temper their career goals.

Similarly, whereas most men automatically assume they can have both fulfilling personal lives and successful careers, women are constantly told by society and the media that eventually, they will have to make compromises between career and family. This often results in women being less committed to their careers and leaving the workforce to care for their children. Surveys of Yale and Harvard Business School alumni found that some 20 years after graduating, only half the women were employed full-time compared to 90% of the men. With such a mass exodus of highly-educated women from the workforce, it is little wonder that a leadership gap exists.

Women are still conspicuously absent from leadership positions, partially due to the leadership ambition gap.

Let’s talk openly about inequality and work toward correcting it, together.

We must be able to speak openly about gender and the disadvantages women face without this being seen as complaining or as demanding special treatment.

An open discussion raises awareness and encourages more people to come forth and address the issues. This should in turn inspire more women to lead and more men to want to be part of the solution and support women to lead.

Increased awareness can bring about small but critical changes that will help level the playing field. For example, a professor who becomes aware that women tend to be reluctant about raising their hands when the class is asked a question can start calling on students directly, thus evening out the chances of each gender to answer.

Women must also support each other. Discouragingly, this has not always been the case. Consider the “queen bee” phenomenon: Historically, only one woman per company could rise to senior status in the male-dominated corporate environment; hence, she felt threatened by other women and often actively hindered their advancement.

Similarly, stay-at-home mothers may make working mothers feel guilty and insecure about their career choices, and vice versa, leading the two groups to needlessly criticize and discourage each other. For example, the first female officer to join a U.S. Navy submarine noted that while her male crewmates respected her, their wivesresented her intensely.

The push for gender equality must continue. Not only does it help society as a whole take advantage of the competence and leadership skills of half the population, but, as a study of Harvard students showed, equality actually raises the satisfaction of all parties involved, not just the direct beneficiaries.

Let’s talk openly about inequality and work toward correcting it, together.

Women’s lack of confidence can hold back their careers.

In addition to the many external obstacles that impede women at work, they often also face a battle from within: self-doubt.

Even the most competent professionals, including the author herself, can be plagued by the impostor syndrome: feeling like your skills and success are fraudulent – and soon to be uncovered. Women tend to experience impostor syndrome more intensely than men and in general underestimate their own abilities.

Studies across a multitude of industries such as medicine, law and politics show that women tend to judge their own qualifications and performance as worse than they actually are, while men do the opposite and tend to be overly confident.

Similarly, men tend to attribute their successes to their own innate skills and blame external factors for their failures, whereas women credit their successes to external factors and blame their innate abilities for their failures.

These misperceptions breed further insecurity in women, and insecurity can hurt your career: It takes confidence to promote yourself at a senior job interview or to pull up a chair at an executive meeting.

Self-doubt can also cause women to forgo great career opportunities, because they consider themselves unqualified. However, in a fast-moving world, you cannot wait for perfectly tailored positions to open up; instead, you must seize the initiative, grab opportunities, and make them work for you. In short, you must lean in to your career, not lean back or stand aside.

So what to do?

Though you can’t will yourself to become confident, sometimes faking it can help. Acting and carrying yourself as if you’re confident can often transform into genuine confidence.

We should also acknowledge that women are less likely to feel confident enough to reach for opportunities and therefore, we must correct for this through encouragement and support.

Women’s lack of confidence can hold back their careers.

Careers are more like jungle gyms than ladders; aim for the top but be flexible in your route.

Today, the career ladder concept is inaccurate. People no longer advance linearly from entry level to executive in one company or industry. A more accurate image is a jungle gym with multiple routes to the top.

This concept is comforting for people who, like the author, have no specific career plan after graduating college. On a jungle gym, you don’t need an exact goal; you can try out the various routes available and see which ones lead you in the right direction.

To help you on this journey, you should plan for both the long term and short term.

A long-term dream doesn’t have to be anything specific or even realistic, but it should help you decide what kind of work you care about. The author, for example, wanted to do meaningful work, so she used this conviction to guide her throughout her career.

In addition, you should evaluate career opportunities based on the single most important thing they offer: potential for growth. When the author deliberated on whether to take a position at a then quite unknown Google, the CEO told her that she should only care about personal growth potential, which is largest in fast-growing companies: “If you’re offered a seat on a rocket ship, you don’t ask what seat. You just get on.”

He was right, and you too should look for teams, projects and companies with great growth potential.

Along with the long-term goals, you should also set short-term (e.g. 18-months) goals. Include work goals and personal learning aspirations. Ask yourself, “Where can I improve?”

Careers are more like jungle gyms than ladders; aim for the top but be flexible in your route.

Women must carefully navigate the razor’s edge of ambition and likeability.

Even today, gender stereotypes color our perceptions of others: men are expected to be decisive and driven, women sensitive and communal.

A woman with a successful career violates her gender stereotype, which is why likeability and career success are positively correlated for men but negatively correlated for women. Competent, ambitious men are praised, whereas such women are described as “pushy” or “not team players.” This is incredibly unfair, especially as likeability is an important factor for career success.

However, trying to fit into her expected gender role can also impede a woman’s career, as it means being less ambitious and less prone to seizing career opportunities. This creates a “damned if you do, damned if you don’t” dynamic.

Nowhere is this more evident than in the difficulties women have in negotiating for promotions or higher compensation. Such negotiations are absolutely vital for career advancement, but a woman advocating for herself is reacted to unfavorably – by both men and women.

Researchers have highlighted some special considerations for women navigating this minefield: You must try to come across as “appropriately feminine,” i.e. nice and communal. Hence, try to soften your message by speaking on behalf of a group rather than yourself, e.g. “Our department has had a great year” or “Women usually get paid less than men.”

Unfortunately, to overcome gender biases, women must also legitimize the very act of negotiating, for example, by quoting industry compensation benchmarks or by mentioning that someone more senior, like a manager, suggested they negotiate.

One can hope that as powerful women become less of an exception, such acrobatics will no longer be required.

To foster effective communication, practice and encourage authenticity and appropriateness.

Authentic, honest communication is essential in the workplace. It strengthens relationships, allows unwise decisions to be challenged and helps people broach uncomfortable topics. Yet, many people, especially women, fear that speaking honestly at work can make them seem negative or unduly critical. Hence, they bite their tongue when in fact, their input is sorely needed.

This is why leaders must do all they can to encourage authenticity by asking people for feedback and suggestions, as well as by publicly thanking those who have been honest.

The key to effective communication in any environment is to mix authenticity with the appropriate consideration for other people’s feelings: be delicately honest, not brutally honest. This is easier said than done, however.

Don’t confuse appropriateness with beating around the bush. For example, don’t say, “Though I have faith in your analysis, at this time, I feel uncertain about the possible downsides of your proposal,” when you really mean, “I disagree with this idea.”

Sometimes humor can be an effective way of broaching a difficult subject. For example, one Google executive was having trouble initiating an honest discussion with a seemingly hostile colleague until he asked her jokingly, “Why do you hate me?”

Rarely is there an absolute truth in any situation; hence, to communicate effectively, you must first try to see things from the other person’s perspective. Try, for example, to reflect aloud on their position: “I understand you’re upset about this because you feel...”

Also, when you make statements, try to start them with “I” rather than making them sound like absolute truths: “I feel we should…” rather than “You’re wrong.” The former helps start discussions, the latter disagreements.

Attract rather than accost mentors, and build a natural, reciprocal relationship with them.

Many young professional women today seem near-obsessed with finding themselves a mentor – and for good reason. Senior executives who advise you and use their influence on your behalf are crucial to career advancement, regardless of gender.

Unfortunately, it is far more difficult for women than men to find such relationships. One reason is that most senior corporate leaders are men, and they feel uncomfortable mentoring young women due to the possible misinterpretations of such a relationship.

But another reason is that almost every seminar, blog post and article related to career development in the past decade has told professional women to find a mentor so they can excel, when in fact, they should excel so they can find a mentor. Research shows mentors choose their protégés based on performance and future potential; hence, a flat out “Will you be my mentor?” to a total stranger is unlikely to work.

Delivering an outstanding performance can definitely catch a would-be-mentor’s attention, but it is not the only way.

Approaching a senior executive with a specific, well-prepared inquiry every now and then can spawn an ongoing relationship, too. Even occasional brief chats or email exchanges can constitute a relationship that is just as beneficial as “formal” mentorship. After all, it’s the relationship and degree of investment that counts, not the label.

Whatever you do, remember that mentoring is a reciprocal relationship in which the mentor also gains useful information as well as a sense of pride from seeing the mentee grow. Respect your mentor’s time and expertise; don’t just meet to “catch up” or to complain.

Finally, consider that your peers can also be valuable mentors, for they often understand your situation better than any executive could.

Equality means a truly equal partnership at home, too.

For women to successfully combine a fulfilling career with raising a family, a supportive partner who is committed to equality at home is vital. A 2007 study of well-educated women who left the workforce showed that 60% cited their husbands as a critical factor in that decision, referring specifically to their husband’s lack of participation in child care and other domestic activities.

So how equal are homes today? According to recent data, in U.S. households where both parents are employed full-time, the mother still spends 40% more time on childcare and 30% more time on housework than the father does.

Sometimes it is the mother herself who pushes the father away from childrearing duties by criticizing him whenever he cares for the baby: “That’s not the way to put on a diaper. Stand aside and let me show you!” The end result is that the father becomes less and less involved, leaving the majority of the work for the mother.

For true equality, mothers must treat fathers as equally capable partners and must share responsibilities so that both parents have their part to play.

Institutional policies also discourage the father from playing an equal role at home. Both in the U.S. and Europe, periods of maternity leave offered by companies or mandated by law tend to be longer than paternity leave. Also, men who violate stereotypical expectations by prioritizing their family over their careers tend to be penalized more for it in salary and promotions than women.

Not only is equality at home important for women pursuing careers, but it also leads to happier relationships and sets an important example for children. Hence, it is always worth challenging an unequal status quo at home, even if it creates a few conflicts in the short term.

Before you go on maternity leave, lean in to your job as much as possible.

From an early age, girls are taught that one day they will have to choose between a successful career and being a good mother.

This image is not only misleading and disheartening, it also has a nasty side effect: Women damage their own careers by preemptively making room for what they assume will be an impossible balancing act between career and family.

Consider an ambitious young lawyer who is offered an exciting new role at work – a real career maker. Because she plans to start a family in “just” a few years, she begins to wonder if she can really take on this new responsibility. After all, her children will also demand time. After consideration, she declines the opportunity.

Choices like this mean that by the time the baby arrives, the mother is in a drastically different position careerwise than if she had ambitiously pursued every opportunity. Instead of being a rising star, she may find her career stagnating.

This means that when she has to make choices regarding things like her career and child care, her job will be considerably less rewarding than it could have been. And after maternity leave, her career may seem so unappealing that she chooses to leave the workforce completely. Thus, the very steps she took to help fit her job and family together actually ended her career.

The years and months preceding motherhood are not a time to lean back but a critical time to lean in as much as possible. Don’t hit the brakes at work until you really need to.

Don’t try to do everything perfectly; focus on what’s important.

The myth of “having it all” is one of the most dangerous traps ever set for women. No one can have it all because life is about tradeoffs. No one can do everything at home and at work perfectly.

In high-stress jobs, people often do everything the company asks of them – and then suddenly quit because of burnout. This is senseless.

Instead, draw boundaries and try to work the job on your own terms. Companies and leaders, for their part, should shift to a culture that is less face-time oriented and focus on results rather than on time spent at the office.

There is pressure at home too, where mothers are expected to spend increasingly large amounts of time with their children. This relatively new intensive mothering phenomenon can create guilt in working mothers, even though research shows that having others care for your child while you work has no negative effect on any aspect of the child’s development whatsoever.

For mothers, effective guilt management can be as important as time management. As a rule of thumb, do not focus on the things you are not doing but rather on completing and enjoying the task at hand.

Because no one can do it all, prioritize and focus on what’s most important. For example, make time for your daughter’s dance recital but don’t worry about folding the linens perfectly. Don’t shoot for perfection; instead, try to find solutions that are sustainable in the long run and fulfilling in the moment, both at home and at work.

There is no “perfect” way to have both a fulfilling personal life and a successful career, so find whatever way works best for you.

#blinkist #quickread #lean in

0 notes

theunwantedpoetblog-blog · 7 years

Text

Right of Working Women:A Case Study

The case in question dealt with the Bank manager and the Zonal Head of the Bank where the Zonal Head was accused of trying to sexually harass a women employee who was a Bank Manager at the Air Force (Chakeri) Branch of Punjab National Bank and also belonging to schedule caste she was also discriminated on the basis of caste and she also complained about it to other higher authorities but nothing happened because of the dominance of the zonal head with his colleagues. But here mainly what happened was that when a Bank Manager Madhuri Gautam got her first posting at Air Force office she lacks in experience of a post so she sometimes took help from that time Assistant senior manager Laxmi Kant but he started calling her with different numbers and talks in double meaning language and one day Madhuri stopped him from doing so then he started being very strict and never helped her again and also started harassing her mentally.

But on 08/11/2013 another assistant senior manager (S. K. Rawal) of the bank came to the branch and he usually talked about the working and other things related to bank and ordered her to come at zonal office in the evening and she went there and reached there at 6:55 and straight away went to his office. They both were talking about their work and then the call came on the S.K. Rawal’s phone and he said she has come and is sitting in front of me and then he said to me that go Laxmi Kant Chanana ji is calling you. So with due respect and orders, she went to his office.

There in his office, he was sitting with one of the customer of Bank named Susheel and as she entered Laxmi Kant started shouting and said Why are you doing parallel banking you know him he has filed a complaint against you. And ordered her to ask for an apology and touch his feet and forcefully she has to do that and then he turned to Mr. Susheel and said see what is her situation and asked him to go now. And as he left he came to the place where Madhuri was sitting and said you must have seen what I can do with you and your career, now you would be well aware of my powers. I will stop your promotion and even can expel you out of this bank. Then he moved towards her and touched the cheeks and said I am waiting for you since two years and requesting for it, just come to my home once and make me feel better and take good marks in form appraiser either do this or have fake allegations against you and make your way out of the bank the choice is yours. This will be kept secret and no one will have a smell about it.

After feeling such a humiliations she directly went home and was in great dilemma what to do and what not to do. So on 14/11/2013 she complained about it to the Zonal head of the Bank via registered post and also updated it to the union.Now Mr. Laxmi Kant is continuous keeps an eye on my acts and blames me for irrelevant acquisitions.

Now, currently the judgment has come of the case and is against Madhuri and this all is because of use of the power of Mr. Laxmi Kant but relying on the power of the judiciary and keeping faith in our judicial system she has filed a protest and appealed it to the higher forum in search of justice.

If you go deep beyond in these types of crimes we can easily analyze why these type of crime happens which further shows that there is a clear representation of dominance and power to its lower subordinate and to a person who is inferior in the post or he thinks it to be in gender. What I found particularly in this case was that a senior officer who is the head of the department is actually acting as a dictator and enforcing his orders on his lower employees and you are bound to follow them, if you try to question them your regular promotion will be stopped and false allegations will be levied against you and your career will be thrashed off. This raises a question against our society and our country where our constitution provides us with so many rights and see what is happening.

But a new point has come out of this all which says that it is seen in almost 65% of the cases women falsely complaint against male whom they want to take any sort of revenge. This gives us two propositions where one says that we should with closed eyes believe and start punishing women about false complaining and another one says that we should look upon those issues clearly as what happened in this upper cited case happens I many cases where because of the domination of these high people who acquire this high position in society and have their impact on legal system. And this also seems to be true in some of the cases were actually women have put false allegations on their co-working members in order to take some revenge or any sort of their personal grudges.

Taking the example of recent cases we can easily denote the condition of our country where an editor in chief of a very renowned magazine tries to rape his Secretary. Whether this is the result of the false allegation or really there was something as in these cases because of media hype and our audience. Same is the case of retired Supreme Court Judge Justice Ganguly, who was alleged by the girl student of NUJS Kolkata who previously interned under him. What we can say all about this thing how to judge we can only rely on court proceedings for truth.

So these types have very unsure about the commission or non-commission of the crime. But these are very serious issues and should be considered with supreme priority and government has to play a very important role in providing justice to both the side and firstly we have to be gender neutral this might seem to gender biased people because with as equality presupposes inequality same happens in being gender biased when you are lenient towards one section it undermines other section. So this should be strictly prohibited and avoided. Here an employer can play a vital role in it by amending some laws for his company like strictly having an HR section there and an appropriate proportion of women and men employees in a company so that uniformity and the proper connection is maintained.

Laws related to rape are recently changed and amended and now are very strict for accused we know this has a loophole but they should be same at this stage where we are fighting a battle against society, where women are not given equal status and opportunity.

When the researcher came in to contact with the lawyer Mr. Ajay Bhadauria who practices criminal cases at Kanpur trial court, He gave me his opinion about these cases and said you have agreed on the fact that there are large number of false allegations than true complaint but he also agrees on the another fact which says that there are even more number cases which are not even reported. So where we actually need to work is at our police station and the HR department within the purview of office and employing a good proportion of female employee as well as the head of HR department should be a woman so that victim should not feel shy or any hesitation in telling about the crime happened to her. And their need to be a work done in this sector of women at the same time researcher admires the work until done in favor of women. And it is been very well said that.

#women #social_activism #rights

0 notes