My Musings on Lenses

A recent Cultural Competency training made me start thinking about the lenses through which we look at the world. Whether we realize it or not, we all have them, but most of the time it's unconscious. By the lenses through which we see the world, I mean things that are a huge part of our identities and that frame our lives and influence how we interpret what we observe and experience. Some examples are gender, race, class, sexual orientation, our level of physical and mental ability, whether or not we are employed (and if this is by choice), how old we are, and other experiences we've had that are important to our development such as what kind of education we have, if we've experienced some type of abuse or neglect in our lives, and if we were raised in a religion.

The lenses a person could have aren't necessarily positive or negative—some might be more challenging to have or need to be challenged at times and some people might want to work to change how they see the world. However, certain lenses may hurt us or help us to find justification for doing things that hurt others. Still others might make us more inclined to see the world as a hopeful place or influence us to make an effort to do good.

It's important to become aware of the lenses we have—even more so if we are a part of a majority group that's been taught that their lenses are neutral, normal, natural, or right compared to people not in the majority. Once we become aware of how and why we see and experience the world the way we do, we can understand ourselves, other people, and our interactions with other people better. For an extreme example, a rich, white, straight male could have a hard time seeing the difficulties of anyone who isn't rich, white, straight, or male, and have a hard time leaving his place of a whole lot of privilege (he also might feel like he’s being picked on—I don’t know since I’m not a rich-white-straight man). However, I think that if he's able to become aware that there is a reason he sees the world in the way he does, that will go a long way to help him see around his golden glasses and come to understand other people better and it will improve his relationships with people who are not like him.

From a less privileged position (but still pretty privileged), as a white woman, it is helpful to me to remember that I should not expect that women who are black or any other race or ethnicity have been taught the same things I’ve been taught or have the same opportunities and advantages I’ve had. It is also important to keep in mind that they may not see me the way I see myself.

I started thinking about which of my lenses is the most important or influential in my life. I came up with a few big ones, but I wasn't really sure which one was most tied to fundamentally who I am.

If all of the lenses I have were going to be thrown in a bag and scrambled around with all kinds of other lenses and then I’d draw out of that bag (and maybe pull out some of the same lenses and some different ones) and I could only keep one of my current lenses for sure, I'd keep female. Even though it would be most beneficial to keep white instead of female—if by beneficial I mean having the most privilege—and even though I'd have a chance of getting female again, it's so central to my identity that I cannot imagine parting with being female. I would not be surprised if many people would choose to hang on to their gender, if only because of how important gender and gender roles are in our society.

It's interesting (but not surprising) that one of the most important parts—if not the most important part—of my identity is something that is socially constructed. Then again, so are many of the other major lenses a person can look though (such as race).

It also occurred to me that we might not like all of our lenses: someone may not like seeing the world through the lenses of someone who grew up in poverty or the lenses of someone who has lived for thirty years with depression. I suppose I'm lucky in that all of the lenses I identified as major ones for me, I either feel positively towards or feel only a slight dislike for. I wouldn't necessarily choose all of them if I had a choice at the beginning of my life, nor would I want to throw any of them away if I had the chance now. Some of them I think help me see the world more clearly, while some may often obscure my vision of reality.

Once I start thinking about things like culture and privilege and how those things interact in the world and in the lives of everyone, it’s hard for me to stop. There is so much to consider and there are always new realizations that I hope are leading me in the direction of better understanding and cultural competency. I could probably write a book-length work just on my own personal musings and what I’m learning, but I don’t really have time, nor am I an expert so doubt it would be worth if for anyone to read.

What I do believe is worth it is for everyone to educate themselves on these topics, to figure out what lenses they look at the world through, and to do their own musings.

Same Old Sad Story

Last Friday a few of the other CCSC volunteers and I went to a program called “Telling Stories” at the University of Buffalo which was about sexual assault and domestic abuse/intimate partner abuse. The program consisted of an original play about campus sexual assault, a panel discussion with people associated from the university, a documentary called Telling Amy's Story which was about a woman who was murdered by her husband in November of 2001, and a panel discussion by people in the Buffalo community who work with victims of domestic violence.

The program went exactly how I expected (except for a fire alarm at the very beginning which I thought might be apart of the play until everyone started evacuating). First, it was very upsetting. Second, there was a lot about where a victim of sexual assault or domestic violence can go for help and almost nothing about prevention. Only one man on the first discussion panel briefly mentioned not being a passive bystander.

Don't misunderstand me, it's extremely important for victims to know where they can go for help and I'm glad there was education about that at this event, but it would be better for the assaults and abuse never to happen in the first place. This is another example of the relationship between charity and social justice: we need both until the actions for social justice work, thereby making the charity no longer necessary.

I want to go to a panel discussion on how to stop these things from happening in the first place. Sexual assault and domestic violence/intimate partner violence is something that's very scary, complicated, and difficult to prevent. Prevention is more difficult than helping victims after/during the abuse (though that's far from easy), so maybe it's too hard a subject to touch and people would rather not go there. A big part of it is a problem of culture, society, and gender expectations/norms and those are things that are not easy to change and the thought of changing them is very scary for some people.

Until the shame and stigma moves off the victim on to the abuser we'll have domestic violence and sexual assault. Until we stop simplifying these issues as women with low self-esteem staying in bad relationships and men with anger problems abusing their girlfriends/wives we'll have domestic violence. Until we stop shrugging and saying there is something wrong with men we'll have domestic violence and sexual assault. Until it becomes easier for victims to leave their abusers we'll have domestic violence. Until we start believing victims who speak up we'll have sexual assault and domestic violence. I could go on and on.

I don't know the solutions, but I'd like to have an open, thoughtful discussion about possible solutions.