I read a guest commentary in the Denver Post yesterday that made me want to cry. A young woman, fresh out of college and in her first “real job,” was sexually harassed, to the point where she had to quit and file a lawsuit against her former employer. As one who has suffered from racial discrimination early in my life and age discrimination in later adulthood, I can only hope that she skins those bastards alive and finds a new job soon, where she can work in a truly safe and nurturing environment.
I am disgusted that my generation did not eradicate sexual harassment, but am heartened that we have state and federal laws in place to protect workers from harassment or at least to redress grievances resulting from the actions of misogynistic pigs who would prey on them. The glass ceiling is cracking, and my daughters will be the beneficiaries when it is finally shattered. I look forward to feeling the shards crunching under my feet.
I think that we as a society have also made more significant progress in the fights against ethnic, racial, and sexual-preference discrimination. I believe that we have young people to thank for most of that progress. Yes, we older people passed the laws, but most of our nation’s youth have been raised to instinctively eschew both the outdated rationalizations for and the vocabulary of most institutionalized bigotry. As a result, same-sex marriages are becoming as natural as those between races, and ethnic minorities. I hope that the next generation will look upon racial, ethnic, and sexual discrimination, like most of us now look upon slavery: a very dark, shameful period in our history, never to be repeated.
With that said, wouldn’t it be wonderful, if we could take a serious step toward eradicating our one remaining, insidious, pervasive prejudice? The last is always the hardest to go. And to start, it would entail systematically dismantling the largest, most cruel and reviled cult ever to disgraceAmerica
One prevalent example of the Cult of Perfection is the premium that its disciples place upon having the “perfect body.” This Cult-manufactured desire is only exceeded by the manic drive to meet the impossibly unrealistic goal. Disciples of The Cult also feel simultaneously compelled to strive in the same relentless and myopic fashion, to be the perfect golfer, football coach,mom, dad, dresser, doctor,dancer,divorcee,sports fan,wine connoisseur, the perfect…oh gosh…the perfect everything! But what the initiated don’t seem to realize, is that not everybody wants to or is able to join them in their perfection-worshiping obsessions. And so, when Cult disciples sit around the lunch table, and look up from their US/People/Cosmo/Sports Illustrated magazines to utter snarky remarks about thunder thighs, junk in the trunk, muffin tops, saggy boobs, EWW!, disgusting! etc. there are often actual human beings sitting at the same table who are adjusting their clothing so as to not be targeted by the psychological projections of their perceived imperfections.
Businesses often encourage the obsessive and exclusive behavior of Cult disciples because beauty sells and extreme anything means money and imperfect looking people are as inferior as they are unsightly, right? I am sure that you have all read the studies which show that many more promotions go to the slim, tall, folks, with good hair. You would think that normally intelligent, morally upright individuals who were raised to embrace diversity would actually embrace diversity, but just think about how many times you have heard the above scenario in your break room at work and how many ugly/fat/old people jokes you have heard or told in the last six months, and then tell me that I am wrong.
Disciples of The Cult of Perfection have also seemingly been robbed of their ability to process the idea that people over 40 (at least those who cannot afford the required surgical procedures to retain disciple status) do not appreciate or deserve being regarded as gross, disgusting, and lecherous seekers of Shangri La. But, you will say, it is the time-honored tradition of all subsequent generations, to believe that, because they and they alone, have been blessed with the power and the glory and the stamina of youth, they are therefore eternally entitled to take the credit for re-thinking up 2,000 year-old ideas. I get that. We were all there once. The naive hubris of youth. As a parent of two adult young women, I am fully aware of how incredibly ignorant and stupid and unfair and (add your favorite expletive here) I was, until they turned 21.
But I am not talking about just the initiated teens or tweens here. I am talking about many 20-somethings, 30-somethings, and even surgically altered 40-something disciples, who, despite grandiose promises of eternal youth and vigor, are still obviously terrified that, if they look me or other imperfect creatures in the face without the aid of a soft-focus lens, they will see a clear reflection of themselves in 25 years. It is therefore an anomaly that so many disciples of The Cult of Perfection take such pains to keep an emotional distance from imperfect outsiders (and from each other, unfortunately) yet seem to take such pleasure in openly putting the rest of us down while we are sitting right there at the same damned table. A “pithy, edgy” comment coming from a Cult member gets the eye-roll or is ostensibly ignored if it comes from one of us, because I guess we don’t have the right to be pithy or edgy. The Cult of Perfection, like any cult, is defined by those who are excluded. The purity of its membership must not be tainted by careless fraternization with the imperfect. Rules is rules.
And just who makes up these rules? Who calls the shots? Who are the enforcers in The Cult of perfection? Being on the outside, it is hard to say for certain, but it seems to me that the “shot-callers,” the Prefects In Charge of Perfecting Perfection, come from the ranks of B, C and D-list, or otherwise unemployed entertainers. You can detect their presence when you hear the words “you’re fired,” or “simply fabulous!,” or you hear any sentence containing the words “situation,” or “Snookie.” And the Prefects insult and demean anyone who is not just like them, and they rule with an iron fist, and carry weapons of mass offensiveness in their Prada bags, and if you listen carefully, you can hear the click, click, click, of their Manolo Blahniks. No one escapes their scrutiny and ruthless condemnation…even A-list entertainers are not immune from the occasional devastating put-down.
Initiated disciples of the Cult of Perfection are highly restricted as they struggle to continually apprise themselves of the ever-evolving standards of perfection, which can morph radically with each news cycle. How skinny is skinny enough? Which diet is the perfect diet this week? Which is the perfect micro-brew-lager-lite-beer? Are six-pack abs enough or is a case now demanded? How much make-up must you wear to swim in the ocean? How do you suck in your gut in public all day and night and still manage to breathe? How low must your IQ sink? What reality show is everybody talking about today? How many incomprehensibly stupid, dangerous, inane, life threatening stunts must you pull, in order to…be…perfect? Is one marathon per month enough? Ultimate Frisbee too passé? Rock climbing? Bungee jumping? Zip lining across theGrand Canyon
And which “kinda-sorta-but-not-too-religious” religion is in and what is soooo (quite literally) yesterday? The damned list in this category keeps rapidly changing as well and it brings up a whole Host of unanswered conundrums. How can you be “not perfect, but just forgiven?” And how do you believe in an omnipotent God who obviously goofed when She made unattractive people, and let old people get old so we have to look at them, and people with bad hair… or with hair in the wrong places or people with no hair, for crying out loud! And the Prefects give us no answers to these ontological oddities, yet still demand unconditional obedience.
Our children are placed on the Kiddy Cult waiting list, long before we plan the exact date of conception. Will four languages plus Suzuki, plus Montessori, plus scripted play dates, plus college-prep nursery school be enough this time around? They keep raising the bar. How does Brangelina do it, anyway? And it is so hard to find the required “diverse” playmates, when our suburban gated communities don’t have any diversity. Will the Home Owners Association allow us to temporarily import some…uh…others? We may need them as references along with the required pre-school application, resume, I.Q results, and letter of intent. We just gotta find some friends with a last name that ends in a vowel!
As long as The Cult of Perfection holds its vice-like grip over society, imperfect people will, and in fact, must be forever an underclass of…well…the imperfect, to be ridiculed, when They ridicule, to be demeaned, when They demean, to be cruelly castigated and cast out in tears, whenever the Supreme Prefects, Len Goodman or J. Lo, or Stacy London give the thumbs down.
It figures that this last remaining prejudice would be the toughest to overcome. You may read this exposé and decide to initiate a self-intervention. You may even find the courage to make a break for it and leave the Cult, but the Cult will follow you wherever you go and make you feel imperfect. There are spies everywhere, minions who will look over your shoulder, and watch what you eat and what you wear and attempt to censor opinions that you are about to express and make you pay dearly for any deviance from all required conformity.
I wish you the best of luck in your quest to free yourself of this final prejudice, but whatever you do, if you are ever, ever caught in the midst of a large group of Cult members, even if they offer nicely,DON
J. Brandeis Sperandeo
I am disgusted that my generation did not eradicate sexual harassment, but am heartened that we have state and federal laws in place to protect workers from harassment or at least to redress grievances resulting from the actions of misogynistic pigs who would prey on them. The glass ceiling is cracking, and my daughters will be the beneficiaries when it is finally shattered. I look forward to feeling the shards crunching under my feet.
I think that we as a society have also made more significant progress in the fights against ethnic, racial, and sexual-preference discrimination. I believe that we have young people to thank for most of that progress. Yes, we older people passed the laws, but most of our nation’s youth have been raised to instinctively eschew both the outdated rationalizations for and the vocabulary of most institutionalized bigotry. As a result, same-sex marriages are becoming as natural as those between races, and ethnic minorities. I hope that the next generation will look upon racial, ethnic, and sexual discrimination, like most of us now look upon slavery: a very dark, shameful period in our history, never to be repeated.
With that said, wouldn’t it be wonderful, if we could take a serious step toward eradicating our one remaining, insidious, pervasive prejudice? The last is always the hardest to go. And to start, it would entail systematically dismantling the largest, most cruel and reviled cult ever to disgrace
One prevalent example of the Cult of Perfection is the premium that its disciples place upon having the “perfect body.” This Cult-manufactured desire is only exceeded by the manic drive to meet the impossibly unrealistic goal. Disciples of The Cult also feel simultaneously compelled to strive in the same relentless and myopic fashion, to be the perfect golfer, football coach,mom, dad, dresser, doctor,dancer,divorcee,sports fan,wine connoisseur, the perfect…oh gosh…the perfect everything! But what the initiated don’t seem to realize, is that not everybody wants to or is able to join them in their perfection-worshiping obsessions. And so, when Cult disciples sit around the lunch table, and look up from their US/People/Cosmo/Sports Illustrated magazines to utter snarky remarks about thunder thighs, junk in the trunk, muffin tops, saggy boobs, EWW!, disgusting! etc. there are often actual human beings sitting at the same table who are adjusting their clothing so as to not be targeted by the psychological projections of their perceived imperfections.
Businesses often encourage the obsessive and exclusive behavior of Cult disciples because beauty sells and extreme anything means money and imperfect looking people are as inferior as they are unsightly, right? I am sure that you have all read the studies which show that many more promotions go to the slim, tall, folks, with good hair. You would think that normally intelligent, morally upright individuals who were raised to embrace diversity would actually embrace diversity, but just think about how many times you have heard the above scenario in your break room at work and how many ugly/fat/old people jokes you have heard or told in the last six months, and then tell me that I am wrong.
Disciples of The Cult of Perfection have also seemingly been robbed of their ability to process the idea that people over 40 (at least those who cannot afford the required surgical procedures to retain disciple status) do not appreciate or deserve being regarded as gross, disgusting, and lecherous seekers of Shangri La. But, you will say, it is the time-honored tradition of all subsequent generations, to believe that, because they and they alone, have been blessed with the power and the glory and the stamina of youth, they are therefore eternally entitled to take the credit for re-thinking up 2,000 year-old ideas. I get that. We were all there once. The naive hubris of youth. As a parent of two adult young women, I am fully aware of how incredibly ignorant and stupid and unfair and (add your favorite expletive here) I was, until they turned 21.
But I am not talking about just the initiated teens or tweens here. I am talking about many 20-somethings, 30-somethings, and even surgically altered 40-something disciples, who, despite grandiose promises of eternal youth and vigor, are still obviously terrified that, if they look me or other imperfect creatures in the face without the aid of a soft-focus lens, they will see a clear reflection of themselves in 25 years. It is therefore an anomaly that so many disciples of The Cult of Perfection take such pains to keep an emotional distance from imperfect outsiders (and from each other, unfortunately) yet seem to take such pleasure in openly putting the rest of us down while we are sitting right there at the same damned table. A “pithy, edgy” comment coming from a Cult member gets the eye-roll or is ostensibly ignored if it comes from one of us, because I guess we don’t have the right to be pithy or edgy. The Cult of Perfection, like any cult, is defined by those who are excluded. The purity of its membership must not be tainted by careless fraternization with the imperfect. Rules is rules.
And just who makes up these rules? Who calls the shots? Who are the enforcers in The Cult of perfection? Being on the outside, it is hard to say for certain, but it seems to me that the “shot-callers,” the Prefects In Charge of Perfecting Perfection, come from the ranks of B, C and D-list, or otherwise unemployed entertainers. You can detect their presence when you hear the words “you’re fired,” or “simply fabulous!,” or you hear any sentence containing the words “situation,” or “Snookie.” And the Prefects insult and demean anyone who is not just like them, and they rule with an iron fist, and carry weapons of mass offensiveness in their Prada bags, and if you listen carefully, you can hear the click, click, click, of their Manolo Blahniks. No one escapes their scrutiny and ruthless condemnation…even A-list entertainers are not immune from the occasional devastating put-down.
Initiated disciples of the Cult of Perfection are highly restricted as they struggle to continually apprise themselves of the ever-evolving standards of perfection, which can morph radically with each news cycle. How skinny is skinny enough? Which diet is the perfect diet this week? Which is the perfect micro-brew-lager-lite-beer? Are six-pack abs enough or is a case now demanded? How much make-up must you wear to swim in the ocean? How do you suck in your gut in public all day and night and still manage to breathe? How low must your IQ sink? What reality show is everybody talking about today? How many incomprehensibly stupid, dangerous, inane, life threatening stunts must you pull, in order to…be…perfect? Is one marathon per month enough? Ultimate Frisbee too passé? Rock climbing? Bungee jumping? Zip lining across the
And which “kinda-sorta-but-not-too-religious” religion is in and what is soooo (quite literally) yesterday? The damned list in this category keeps rapidly changing as well and it brings up a whole Host of unanswered conundrums. How can you be “not perfect, but just forgiven?” And how do you believe in an omnipotent God who obviously goofed when She made unattractive people, and let old people get old so we have to look at them, and people with bad hair… or with hair in the wrong places or people with no hair, for crying out loud! And the Prefects give us no answers to these ontological oddities, yet still demand unconditional obedience.
Our children are placed on the Kiddy Cult waiting list, long before we plan the exact date of conception. Will four languages plus Suzuki, plus Montessori, plus scripted play dates, plus college-prep nursery school be enough this time around? They keep raising the bar. How does Brangelina do it, anyway? And it is so hard to find the required “diverse” playmates, when our suburban gated communities don’t have any diversity. Will the Home Owners Association allow us to temporarily import some…uh…others? We may need them as references along with the required pre-school application, resume, I.Q results, and letter of intent. We just gotta find some friends with a last name that ends in a vowel!
As long as The Cult of Perfection holds its vice-like grip over society, imperfect people will, and in fact, must be forever an underclass of…well…the imperfect, to be ridiculed, when They ridicule, to be demeaned, when They demean, to be cruelly castigated and cast out in tears, whenever the Supreme Prefects, Len Goodman or J. Lo, or Stacy London give the thumbs down.
It figures that this last remaining prejudice would be the toughest to overcome. You may read this exposé and decide to initiate a self-intervention. You may even find the courage to make a break for it and leave the Cult, but the Cult will follow you wherever you go and make you feel imperfect. There are spies everywhere, minions who will look over your shoulder, and watch what you eat and what you wear and attempt to censor opinions that you are about to express and make you pay dearly for any deviance from all required conformity.
I wish you the best of luck in your quest to free yourself of this final prejudice, but whatever you do, if you are ever, ever caught in the midst of a large group of Cult members, even if they offer nicely,
J. Brandeis Sperandeo
I have worked in office environments and factory environments and there is really no difference in the way people behave. Some women remind me of 9th graders and the "mean girl" mentality. If you work around more men than women it is a blessing, but even men chide people about weight. Grave yard shift (where everyone is half asleep anyway) tend to have more 50 year-olds and people with weight problems. It is not a shift everyone can adjust to though. I have found that employee handbooks speak a different language than the actual workplace. If you even bring up sexual harassment, then you will be harassed about that also. So, as a woman, you have to take the "if you can't beat them join them approach" and try try try to lose the weight if you can. Then, of course, you will be harassed about being sexy. It really is a no-win situation.
ReplyDeleteI've done every job from digging ditches, to concert performance, to moving furniture, to trying murder cases and I agree that it is the same everywhere you go. Until more people muster guts to tell them to screw their Manolos and micro-brews and other their high-priced, gotta have it...everything else, they will keep shoving it and an impossible-to-ever-attain lifestyle down the throats of insecure men and women of all ages. As usual, it's a money thing. You can't go to the spa in last-weeks Nikes, now can you? And I agree that men get sucked into it as much as women and can be just as snotty, if they can get away with it. Total bullshit. Thanks for the shout out.
ReplyDeleteBrandeis
As a result of having lived and worked many in all-female environments while looking completely socially unacceptable, I developed a coping mechanism for dealing with the caddy two-faced vipers in the locker rooms, dressing rooms, bar rooms, powder rooms, and board rooms. I did so long before I knew the term "coping mechanism" and entirely without forethought. Somewhere along the line I learned that my wide frame was somehow a smaller target if I was nice. Not merely polite, but over the top, bending over backwards, saccharine nice. It also doesn’t hurt to be funny. This worked out pretty well, if you count spending most of my life cowering in the corner, slippers in my mouth with a “please don’t hit me with a newspaper” look on my face, until I was hired at my first all-male job. I was immediately labeled as weak, sheltered, and silly. I apologized every time I was told that I “say sorry too much.” Someone would manage to use word like “tits” or “tampon” when I was within earshot. I quit before I could develop some new method of self-protection that would defend me from my new crowd but I often think about the other women that have taken my place and wonder how they do it. I don’t want to be a doormat or a bitch to be respected. Has someone figured out how to do that? Will you share?
ReplyDelete-Lia
As funny as I tried to make this post, I also tried to point the way out. We have become a nation of lemmings that jump off of any cliff which promises inclusion at the bottom. And people who look different, remind us of just how phony and surreal we are being on the inside, to prefer superficial inclusion over genuine morality and goodness. You got to look them in the eye and say "take me as I am, or fuck off!" I have learned as of late that they are actually more scared that you are. They live in a house of cards.
ReplyDeleteInteresting. Both comments. I think one of the problems I have is that I got along better with my father than my mother (and two older sisters). That seems to have followed me to the workplace,and if you can talk about cars, or sports, or any other subject other than about people that is a feather in your cap when working in a predominantly male workplace. My dad also insisted that I act lady-like, so a big percentage of males will not go out of their way to offend a lady. That's my secret for getting along in male environments, and yes--
ReplyDeleteoccasionally you hear comments about breasts. My face turns red, and then so does theirs. Then we start talking about work again. As I have gotten older, I have found it easier to get along with younger women if I listen to their problems and have compassion in my eyes. However, I still remember working as a newly divorced single mom at one place where all the other single mothers acted as though they would kill their own mother for a quarter more an hour. We had single male bosses and kissing up was not just an expression. I got laid off (thank God) after 4 and a half years, and found a new line of work. The thing I noticed about that work place is that it was like the stabbing of Caesar, no one is guilty because everyone is guilty. Men seem to think this is the ideal work environment (there are exceptions of course.)
If I used the word "fuck" in the workplace people would probably faint. LOL
I have sons, and they know if I say that word in anger they had better shut up, leave the room, or both. It's a great word, just for that purpose.
There is an ideal way we are supposed to look at things and then there is the reality of the individual workplace. I am sure that, for every story about woman who feels oppressed or even harassed in a “good ol’e boy” workplace, there is some guy who feels he is being openly ridiculed, demeaned, and emasculated, by his female co-workers. I am not at all implying percentages here.
ReplyDeleteThe point I was trying to make was that systemic change requires individual courage to sit at the same table with, embrace, and even celebrate the differences in each other, instead of shunning those who can’t/won’t maniacally race to join the club of the P.C. du jour. Women should be able to openly talk, periods, divorce, child birth, and menopause at the table, but they should be gracious enough to allow ignorant, but well-meaning men to join in the conversation and maybe learn something from the exchange.
Men should also be able to bring up some of their patented, mind-numbingly short-sighted, boneheaded, sports/tits/butts/blow-job type stuff without facing a star chamber. There is way of educating each other without calling the P.C. police. People evolve by tolerance, open interaction, and education. Nobody learns by being repressed. They just remain repressed and ignorant, and buy lots stuff to make up for the void that defines this present lack of communal spirit.
That is not to say that a guy should not be able to defend himself against the inevitable comment that “all men are pigs,” (which I have heard more times than I care to mention and is usually said only half-jokingly) or a woman can’t tell a guy, “If you looked more into a woman’s eyes and less at her tits, you might actually develop the ability to form a lasting relationship.”
Right now, we are not allowed to openly have these kinds of I believe necessary exchanges and we instead tend to sublimate, by blithely and openly denigrating the overweight, old, unattractive, or ones perceived to simply not be on track with what US Magazine says we should be. You’ve have it bad, as an attractive female in the workplace, and as a single mom. Think about those whom it is still open season to ridicule and harass, and at the hands of the very folks who should be the most sensitive to that sort of thing. You know these people.
You might enjoy my Jan. 19th posting.Thanks for stopping by.
Brandeis