The Downsides of Being a Feminist

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BetteTheRed said:
Not quite, Mendalla. Wasn't important that it was Iran. Was important, culturally, that it was the Middle East, perhaps. Not arguing that sexism doesn't exist everywhere, but I learned during our year working with our Syrian family, exactly how subtly, but clearly, Middle EAstern men (NOT all of them, I'm thinking of Malala's dad as a perfect contra example) can make it very clear what they think of the relative value of "male" and "female". To some extent, I think that the fact that their religion is 600 years newer even than Christianity may factor into it, somehow.
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The problem is that there are white North American doctors of my generation doing it (yes, I have heard stories) and emphasizing the culture shifts the focus away from them, esp. given the current climate around immigration and that region. There is a not insignificant portion of our population who would like to blame our societal ills on non-whites from certain regions and traditions. I know that's not true. You know that's not true. But if we start a conversation with "brown Muslim men are sexist" we may never get it back to the general problem of sexism in society.
 
No, it's simply a very bitter single memory to me as a woman, really. Most of my "bitter memories" actually came from white men; this one was just egregiously sexist at a time when I was at my absolute lowest.
 
My worst doctor memory was an old English dude who literally yelled at me to “relax (no I was not comfortable with the procedure to begin with, as is the case with many women) or he would end up ripping my vagina”, while he was giving me a pap. I was shaken by that experience.
 
So, absolutely, probably more "moment of trauma" rather than culture. Still have observations about middle eastern patriarch vis a vis the western variety...
 
BetteTheRed said:
So, absolutely, probably more "moment of trauma" rather than culture. Still have observations about middle eastern patriarch vis a vis the western variety...
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Oh, I would say he had a patriarch vibe. The God complex. The fact that he thought it appropriate to yell down at me. I was paying his godam paycheque. I felt like a slab of meat up there and he was just trying to get me in and out of there...no empathy whatsoever for the vulnerable position I was in making me uncomfortable (good doctors recognize this and would never think that yelling at a woman in for a pap, would help put them at ease). Women’s issues and concerns are often treated as less important by male doctors. Especially some of the older ones, including white western doctors. Could be generational attitudes, and owing to the fact that studies are lacking with regard to women.
 
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It occurs to me that the first person who ever told me to "suck it up and get over it" at the age of 17, was a white male psychiatrist. The very last person who tried to tell me to "suck it up and get over it" was a middle eastern doctor. I have, since then, preferred my very own verbal violence. And sometimes I wonder why my beloved dog can get a bit wyrd about some men...
 
Health is a bit of a final frontier. Until recently, nurse and doctor roles very rigid, and so completely f*d up that nurses literally "eat their own"...Rise of female doctors, and recognition of nursing as a valid male career has caused some very interesting dynamic shifts.
 
BetteTheRed said:
It occurs to me that the first person who ever told me to "suck it up and get over it" at the age of 17, was a white male psychiatrist. The very last person who tried to tell me to "suck it up and get over it" was a middle eastern doctor. I have, since then, preferred my very own verbal violence. And sometimes I wonder why my beloved dog can get a bit wyrd about some men...
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An indo-Canadian male doctor told me after my friend died, and grief had me down for a couple of months, that seeing a psychiatrist was a waste of their time (had asked because it is covered, counselling is not), and rushed me out with a prescription -didn’t even look me in the eye.. Same clinic as previous incident. He was always a jerk, every time I had to see him. I tried to avoid his shifts. It was just a culture of mostly a**hole doctors there - I don’t think ethnicity/ place of origin was a factor. There were a couple of nice doctors.
 
BetteTheRed said:
Absolutely. Empathy is a human trait. So is lack thereof.
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There is a rule in medicine to dump the emotions when doctoring ...

Some do not know what is emotional and what is intellectual (mental) thus a mentally dis eased civilization ... stress?

Good Lord could that be a God Complex? Through some light on that ... considering how much in the dark we are and condemn occult!

Tis near suicidal and thus near death syndrome ... a disorder? Measured by entropy ... when there is absence of greate sympathy ... empathy ... as a millenial expression ... in fullness of myth!

Mindfulness? Go way ... we lost that identification ...
 
Mendalla said:
I suspect that the doctor's ethnicity had little to do with it. I have heard similar horror stories about other doctors not from Iran. The common element among them tends to be doctors who are straight males, rather than their national origin. And I am fairly sure that Bette knows and means that, too.
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I don't know what I was thinking there lol
Sheesh...I intentionally took a break
Glad to see some form of discussion continued

Trying to peice it back together like an archeologist:
Straight male could b one "cause"
Culture could b another (straight male are also cultural?)
And culture has genetic influences as well
And we should b aware of our own culture as well (quantum mechanics: the observer affects the observed. Onez beliefs etc influences what one considers true, important, unimportant, moral, immoral, beautiful, ugly or even existing etc)
Etc
Without knowing why, what you or I may say aboot it is mere conjecture...as pointed out by Bette's response to you...

We should b wary of not examining facts or such juat because they may b distasteful (like the PEW research of ME culture attitude towards things like homosexuality, women, and their high percentages among ordinary not fringe...etc)...case in point: NYT writing aboot some scientists so being afraid of their factual findings (science) being misused by white supremacists that they are fiddling with their findings. That is very very wrong and very very frightening.

Anyway...

Back to the humour,
Inannawhimsey
 
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Biological race doesn't matter. If there are any differences they are minuscule and because there is a range of differences across all ethnicities anyway, none of which are "pure" it doesn't matter. And because we are all genetically mixed except for only a handful of people in remote indigenous tribes, it doesn't matter. And they are not biologically different either, by any significant degree. They are humans like any humans, but with a very different socially constructed cultural experience from the modern world. The experiences of people and groups who have historically experienced oppression and continue to because of their perceived race, matters.

Genetics does not have to have a negative impact on culture. That is socially constructed. People trying to prove and promote that genetics and race and gender based IQ is important are only working for the worst forces, whether they know it or not.
 
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Race is the imagination on a tear ... a divided drip syndrome ... thus too halve is the Goal Post!

When split ... they believe you're schizoid ... causing paranoia ... a vast fear space as a hole ... as colon ... part of the whirly jig!

Baptist feel it is illicit dancing about halves putting it together amongst all the lions ... and mistruths about famished Kitties ... Kat Heron (said to be great like POTUS)!

Possession-ism explodes ... gotta get sum ...
 
(also @BetteTheRed; sorry for my strange response to your initial post on the Iranian doc; had 2 seriously take a break after that lol)

What wallpaper, the gingham or the sea taupe,
Inannawhimsey
 
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