Department Of Another Great Moment In Inclusion/Diversity
The story behind the story: The Inclusion/Diversity story moiself is about to share came to my mind when MH and I were recently talking about the respective rhinoviruses…
“Yeah baby!”
…sorry, dude, I refer to the virus most responsible for what we call the “common cold.”
I’ll begin again.
A week or so ago MH and I were talking about the colds we’d each had at the end of last year. When we were comparing how long each of us had had symptoms, I snickered (to moiself , or so I thought) to recall The Great Cold Debate® which I inadvertently became a part of, during my time working at a Planned Parenthood clinic. MH asked what I was snickering about, and thus I shared this memory, which was entagled with another….
As mentioned previously in this space (e.g., here, and more specifically, here) I worked as a Family Planning Specialist for Planned Parenthood, including several shifts per week in their Bay Area clinics which offered abortion services. Dateline: one morning in one such clinic, when I was doing intake procedures with a patient, who was accompanied by her husband. [1] I’d reached the point during the intake where I would ask them about the contraceptive method(s) the patient had been using and bring up birth control options with them, if they were open to discussing the issue.
Important Background Detail ®, for both this story (and the one which follows): the patient and her husband were from India. They had come to the USA a year earlier, for the husband to pursue his graduate studies at Stanford University.
After we’d discussed what had worked, or not (ahem… [2] ) for them re contraception, and the different options available, I asked if either of them had any questions. The wife said no; her husband looked at me and asked:
“What is it about American colds?”
He phrased his non sequitur of a query in tones which seemed more accusatory than questioning. “Excuse me; *American* colds?” was all I could muster for a response.
His wife glanced at me, rolled her eyes without really doing so, and excused herself to use the restroom.
So: the husband began to whine tell me that he’d had several colds since coming to the USA, and in fact he had a cold right now, at the present time, a cold which was going on two weeks now, and this had never happened in India.
Ummm, ooookkkkaaaayyyy….
Now, this was a (supposedly) educated person; I can’t remember the exact name of his graduate program, but it was in the biological sciences. As briefly as possible I mentioned that the viruses which cause what we call “a cold” can typically last from 7 to 14 days…
“No; not in India.”
…and that being ill in a new/different country can seem like a different experience, and when you travel you will be exposed to different cold viruses…. I tried to steer the conversation to the subject at hand, but he would not be deterred. I realized he really didn’t want an answer. He just wanted to complain, and found it necessary to repeat himself several times:
“There’s something wrong with American viruses!
Colds in India *never* last this long.”
It was bizarre; I got the feeling he wanted me to apologize, to him, on behalf of those disrespectful, persistent, American microbes.
The patient returned from her pee break and the three of us settled the contraception issue. I asked, again, if either of them had any questions about the procedure. The wife said no; the husband said, “Can you tell if it…
During his micro-pause I could feel moiself’s arteries icing over — he’s not going to ask me that, is he? Yep.
“Can you tell if it is a boy fetus or a girl fetus?”
“No,” I replied, gritting my teeth. I managed to restrain moiself from adding,
…but I can tell if its father is an asshole.
* * *
Department Of And Now For The Story In Front Of The Story
Behind The Story…. Or Something.
The Planned Parenthood clinics where I worked had many student-couple patients from other countries, who were in the Bay Area for either their and/or their husbands’ college and graduate educations. Several of my fellow PP clinicians who’d been working for PP much longer than moiself had noticed certain patterns with – and thus had developed certain opinions about – patients from certain countries and cultures. [3]
Dateline: Another morning (circa 1989); another clinic. After finishing my first intake of the day, I escorted the patient to the waiting room, then headed for the lab to chart her hematocrit results. Hanging on a wall outside the entrance to the lab was the file holder which held the charts of patients who had checked in to the clinic and who were in the reception area, awaiting intake. When a Family Planning Specialist had finished with her intake she began the next intake, taking whichever chart was on top in the file holder. Which is what I was going to do, after charting the lab results for my previous patient.
CR, DD, and ML, the other Family Planning Specialists who were working at that morning’s clinic, were gathered around the file holder, quietly but passionately discussing a chart DD was holding in her hands.
More IBD ® (just to be clear, that’s Important Background Details, not…er…the other acronym) for this story:
(1) my fellow FPS’s respective ethnic backgrounds: CR (the lead for the morning’s clinic) was White; DD was Black; ML was Latina;
(2) Our clinic personnel had recently undergone our first of what would be several days of (not well-planned or executed, IMO [4] ) Diversity Awareness training seminars;
(3) There is no background detail #3.
CR, DD, and ML were gathered around the file holder, quietly but passionately discussing a chart DD was holding in her hands. So intent were the three of them that they did not notice my approach. They seemed oblivious to my presence, even when I was standing three feet behind them, listening to their discussion (recalled here to the best of my ability, but not verbatim…duh).
CR:
“Nope, it’s yours.”
(CR shook her head and put her hands out, as if to push away the chart DD had thrust in her direction)
“I know what you mean, I’ve had the same experiences,
but that’s the chart on top, DD, and you’re up.”
DD:
“Please, I can’t. I had the last one – I’m serious. ML, would you take this?”
ML:
“No, oh no, I just don’t – I know this sounds bad, it’s nothing personal, but that culture is so – well you know how the women can’t say anything direct, so they whimper and cry to punish their husbands and make them feel bad….”
DD:
“Don’t take this the wrong way, but I get woozy with the odor – I’m not prejudiced, I’m serious. It’s from their diet, the curry or whatever, and it comes out of the skin and the breath and the last Indian patient I had, it was so strong, I thought I was gonna pass out in the procedure room….”
ML (changing her tone from pleading to teasing):
“CR, you’re the lead, you should set a good example, and help out DD….”
CR:
“No way.”
My snort-laughter caused them to turn around, and their collective expressions changed in a flash, from obstinacy to hope (“Maybe Robyn will take this patient?!?!)…a hope which crashed and burned as I declared,
“Oh, how I wish I had a recording of this moment!
My faith in the equality of humanity is restored, with this prime example of diversity before me: a White woman, a Black woman, a Latina woman, all arguing about not wanting to help an Indian woman.”
* * *
Department of Employee Of The Month
It’s that time, to bestow that prestigious award upon moiself . Again. The need for which I wrote about here. [5]
* * *
Freethinkers’ Thought Of The Week [6]
“Religion is man-made.
Even the men who made it cannot agree on what their prophets or redeemers or gurus actually said or did.”
( Christopher Hitchens, God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything )
* * *
Parting Shot: I love it when/I hate it when…
I love it when men mansplain teach about sexism and misogyny to captive audiences.
* * *
May your colds (caused by proud, American viruses) last less than two weeks;
May you never have to explain sexism and misogyny to captive audiences;
May you never have cause to wish, maybe someone else will help this patient;
…and may the hijinks ensue.
Thanks for stopping by. Au Vendredi!
* * *
[1] At some point during the intake, if a client seeking an abortion was accompanied by another person – whether their partner, or friend, or parent or family member – we made sure to speak to the patient *alone,* to make sure she wasn’t being pressured into any decision.
[2] Considering where they were (a Family Planning clinic, for an abortion), the husband’s idea of birth control – “I’ll wear a condom when I feel like it” was infuriating…but, unfortunately, not uncommon, as I learned. I was to witness, during my time at PP, the disturbing phenomenon wherein couples from countries/cultures where The Husband Is In Charge Of Such Things ® often had a dynamic where the wife was subject to her husband’s whims of whether or not he wanted to wear a condom every time they had sexual intercourse (even if he was adamant about *not* wanting his wife to get pregnant, he would not consistently use protection!). But, he didn’t want her to use oral contraceptives (“The Pill”), or an IUD, or a diaphragm. To have her be the one using and choosing birth control would take her out from under *his* control. And her option of saying no to sex if he refused (“no glove; no love”) – ha! Not an option, for her, or for far too many women (and any woman who does not have that option is far too many).
[3] I never, never, ever, saw any instance of them allowing their opinions to affect their care of their patients. That said, working in such a stressful environment, yep, they would discretely blow off steam by commiserating with their fellow clinicians.
[4] That kind of employee education/seminar was in its developmental stages, and not A Thing® like it is now, and it seemed obvious to moiself that those leading the training were well-intentioned but didn’t exactly know what they were doing.
[5] Several years ago, MH received a particularly glowing performance review from his workplace. As happy as I was for him when he shared the news, it left me with a certain melancholy I couldn’t quite peg. Until I did.
One of the many “things” about being a writer (or any occupation working freelance at/from home) is that although you avoid the petty bureaucratic policies, bungling bosses, mean girls’ and boys’ cliques, office politics and other irritations inherent in going to a workplace, you also lack the camaraderie and other social perks that come with being surrounded by your fellow homo sapiens. No one praises me for fixing the paper jam in the copy machine, or thanks me for staying late and helping the new guy with a special project, or otherwise says, Good on you, sister. Once I realized the source of the left-out feelings, I came up with a small way to lighten them.
[6] “free-think-er n. A person who forms opinions about religion on the basis of reason, independently of tradition, authority, or established belief. Freethinkers include atheists, agnostics and rationalists.
No one can be a freethinker who demands conformity to a bible, creed, or messiah. To the freethinker, revelation and faith are invalid, and orthodoxy is no guarantee of truth.” Definition courtesy of the Freedom From Religion Foundation, ffrf.org
