Reasons Why You Shouldn’t Bring Your Parents to X-Ring

 
 

For some, Dec. 3 may be one of the most memorable days of your life. You’re going to get that ring that everyone on this campus has been dreaming about. Instinctively, we want the people we care about the most to be there on the days we care about the most.

For many, parents come up for their big day. Parents come from near and far, they come by plane and come by car. Alright, enough rhyming. Seriously, it can be a really big deal to people and I get that. However, the points made less often are why maybe parents don’t make the best plus one for a day like X-Ring.

1.     Super-sub tickets.

Let’s state the obvious right away: it is flipping hard to get more than the allotted two X-Ring tickets. In fact, I’d describe it as a downright scramble. Trying to find multiple tickets can add a lot of stress last minute while planning for X-Ring. Unfortunately, this time falls right around the time that many need to be studying for exams if they plan to fully partake in the scheduled X-Ring events. Clearly, this is some added stress that is not really needed nor welcomed. Stick to the book and facetime your parents to show them your ring on Dec. 4.

2.     Partying.

Albeit some parents are super cool, others are not really. No offence, Mom and Dad. If your parents are super chill, power to you, but a few things to consider if they are not. For one, this is likely the first time your parents are going to meet some of your friends. Some of your friends that you get absurdly drunk with. If X-Ring isn’t a party, I don’t know what is. This may not be the best first impression to make on your parents. Even worse is the people that aren’t your friends. Can you imagine the look of disgust on your mother’s face as she walks out of the Inn’s bathroom having heard three people puking in the stalls? Not the most ideal.

3.     Expenses.

On the one hand, having your parents here for the weekend can save you some money. They’ll probably buy you supper, maybe pay for your cabs to and from the super-sub. On the other hand though, how fair is it? Some people’s parents literally fly in. They buy actually plane tickets, to come watch their child get their X-Ring on a screen, sitting on bleachers that seem like the inside of a sardine tin. Plus, X-Ring can fall on any day of the week, which can mean taking time off work for many parents. Even if StFX is closer to home, your parents are spending gas money for an experience that can be comfortably had in their own living room. Save them the trouble.

4.     The nature of the day.

For many if not most parents, StFX is not their personal alma mater. They might have little to no interest in the school itself. They just want to be there to support you. Ah, an ode to unconditional parental love. However, an X-Ring may mean very little to them besides an over-celebrated school ring. As not being members of the StFX community, it can be hard to fully appreciate the nature of the day. Instead, maybe choose to celebrate just with your friends, people that fully understand and are as equally as excited as you about it.

At the end of the day, for many of you, it is worth all this hassle. Hats off to you and your parents, you must be a very tight knit family. Personally, I told my family to enjoy the ceremony from the comfort of their own home if they even watch it at all. As they say, X-Ring is for the students, and graduation is for the parents. Give them a break, and tell them you can’t wait to see them over the Holidays.

 

Gender Identity: Not a Debate

 
 

Immediately, I will start by saying that I am a cisgender female and therefore cannot speak about counter-dominant gender identities in terms of personal experience but only as to what I have learned through my education and from observing the world around me.

In more modern times, Western and liberal societies are trying to be more accommodating to all of their citizens. For these reasons, we are starting to see more concrete distinctions between definitions of gender and definitions of sex. Sex is your anatomy; what parts do you have? On the other hand, gender is how you identify on the scale of masculinity and femininity. Gender identity has nothing to do with your anatomy but rather with where on this scale – or at all on this scale – you feel your gender identity falls.

This is not something for an outsider to determine. The way you feel in your body is very much subjective and your own experience. For instance, I was a mega tom boy growing up. I spent most of my time playing with boys in my neighbourhood over girls, and would rather play cops and robbers three times over than ever play kitchen or dolls. By that logic, it would be easy to assume that I might later identify more with males than with females. Is that true? No, not at all. I am very much a woman and love being a woman. Gender isn’t so much about whether you strictly adhere to specific gender roles, but more about whether or not you feel right in your “assigned skin.” Though it is true that a biology professor and a sociology professor would have very different takes on the topic, it is not really a debate in my opinion.

Some people like to make the argument that it is a matter of biology – all other animals are male or female and just work with what they were born with. Ha, well let me drop some facts for you. In swims the anemonefish. All clown anemonefish actually are born with the predisposition of being male. However, when the female of the group dies, the dominant male will actually physically change sexes and become female, and another male will step up as the dominant male.  Not so black and white now, is it? In fact, in nature, gender works in many different ways than it does in human’s dominant Western narratives. For example, some species actually take on the physical appearance of their opposite gender when trying to mate in order to throw off potential rivals. Another oddity, male seahorses are actually the ones that give birth to little baby seahorses.

Now that we’ve cut through that particular level of bullshit, some people also make the argument that if we accommodate everyone, there will be an infinite amount of genders. “Why should we have seventy different types of gender when there are two sexes?” My question is, what is it to you? I have never understood why a cis-gendered person, whose life is much easier for that exact reason, could be so damn concerned with what other people do to be happy. Close-minded cis-people like to act as though saying “they” as opposed to “he or she” is more of a chore than it would be for others to conform to a gender that they do not identify with. Put frankly, grow up.

The longer the list of gender identities, the more possible that a young teenager that does not feel like themselves, feeling confused and utterly alone, can then go online, find a community of people that feel just like themselves and finally say “eureka! I know who I am now!”

The human brain is structured in a way that we like to categorize and label things to make it easier to organize and understand the world around us. We see a Robin and categorize it as a bird, which is also an animal, which is also a living organism. Labels and categories can be extremely beneficial to people that feel marginalized and as though they do not belong within dominant narratives. For them, finding a subcommunity of people just like themselves – be it transgender, non-binary, gender fluid, or any other – may give them validation, proof that they do hold a place and that they are valued members of society as opposed to an outsider.

People like to make jokes, such as “oh okay well I identify as a toaster.” These fears and objections are just not really realistic. Gender identity, as mentioned previously, is in regard to how you feel you fit on the scale of masculinity and femininity. A toaster has nothing to do with gender whatsoever and will therefore never be considered a gender identity.

Finally, as far as safety is concerned, the people most at risk when a transgendered person is in a public bathroom is that transgendered person. Most instances of attacks involving transgendered people in a public bathroom feature the cisgendered person as the transgressor, not as the victim. “What if men just start dressing as women to sneak into the women’s washroom?” News flash: they could do that regardless of legislation. The same people that argue that guns don’t stop crime and that women are “asking for” rape are also trying to tell us that someone is a danger to women everywhere just because they have a penis… and that legislation would solve that problem… hmm…

Bottom line, people are not willing to do the research because they know their point is moot. More than one form of gender identity is more than fine, it’s ideal. Sexism exists in terms of men oppressing women, granted. However, there is another form of sexism too. The form that forces individuals both sexes to submit to the societal norms and values assigned to them by whatever genitals they are born with. So next time you’re running your mouth about things you not only understand but refuse to research, please remember that you are contributing to a larger problem. You may as well tell a woman her place is in the kitchen.

 

Define before you assign.

 
 

A certain amount of evidence should be needed before you can call someone a racist. If you call someone a racist, and there is public consensus, then that person will likely be shunned or excommunicated. They could lose their job and credibility and so on. So, if labelling someone as a racist has real consequences, then it is important to know what the word means before it is used willy-nilly.

It could be a statement, joke, piece of artwork, policy, controversy, costume, etc. If it has any relation to race at all, there’s a chance for racist allegations. For example: you see a political cartoon and there are different races portrayed in it. Would it be racist to exaggerate the brightness or darkness of a character’s skin? If yes, then how many shades of exaggeration are necessary to qualify as racism? By this logic, it could be considered a form of racism when models on magazines have the shade of their skin electronically augmented. Models of every race have this done regularly and willfully.

Say in this hypothetical political cartoon that the artist emphasizes features of the characters that could be associated with stereotypes of the race in question. If, for example, he draws a character with big lips when the person actually has big lips in real life, were his intentions racist? He or she may in fairness draw other characters with big ears or big noses who actually have those features in real life as well. Is it then up to us to decide which enlargements are racist because of which stereotypical association the artist may or may not have been trying to portray? It could simply be the artist’s style of drawing caricatures, or it could be that they are a racist and meant to emphasize the stereotypes. How are you supposed to know? Artistic intention may be too difficult to pinpoint, especially when looking for racist motivation.

Now to the issue of Halloween, what defines a costume as racist? Most costumes in question usually represent a stereotype of a country or culture, not a race. There is no outfit that could be equated to an entire race. Clothes are about culture. Therefore, a racially motivated costume would be something like “black face” or “white face”. It is impossible to see 1920’s “black face” as anything but blatantly racist. Even then, though, when you see black celebrities such as Dwayne Wade and Nick Cannon put on “white face” for Halloween and receive no criticism for it, questions begin to arise; are they both racist? Are neither of them racist? This double standard of acceptance makes it difficult to get to the truth of the matter.

As far as “cultural appropriation” goes, although as I said earlier it is not really about race, it is still relevant enough that it should be clarified. If all cultures can be “appropriated”, which should be the standard, then it would be fair to say that wearing a Moroccan outfit as a costume would be the same as wearing a Scottish outfit as a costume. It would also be fair to say that a Scottish person wearing this Moroccan outfit would be the same as a Moroccan person wearing a Scottish outfit. Any kind of person (Mexican, Persian, Russian, Zimbabwean, etc.) can wear these outfits as costumes and be equally offensive in doing so. No person is inherently more offensive or less offensive than another. The appropriation of one culture is not inherently more offensive or less offensive than the appropriation of another. So then the issue comes down to how the costume is presented. Is it in good taste or bad taste? Who gets to judge this “taste”? How are they supposed to know the intentions of the costume-wearer? So on and so forth until we’re back full circle to agnosticism.

Be careful and sure before you label anyone or anything as racist. It is a powerful word. Every time you criticize somebody, you are acting as their judge and jury. Do some serious thinking about labels. No one wants to be labelled incorrectly, and although the person may be ignorant, they are not necessarily racist. In turn, to avoid being called racist, it may be a good idea to steer clear when possible of statements or otherwise that may be misconstrued.