Recent Posts
Diversity, according to Merriam-Webster, is: “The quality or state of having many different forms, types, ideas, etc.” Diversity can mean having a diverse collection of glass figurines. It can also mean eating a diverse selection of food or cuisine. But what diversity has come to reference in mainstream culture is the diversity of people.
Today, “diversity” has become a trending word that encompasses a plethora of different people and lifestyles unbeknownst to the public majority. Diversity means a great deal to minority women who are often overlooked, under-appreciated and unaccepted. Here are some of those “diverse” meanings:
Media representation is the most important form of representation for minority women. We, as people, ingest media the way we ingest food: out of need and boredom. We also use it as a tool to learn more about the world around us and across from us. But when there’s only one specific race being broadcasted every single time, what can you really learn? Not much of anything.
In fact, on a PBS article titled “Out of 30,000 Hollywood film characters, here’s how many weren’t white” by Laura Santhanam, it says, “Researchers at the University of Southern California studied the 700 top-grossing films from 2007 to 2014, excluding 2011, and analyzed the race and ethnicity of more than 30,000 characters to reveal diversity in film. The findings showed that for nearly a decade, filmmakers have made virtually no progress in portraying more characters from non-white racial and ethnic identities.”
If there was more diversity in the media, it would provide a more colorful spectrum of perspectives to choose from. For people of color, it would mean the chance to be seen, to be heard and to be taken seriously.
Imagine there’s a party going on at your school or workplace and everyone else is getting invited. You’re excited because you’re already daydreaming about what you’re going to wear, how you’re going to do your make up, who you’ll meet and how much fun you’ll have. Then you realize you’re not invited to this party because you’re not like the other party goers. There’s something about you that you cannot change, yet it prevents you from certain experiences. Being judged by the color of your skin or your heritage would make anyone feel unwanted and left out. That is exactly what it is like for women of color.
In the makeup industry, makeup wasn’t invented for African Americans until the late 70s. According to the article “Modern Living: Black Cosmetics” from Time magazine, makeup had been popularized in the US for 50 years by then without inclusion of other skin tones.
An increase in diversity in everyday life would mean that each woman’s differences would become normalized. Women of color find it quite laborious to be constantly searching for approval and to be liked as a woman of color. Biracial woman of color, Charlie Brinkhurst-Cuff, writes via Vice about her personal struggle of being approached online because she seems like an interesting person instead of being approached for her unchangeable biracial background. “When I get a message on Tinder, one of the first thoughts I have is whether or not this person simply has a strange preference for black or mixed-race women…I don’t want to fulfill anyone’s racial fantasy of getting with a big-assed black girl or feel like I should thank them because, you know, they actually find black women attractive.” We want to be liked for who we are and not just for our skin colors.
As women and also as women of color, we want our experiences to matter. We want them to count. How many times has a woman experienced something traumatic or life threatening and received the cold shoulder instead of sympathy? In the brutally honest and realistic movie “The Stoning of Soraya M,” Soraya gets stoned to death for being falsely accused of committing adultery. The movie was based on an actual Iranian woman who was stoned to death because she refused to divorce her husband. Her desire to be with him was ultimately trumped by her husband’s wish for divorce and she, unfairly, paid for it with her life.
Circumstances like Soraya’s truly exist throughout many parts of the world including India, South Africa and the United States. Emma Sulkowitz is the most public example of a woman without validation. She was raped by one of her classmates during her sophomore year and when she reported it, the case was so severely mishandled that it was dismissed. As a result, she vowed to carry her mattress around with her every day of school until her rapist was reprimanded for what he had done.
Emma’s story isn’t the only one that had been dismissed. Thousands of allegations like hers are made on campuses all around the U.S.
Caitlin Lowell, a Coalition Against Sexual Violence Outreach and Resource Co-Coordinator, said in a video interview with Time magazine, “If you’re a person of color or if you’re queer, the process of going to the police can also be one that is not necessarily competent or great to deal with.”
Diversity is absolutely necessary in our culture because it should never be acceptable for a woman to be ignored when making an accusation as serious as Emma’s, especially if you are a minority, a woman of color and/or queer. All women of diversity should be validated simply because they are people.
Lastly, diversity means knowledge. It means gaining knowledge about others and reacting to it in order to ultimately affect change. Imagine going to another country for a vacation. Isn’t it fascinating to experience values different from your own? In Japan, for instance, they are very polite, helpful and they deeply value family and community. If one person fails, they all fail. If one person succeeds, they all succeed. Characteristic to a conformist society that in many ways may lack diversity.
With knowledge comes understanding of other meanings of diversity, thus bringing unity. Arguments also have a tendency to bring about new insight. DiploFoundation warns of the importance of intercultural knowledge. According to the article, “Lack of knowledge of another culture can lead, at the best, to embarrassing or amusing mistakes in communication. At the worst, such mistakes may confuse or even offend the people we wish to communicate with.”
Ultimately, this information can help us, as a society, to understand the differences of all people and use this knowledge to further validate, approve and accept lives that differ from our own.
“I do not want my house to be walled in on all sides and my windows to be stuffed. I want the cultures of all the lands to be blown about my house as freely as possible. But I refuse to be blown off my feet by any.” – Mahatma Gandhi
