Squabbles

One of the presents given for Christmas was a game called "Scene it Squabble". The goal was to see how well one sex knows the other in regards to movies and pop culture. The genders were put on opposite teams and asked stereotypical questions.

It didn't take long to realize that stereotypes do not do a good job at defining a person. We started laughing at the absurdity of some of the questions. Game tokens were gender stereotyped, and some of the game cards that let you move forward or back were almost troubling.

As the game went on, it became increasingly obvious how limiting stereotypical labels are, and that people are way too complex to narrow down to simple black and white boxes.

Putting what we encounter into categories is a marvelous quick sorting tool to approach the world, but it is like putting a swatch of paint on a part of the wall to see how well it creates an effect. The entire wall must be painted for the effect of the paint color to be realized. We can quickly sort people and things into categories, but then one must move on to a more holistic understanding of who the individual is.

To do less than that is to devalue the other. To do less than that is ignorant. To do less than that is negligent.