Tag: women

Facing Failure

I am in a particularly gloomy, dare I say, depressed, mood upon the eve of my writing this. Owing to the impending blizzard, United Nations Headquarters has been closed, and subsequently the events which I was to attend for the Women’s Empowerment Principles have been “postponed indefinitely”. The news reached me only minutes before I was to board the train which would have taken me into the city, where I had arranged for a hotel room overnight so as to avoid to having to travel during a blizzard.

This left me with an urgent choice: I could board the train, and spend a day trapped in a frozen city that was actively trying to dissuade people from traveling, or I could cut my losses, eat the cost of the hotel room, and return home to ride out the storm there. It probably surprises few that I chose the latter option; the option touted as the more sensible, strategically conservative, objectively correct option. Still, making this choice left me with a bitter taste in my mouth. It leaves me feeling as though I have failed.

I do not like failure.

Actually, that statement is inaccurate, or at least, misleading. I don’t merely dislike failure, in the same way that I dislike, say, sunscreen. No, I hate failure, in every sense of the word. I loathe it, detest it, and yes, I fear it.

This is not to say that I have such strong feelings toward losses. I feel this is an important distinction. Though I do have an adversity to unnecessary losses, sometimes, such sacrifices are necessary. What I hate is trying, making sacrifices, and then failing despite, or even worse, because of those efforts. The important distinction, at least in my mind, is that losses are a strategic principle, and a passing phenomenon, while failure is a state of being, whether for a few moments surrounding a particular exercise, or for a lifetime.

As one might expect, this makes me, in general, rather risk averse. Of course, this itself presents a paradox. Not taking a given risk also entails the inverse risk contained in the opportunity cost. That is to say, by not taking a given bet, you are effectively betting against it. This means that refusing to accept risks is always inherently itself a risk. So, for example, one cannot accept a zero percent chance of food poisoning without not eating altogether; and if one were to attempt to do so, they would quickly find themselves confronted by the more urgent problem of starvation.

The blizzard that closed the UN put me in a no-win situation. As a rational person, I can accept this, and act to cut my losses. Either I canceled my trip, resigned myself to staying at home, and ate the cost of my hotel reservations, or I purchased my train ticket, defied government instructions to stay home and avoid travel, put myself in danger, and spent the day trapped in a hotel room. I understand rationally why I chose as I did, and rationally, maintain that I made the correct decision. Yet I cannot escape the feeling that in choosing to abort my plans, I have failed my objective. Even if there was nothing to gain by getting on the train, I cannot suppress the feeling that my conscious choice invited some moral failing.

Some cursory research suggests that this particular feeling is not unique to myself, nor is it a new field of philosophical musings. Humans feel more emotional and moral responsibility for acts which are consciously undertaken than for merely following existing plans. This feeling is so prevalent it carries legal weight; binding contracts cannot be made by failing to decline an agreement; they require active assent. This might explain why I feel particularly upset with myself; If I had made no choice, then any perceived failure could only be an act of God, and out of my control. By making a conscious decision to cut my losses, I made that result a personal consequence, at least to my subconscious mind.

This leaves me at something of an impasse. I know why I am upset, yet can do little to console myself except to distract and reassure the nagging elements of my unconscious mind that I made the correct decision. I am left in conflict with myself, and left acutely aware of the fickleness of my own mind. While I suppose that this state of affairs is strictly preferable to feeling upset and not understanding why at all, I still cannot bring myself to feel in any meaningful way confident about myself in the present tense, particularly as these most recent reactions would seem to indicate that I might not be the single-mindedly rational being that I like to pretend that I am.

As I have indicated previously, I have very little intrinsic self confidence, at least in the manner which most people seem to expect that I ought. For whatever reason, I cannot seem to raise such self-evident feelings of self worth, and therefore, when I project such feelings, it is borne not of some internal passion, but extrinsic, statistical calculation. I base my self-assessment not on my own feelings, nor on others’ opinions, but on data and milestones. And though I feel that this generally gives me a better handle on the limits of my abilities, it also means that when I put my mind to a particular objective, and yet still fail for whatever reason, it becomes not only a momentary setback, but a point of evidence against my worth as a human being.

This can, and historically has, resulted in a mental loop whereby a temporary failure, such as a meeting which I had my aspirations set upon being cancelled by a snowstorm, leads to a general hardening of outlook, which in turn causes me to shift to the back foot, acting more conservatively, and taking fewer risky opportunities. Consequently, I wind up having fewer major victories to celebrate and reassure myself, and am instead left to reflect upon all of the opportunities which I missed. Because I was led to skip these choices by seemingly rational means, I cannot regret individual choices, but rather categorize them as mere symptoms of a general moral failing. These reflections promote further self-doubt, further strategic conservatism, and so on.

So, what can I do about it?

With the help of family and friends, I have come to realize that this is a viscous cycle that represents many of the worst and most self-destructive aspects of my personality and manner of thought. Of course, recognizing this fact consciously is the easy part. Hindsight is perfect, after all. The hard part is determining how to counter this cycle.

Historically my solution to such problems has been to throw myself into work, especially school work. This serves a dual purpose. First, if I am working hard enough, I do not have the time nor the energy to stew over my situation in more general terms. Second, it gives me a sense that I am accomplishing something. From primary through early high school, this approach has generally worked.

However, more recently, as the school has continued to demonstrate its gross incompetence in accommodating my physical disabilities, and as they have become increasingly distraught over the fact that my disability has not healed itself by magic, it has apparently occurred to the school administration that the correct way to inspire me to overcome medical impossibilities is to continually evoke shame each time my medical issues cause me to miss a deadline. Exactly what they aim to accomplish through this pestering continues to elude me. But in any case, this state of affairs means that greater effort on my part is more often scolded than rewarded. For, it seems, every time I attempt to reach out for clarification and assistance, I am subjected to a lecture on “personal responsibility”.

Because the school administration is apparently so “forward thinking”, and therefore does not believe in disability whatsoever, I am told that the fault for my failures is not, cannot, lie in my disability, but only in my personal moral failings. I am told by special education professionals that if I were truly dedicated to my academic performance, that my chronic diseases ought not have any impact on my life whatsoever. My promises that I will do my utmost given what I have to work with fall on deaf ears, because, allegedly, if I were to truly do my utmost, I would already be done on my own.

Needless to say, this experience is extremely stressful, and only deepens my sense of failure, self-hatred and anxiety. It should surprise no one that I am not terribly productive under such conditions, which only exacerbates the problem. Thus it comes to pass that throwing myself into schoolwork and attempting to prove myself wrong; to prove that I can indeed overcome opposition and be successful, only leads to more evidence that I am a failure.

I have looked, and am still looking, into various strategies to deal with this cycle moving forward. One strategy has been to write, and to post here. Another has been to give myself permission to engage in short “micro-vacations” as I call them, or “sanity-breaks” as my doctors refer to them. These short periods can last anywhere from a few hours to a few days depending on the severity of my initial state, particularly as they tend to coincide with when I am most physically fatigued*, but the important part is that they remain constrained to a specific time instead of drawing out into a general malaise. During this time, I temporarily do away with all pretense of productivity, and allow myself to engage in whatever petty amusement strikes my fancy.

*Sidenote: the overlap between physiological issues and mental symptoms is a recurring theme, making meaningful treatment for both all the more challenging. After all, is it really paranoia if your statistical chances of dying are vastly increased? The consensus thus far is that it isn’t. This is the reason why, despite having all of the symptoms, I do not technically qualify for any mental health diagnosis; because in my case, the source is obvious and completely justified.

In this respect, the fact that the same blizzard which set me on this spiral also shut down most everything in the vicinity comprises a silver lining of sorts. Obviously, there is no magic bullet for irrational feelings of failure. But perhaps that is beside the point. Perhaps the point of overcoming this feeling is not to wind up standing triumphantly atop the pile of slain emotions, but to reach a peaceful stalemate. I do not necessarily need to feel good about the fact that I could not accomplish my goals; merely be able to accept it without it destroying myself. Perhaps it might be enough to be able to calmly analyze and discuss my thoughts in writing, without necessarily having to reach a decisive conclusion.

Reflections on International Women’s Day

I stated previously that I intended to bring this blog offline once again in solidarity with the Day Without Women Strike for International Women’s Day on March 8th. Two things have convinced me to alter my plans slightly. First, the strike organizers seem to be calling for only women to actually strike today, and are encouraging men to participate in other ways. This is fair enough. After all, it’s not my voice being put down, and I would have a hard time coming up with a tangible example of a time that gender discrimination has impacted me directly (It impacts me indirectly all the time, by holding back scientific progress by the selective suppression of certain groups’ advancement, but I digress).

Second, and arguably more important, is the point that, while striking and industrial action may be effective means of grabbing headlines, the point of these exercises is not to elicit silence, but conversation. Given that people seem to have this notion that I am a moderately talented communicator, and have chosen to listen to me, it stands to reason that a more appropriate response might be to attempt to add to the conversation myself.

It’s easy not to notice something that doesn’t affect oneself directly. Humans, it seems, possess an extraordinary talent for ignoring things that they feel do not concern them, particularly where knowledge of those things would make their lives and understanding of how the world works more complicated. This is probably a good thing on the whole, as it allows us to get through the day without having an existential crisis over the impending heat death of the universe, and feeling continually depressed about the state of affairs for our fellow humans in the developing world. On the other hand, it also makes it distressingly easy for us to overlook challenges to others when they do not have a direct impact on us.

Recently, I was invited to attend an event regarding the ongoing development and implementation of the Women’s Empowerment Principles at the United Nations. Now, as much as I like to believe that I am a progressive person capable of and inclined to provide and advocate for equal opportunity, it is impossible to deny the simple fact that I am male. And while I can name all kinds of discrimination that I have myself encountered, none of them relate to my sexual and gender identity. And so when it comes to suggesting ways to remedy present injustices, I do not really have a solid background to draw from.

I probably could have gotten away with what I already know. After all, with my limited experience in educating others on specific issues, and with my commitment to the principles of equality in general, surely I have enough context to be able to, if not contribute on my own, then at least, to pay homage to the general notion of women’s struggles?

Perhaps. But, I know enough people whom I respect, for whom this is a serious issue worthy of dedicating entire careers to. Additionally, I like to make a point to be an informed interlocutor. It is my firm position that all opinions worthy of serious discussion ought to have a firm factual and logical backing. And given that, in this case unlike most others, I do not have a personal background experience to draw upon, it seems only correct that I do my due diligence research so that I may make responsible and informed conclusions.

Thus, it transpired that I set myself the goal of becoming, if not an expert, then at least competent, in the field of gender relations and sexual inequality around the world in the space of just over two weeks. A lofty goal, to be sure, but a worthy one. My reading list included an assortment of United Nations, governmental and NGO reports, various statistical analyses, news stories, and a few proper books. Actually, calling it a reading list is a tad misleading, as, in order to cram as much information into as short a time as possible, most of the material in question was consumed in audio format, played at double or triple speed. This is a very effective way of gleaning the key facts without having to waste time on wasteful frivolities like enjoying the plot.

Most of my initial digging started in various UN organizations, chiefly the media center of the World Health Organization. While not always as in depth as respective national organizations, the WHO is useful inasmuch as it provides decent cursory summaries for the global perspective. What was most fascinating to me was that there were surprisingly few hard statistics. The biggest problem listed, particularly in the developing world, was not that women received a necessarily lower quality of healthcare, but that most did not receive health care at all, and therefore properly compiled statistics on gender discrepancies in health were notoriously hard to come by. Rather than telling a story, the data simply does not exist.

In a bitter irony, the more likely data was to exist for a specific region, the less likely significant gender discrepancies were to be shown to exist, at least in healthcare. That is to say that by the time that rigorous evidence could be compiled, the worst elements of inequality had been subdued. This makes a kind of sense. After all, if the problem is that women aren’t being allowed to participate in public, how exactly are you going to survey them? This also hinted at a theme that would continue to crop up: different regions and cultures are starting at tackling gender inequality from radically different starting points, and face accordingly different challenges.

My second major revelation came while listening to I Am Malala. For those who may have been living under a rock during that timeframe, here is the background: In 2012, Malala Yousefzai, a human rights and women’s education activist in rural Pakistan was shot by the taliban, sparking international outrage and renewed interest in the plight of women in the Middle East. Malala survived after being airlifted to the United Kingdom, and has since garnered celebrity status, becoming a goodwill ambassador for the United Nations’ women’s empowerment initiatives.

I have still not yet made up my mind on whether I will go so far as to say that I liked the book. I do not know that is the sort of book that is meant to be liked. I did, however, find it quite enlightening. The book is a first person biography; a kind of story that I have never been quite as interested in as the classic anecdote. If I am completely honest, I found most of the beginning rather dry. The story felt to me as though it had grown rather repetitive: Malala would have some dream or ambition that would seem fairly modest to those of us living in the developed world, which would naturally be made extremely contentious and difficult because she was a girl living in her particular culture.

It got a the point where I could practically narrate alongside the audiobook. And then, halfway through the twelfth or so incident where Malala came up short owing to her gender and her culture, it hit me: that’s the whole point. Yes, it is tedious, to the point of being frustrating to the narrative. That’s the point here. No part of this book would have happened, if not for the constant, grating frustration of sexist attitudes and policies. The story couldn’t progress because of those obstacles, and every time it seemed like one hurdle had been surmounted, another one cropped up. Because that’s what it’s like. And if I, the reader, was frustrated trying to hear the story, just imagine what it would be like to deal with the real deal.

A second revelation also occurred to me. In trying to tell of my tribulations in living with physical disabilities, I have often been accused of overstating the scope of their impact, to the point of copping blame for stirring up unnecessary trouble. People believed, or at least, suspected, that while life might be more difficult in a few select areas, surely it couldn’t effect absolutely everything in the way that I suggested it did. Perhaps, then, the problem lay not with the actual task at hand, but in the fact that my perception had been tainted. Perhaps I was not truly as disabled as I claimed, but merely suffered from a sort of persecution complex. I realized that I had unintentionally, unconsciously, made the same mistake in my reading of Malala’s story.

This also helped to answer another important question: In the developed world, we often hear bickering over to what degree we still “need” the women’s empowerment movement. After all, we have full suffrage, and equality before the law. Discrimination on the matter of sex is illegal, if it can be proven. Given how much better life is for women in the developed world than the developing, is it reasonable to expect more? Are these western advocates simply suffering from a persecution complex? Certainly there are those whose concerns are more immediately applicable and actionable than others, and certainly there are those who will insist no matter how much is done, that it isn’t enough. Such is the nature of politics, and on this the women’s empowerment movement in the developed world is not any different from any other political movement. But on the general question over whether genuine, actionable, inequities exist, it seems now far less unreasonable to me to accept that there may yet be more work to be done than I might have initially been led to believe.

I expect that even this conclusion will be contentious. I expect that I shall be told in short order that I have drawn conclusions from the data which I have aggregated which are faulty, or else that the data itself is biased or misleading. On this point I concede that I am still quite young in my in-depth study of this particular field, and, as mentioned previously, far better minds than mine have devoted entire careers to ironing out the finer points. Reasonable minds may, and indeed do, disagree about specifics. However, if there is one thing which my cursory research and analysis thereof has confirmed in my mind, it is that, on matters of general policy, I would rather err on the side of empathy, choosing rather to be too trusting in the good faith of others, than to ignore and unintentionally oppress.

It follows, then, that I should find myself wholeheartedly endorsing and supporting the observation and celebration of today, International Women’s Day, and reaffirming my support for continuation and expansion of the UN’s Women’s Empowerment Principles.