This week we learned about diversity through exploring the membership of the course group: the different beliefs and behaviours. This enabled us all to become aware of the demographics of our group, for example our culture, family, nationality, race, age, gender, disability or sexuality.
We went round the group and everyone said a few words about some of their diverse attributes, but I did not feel comfortable being the centre of attention and didn’t want to be asked any questions. It’s not that I don’t want anyone to know my story, or my background, but I’m still not 100% sure on how to present it, or to be more accurate, which parts of it to present. I’m not sure which parts are important to mention and which are irrelevant. Maybe, due to how I view prejudice and stereotypes (I hold very little lasting value in them), I know that any initial views anyone has of me because of things like my ethnic background, my age or my gender will eventually be proven false.
To go into more detail about that, I do understand the importance being aware of the demographics of the group, but ultimately, I know that while I do make judgements when I first meet people, I do not hold them to those judgements. I know that one or more of the judgements I have made could be proven false within five minutes of me talking to them. Any group of people could be broken down into groups and sub-groups via any kind of categorisation, and in the end, the smallest group of people is an individual, and I treat everyone I meet as an individual with their own unique combination of characteristics.
To illustrate this, I made these two judgements about people on the course in the first lesson.
One young lady was sitting with closed body language, and she looked very nervous, she didn’t say a word in the entire lesson. I made a judgement that she was a shy person with severe social anxiety and she wouldn’t participate much in group discussions. Then some lessons later she was leading a discussion about the contentious subject of immigration levels.
The second young lady was from an afro-Caribbean ethnic background and she clearly had confidence in herself. I made a judgement that she would be loud and possibly obnoxious, but this turned out to not be the case: she is very reasonable and measured in group discussions.
Both judgements were completely wrong on my part, but I never held them to any expectations. I looked at them how they were in that first lesson, and looked again in this lesson, continually updating my overall image of them as a person based on how they are in the world and how they behave, rather than my expectations of how I think they will act based on my impressions of other members of their demographic groups.
Overall, I think it is ok to judge, as long as you are willing to let go of that judgement pretty much as soon as you make it.
With regards to me not wanting to be the centre of attention and not be asked any questions, I suffer from social anxiety and shyness which I am getting better at managing, but coupled with how unsure I was of which details to go into, I thought it better to say the bare minimum. I know that the group is a safe place to explore these things, but I feel like I’m still in the first Beginning stage of the counselling process, and that I’m still getting to know everyone. I will share more in time, as my comfort and trust level grows, I’m sure.
It can be difficult to be honest about personal prejudices and stereotypes because if spoken out loud, other people may well take offense to them. Most judgements based on prejudice turn out to be at least partially wrong in some respect, and as such, telling someone that you think they are obnoxious because of something they are wearing, it would offend them. It can also be difficult just being honest with yourself sometimes. It’s interesting when you find yourself thinking something about another person that is completely unfounded with respect to any aspect of their actual character.
It is important to be able to articulate and explore these personal judgements about others because it leads to greater self-awareness. If you can pinpoint why exactly you have the knee-jerk judgement that all Italian men are womanisers, then you can challenge that belief, and the next Italian man you meet won’t be labelled a womaniser. Challenging your own beliefs and preconceptions leads to being more open minded, which I feel is a very important attribute to have as a counsellor. I used to think it was disgusting when I saw fat women in public with tight fitting gym gear on, until I looked at it from a different perspective. If they are confident enough to be in public with such clothes on, who am I to judge? Why should my disgust over-rule their autonomy to wear what they like? And they may well have just come from the gym, or are about to go for a run, maybe they are unhappy with their body and are actually trying to do something positive about their feelings.
In terms of investigating and analysing the implications of being perceived as different, I can understand how it can feel to be left out. I was always a lot taller than everyone else in my peer group, and I often felt like an outsider when I was growing up, even in my first little group of close friends. They often ganged up on me and used me as the butt of their jokes. They didn’t bully me physically, but I think they may have tormented me because they were envious of my height and size. They wanted to feel better about themselves by putting me down, and I often just went along with it because I felt that was a way to gain their acceptance. This stems back to a skewed core belief I used to hold about being too agreeable so as to not be rejected by a group. Regardless of how I behaved in order to not be rejected, I was eventually ostracised by the group around the time of my 18th birthday when they merged with another group of people that I didn’t get on with. I flitted from group to group but never really found acceptance anywhere else, and still find it hard to forge and maintain meaningful friendship bonds. I think this is why I try to treat everyone as they truly are and by their actions, rather than treating them as the estimated perceptions of them that I have in my mind.
