Warning: This is a long post because it took a lot of setup to get to the point. If you just want the point, feel free to scroll down to the last couple of paragraphs.
Every four years, I am reminded of sports I forgot even existed, like Dressage and Water Polo (or Curling if it is winter). When the Olympics are airing, I have my television tuned to it all day long, no matter what the event and even if I am doing other things. There's something amazing about watching passionate people who are the best in the world at what they do. This year has an extra layer of drama. As though being an Olympic-level athlete isn't enough of a challenge, these men and women have the pandemic to deal with as well. We see story after story of people who have overcome challenges to do something amazing, from the known name gold-medal favorites to the sole representative from a country to the one for whom just being there is already a victory, even if they come in last.
The word unprecedented has gotten a little cliché in the past year, but there are two things that have happened this year that I've never seen before. The first is Simone Biles dropping out of the competition during the competition. The second is female athletes changing their own uniforms from the accepted standards.
Simon Bile is indisputably the best gymnast ever to step up to a mat. I grew up in the age of Nadia Comaneci and Mary Lou Retton, but I've never seen the like of Simone Biles. While those women experienced the pressure of public attention, the 80s weren't a time when the entire world expressed their opinions of you directly to you from their phone 24 hours a day. The internet has changed everything for these athletes. In the social media world, everyone feels they have the right (and it seems, the obligation) to weigh in on any decision they have made, even if they are ignorant of the situation. I can't even begin to imagine the pressure that would have put on me at the age of 24. I was in my second year of teaching at 24, and I cannot fathom how badly I would have done my job if it were being broadcast on international television with people telling me my work was important to everyone in the country and commenting on every minor error I made.
We also live in a time where we expect perfection from those whom we have placed on a pedestal. I remember having a conversation with a friend when Michael Phelps was caught smoking pot several years ago. I told her that I wasn't condoning what he did, and it was disappointing, but I didn't think either she or I could imagine the pressure he had experienced. "If he had returned from China with seven gold medals," I said, "he would have been considered a failure because we were so hyped of for eight. This was his bad decision, but it's at least a little on us." She thought I was crazy, but a few years later, when he started doing ads for Talkspace and revealed his mental health challenges, I wondered if she realized that he had been self-medicating. (I'm not condoning his drug use, by the way. I'm just saying we should understand the context.)
I keep reading comments from Twitter and Facebook people saying, "We all have pressure on our jobs, and we're still expected to do them." First of all, unless you happen to be the world's leading brain surgeon, I don't think you get to compare your job pressures to hers. I felt a lot of pressure teaching during the pandemic, but my mistakes weren't being dissected by billions of people who tagged me in their comments to make sure I got them. Second, if you make a mistake on your job, it's unlikely to result in a potentially career-ending or even life-threatening injury. I'd rather read the headline that Simone Biles dropped out of the competition for her mental health than read the headline that Simone Biles was permanently paralyzed because she broke her neck after losing her place while 18 feet in the air. It's easy to make comments from a phone while sitting on a sofa eating Pringles, but let's all stop pretending we understand the situation.
At least two teams of women have decided that it is time to take a stand against women being forced to show their everything to the world. The Norwegian Beach Handball team (I didn't even know beach handball was a sport, I kept thinking they meant volleyball) was fined 1500 Euros for "improper attire" because they came out in spandex shorts rather than tiny bikini bottoms. I put a picture here for reference because I keep reading that they aren't as aerodynamic in shorts (as though handball is a game that requires aerodynamics). They simply don't want to flash the world while diving for a point.
The German women's gymnastics team has also decided enough is enough. After decades of women performing in bikini-cut, wedgie-inducing leotards while men perform in shorts or stirrup pants, they performed in ankle-length unitards. This, of course, sparked a lot of comments as well. I saw a lot of "the Olympics is no place for politics" comments. Anyone who believes that hasn't paid attention to the Olympics since the 1930s. From boycotts to protests, it's always been used for political statements. That aside, how is not wanting to show your butt cheeks to the world or wanting to avoid the potential of flashing your privates while on the balance beam a political statement?
Let's stop pretending that this is about anything other than getting some ratings from some of the gross men who only watch to see half-naked women jumping around. That's not me editorializing; it is direct quotes I have read comments from multiple men saying, "What's the problem? That's the only reason I watch it." while not realizing that they answered their own question.
But none of this is the point. The point is that those of us making comments have absolutely no idea what we are talking about. Even the ones that start with, "I was a gymnast and . . ." like the two years of gymnastics they took in middle school qualify them to disagree with what elite athletes choose to wear. Nobody knows the pressures that another person experiences in their life or on their job. We all have different responsibilities and experiences and pasts and psychological constitution and support systems. I have no idea what a nurse goes through, and a nurse has no idea what I go through. I was a teenager at one point in my life, but that doesn't mean I know what it is like to be a teenager now. Even within the same profession, elementary school teachers and upper school teachers don't want each other's jobs and don't understand what the other has to deal with from day to day. I'm going to assume this is probably true of cardiologists vs. proctologists as well.
I always try to connect things to education since that is the point of this blog, so here goes. Teachers, our students are growing up in a time when they are expected to have an instantly formed opinion based on a headline (because we don't typically read the articles we forward) that we stick to and never change. We MUST teach them a better way. We have the opportunity when they ask what our opinion is about something to say, "I'm not sure. I need more information." We have the responsibility to base our opinions on valid data from good sources and not just say, "I read somewhere" like that's a credible reference. We have the responsibility to model an openness to change our opinion when new data becomes available. If we lead them to think before they post, we can change the toxic culture of social media in the future, but we can only do it if WE think before we post and if we say, "I'm not going to judge her decision because I don't know what her job is like."
No comments:
Post a Comment