Have you heard the old joke that plays on the philosophical question about a tree falling in the forest?  You know the one… “If you’re in the forest and you say something wrong and your spouse (of course I’m going with the gender neutral version!) doesn’t hear you, are you still wrong?”

While seemingly innocuous, it does reveal a critical distinction that permeates all of intercultural communications:  What you do/who you are versus how you are perceived or judged against the norms of society. 

In intercultural communications and anthropology, the idea is to give individuals and cultures hegemony, the power to exist in and of our own right, from our own point of first-person expression.

The story of 7-year-old Julia Lira, selected by her father Marco Lira to be the Samba Queen for the Viradouro School in the Carnaval parade in Rio is a case in point.

One the one hand, kids know how to samba in Brazil by the age of two…it’s part of the culture (I learned at 26 from my 3 and 4 year old nieces.)  Plus, it’s not crazy for a parent to think that their child is the best in everything.  And, as Lira says, “Any man who looks at a 7-year-old child and feels any sort of excitement should go see a doctor.”

On the flip side, Carnaval costumes are elaborate yet teeny, and samba moves in and of themselves can be seen as suggestive–I’ve tried teaching it in some of my aerobic classes in the US—our hips just don’t move that way!  (although for background, anyone can come in costume or join a Samba School and participate in Carnaval.)

While she did perform, it was nearly impossible for Julia just to simply be a little girl essentially putting on a dance recital.  Her actions cannot be interpreted separate from the history of the event which focuses on women as objects of desire.  (Or maybe it’s just that the women are gorgeous and therefore desireable—like the Neutrogena commercial… “don’t hate me because I am beautiful!”)  

While serving as food for thought, writing this piece confirms why I am not wont to form a strong position about current news stories without having the facts behind the story.  While Julia may be a cute little girl, the Viadouro school apparently drew controversy in 2008 by featuring a Hitler and Holocaust survivors.  That float was ruled illegal and denied entry, but it frames the current decision as exploitative of his daughter, to gain media coverage.    

In the final competition, Julia and the Viadouro school came in last.  The Samba Queen from the winning school was four months pregnant…a soon to be mom.

Maybe for next year we’ll just work on changing the norms through which women are viewed.

What do you think?

photo credit Times Online UK

With the notable first black Disney princess debuting 84 years after the first (in the Princess and the Frog, in Theaters December 11), I don’t doubt that the number of black dolls also falls well behind that of white dolls. 

So it’s understandable that, as the Wall Street Journal points out, “many black parents had high hopes when toy powerhouse Mattel, Inc. released So in Style, its first line of black dolls with wider noses, fuller lips, sharper cheekbones and a variety of skin shades.”

Remembering my childhood as an overweight, short, Jewish girl whose hair would frizz in under two seconds in the notorious St. Louis humidity, I had to laugh at the next comment:

The criticism over Mattel’s new black fashion dolls underscores how difficult it is for large commercial companies to please a widely diverse black community with a single image or two depicting young African-Americans.

It’s the same with intercultural communications, where people meet someone from Mexico or China or wherever, and assume that person can speak on behalf of his or her “People.”  At best it will create a biased perception of a culture, and at worst it will feed stereotypes and prejudice.  There are as many representations of a group as there are people in that group. 

But, back to Barbie.  All young anglo girls are not tall with long flowing locks and 22″ waists. 

Perhaps we can all agree on one universal, cross-cultural truism…there’s no such thing as a fat Barbie with unruly hair. 

May I call you sister?

p.s.  In my commitment to truth in journalism, I had to ‘Google’ Fat Barbie before publishing this.  I stand corrected.

Photo credit:  Dustcatchers.com

  Let me clarify two things upfront, before explaining my most recent revelation of unconscious bias:

• 1) Self-revelation of an unconscious bias is the best way to address it and overcome it. It’s like the old AA adage. You have to acknowledge there’s a problem first.
• 2) I was about to defend my use of the Yiddish word Shiksa, thinking it was non-pejorative, but in doing a quick search to confirm that I found out that, indeed, according to Princeton University’s “WordNet” it is “a derogatory term used by Jews to refer to non-Jewish women.” So, #2 is either a ‘never mind’ or an added lesson-beware of using words you have heard from another language if you don’t understand the full meaning/connotations of them. (Note that I don’t use it again, now that I know.)

Back to my revelation of my unconscious bias, since removed, against beautiful, tall skinny, women with long blonde hair. (Previously viewed as the opposite of short, weight challenged Jewish girls with frizzy, dark hair.)  It has happened twice in the past two weeks. 

The first was at a “Girls Night Out” wine tasting at a friend’s, where I ended up sitting next to my friend’s oldest friend who was…you guessed it, tall, skinny and blonde.  We got into a conversation about institutional inequities and unconscious bias (wonder who brought that up!) and it turns out she was raised by a single mom in a mostly African American neighborhood, and she was talking about how strange it was to go to family gatherings with her husband and his family, because of the lack of diversity and sense of entitlement that drove their orientation to life.  I’m sorry…what did you say?

The second was with a social worker at my son’s school.  Not only is she adorable, tall, skinny and blonde, but she has the cutest clothes you’ve ever seen.  “I bet she’s really sweet and won’t help my child,” I concluded at first glance.  Shame on you!  I found out in conversation that she’s an anthropologist, spent a year or more working in Zimbabwe, and applies this incredible depth and perspective to her work with children at the school.  So, now I want to be her best friend, but she probably won’t agree because I’m such an A-hole!

In relaying some of these conversations to my dad, he said “Did you say ‘You say such deep things for looking so shallow.” Well, it sounds kind of obvious when you put it that way.

I like to say that “practice makes perfect.”  And, in Intercultural Communications, the practice of empathic listening and speaking with “I” statements can drive interactions in ways that force you to confront unconscious bias.  And, while it’s uncomfortable at the moment of revelation, a new level of understanding, appreciation and opportunity follows.

Come on…don’t let me have all the fun.  Discover any unconscious biases of your own, lately?

Photo credit merwing

At first I declared I was dressed Brazilian, after deciding not to change my shirt in response to my 8 year old’s announcement that “I did not look good” in the Happy Halloween T-shirt I planned to wear to school as Room Parent today.  While he didn’t articulate it, I’ve gained a few pounds on my already buxom figure, so the T-shirt is a little more fitted than the last time I wore it.  It’s still really comfortable, completely suitable, but there’s no camouflaging the girls. 

When I first went to Brazil with my American self-consciousness years ago I thought women were exploited, given the bare and form exposing clothes popuralized in advertising and media.  Until I realized people are just more comfortable in their skin.  This is my body…so what?  So, I’m dressed as a self-confident Brazilian.  I like my T-shirt.  So what?

But then I stopped by Trader Joe’s this morning saw that one of the employees was dressed up as…AN ASIAN WOMAN…Eeeek!  I’m shocked! I’m aghast!  Isn’t that inapproprate?

Well, yes, it is inappropriate to “dress-up” as another culture.  It appropriates and essentializes others by turning ‘real people’ into shallow, stereotypic objects.  Even my 8 year old knew it would be racist to dress up as a “Native American” when we saw the costume, and both felt a little sick to our stomach’s at the sign for “Asian Acceccories” posted at another Halloween store.

But there was something notable about this young woman dressed as an Asian Person.  She was Asian!  At first I was confused, then smiled. Was she purposely making fun of the racism and stereotypes that the holiday brings out.  Or did she wake up this morning and think “oh crap, it’s Halloween and I need a costume,” and just go into her closet?  Is it a political statement?  Is she parodying herself?

So, for now, I’m going as a Jew (I’m Jewish).  And, since I’m still not changing my shirt, I guess I’m going as a Brazilian Jew. 

How about you?

Nancy Olson as Betsy Carlisle in 1961’s The Absent Minded Professor vs. Anna Faris as Sam Sparks in 2009’s Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs…We’ve come a long way, right?  Not really.

One of the joys of having kids (or borrowing other people’s kids) is for the excuse to indulge nostalgic yearnings by re-watching favorite childhood films.  My dad said I nearly fell off of my seat with laughter when the kids attacked the adults in  Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, and Bednobs and Broomsticks was an amazing early example of combining ‘real’ and animated characters. 

For Close Encounters of the Third Kind and the Absent Minded Professor, however I felt like I was suddenly looking through the special seeing stone from the Spiderwick Chronicles, where invisible lurking dangers that were always there suddenly became visible.  For example, there are NO scientists of color in Close Encounters, and the only women are there at the end, as they prepare to board the spaceship to the unknown, presumably as breeders (my hair stylist, who is the same demographic in terms of age-middle- and race-white, but who ran with a more racially mixed crowd as a teen said ”I know, my black friends never wanted to go the movies back then because of the lack of representation.”) 

In the Absent Minded Professor, the Professor (Fred MacMurray) is really a benign but inexcusable potato-head who is cared for alternately by the ’spinster’ until he finally gets married and is turned over to the ‘wife.’  The new wife literally gets up from taking stenography for the boss at her job and walks out to take on her role as wife.  She is always subservient to and/or caring for the male characters.

Swhooh, well, at least movies TODAY don’t teach such superficial, subliminal messages, right?

Wrong!

While Sam Sparks, the main female character in Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs, is given independence and a career, she is still subject to a two-dimensional dilemma:  Shall she be Pretty and Dumb, or Ugly and Smart?  While the film supposedly is trying to say “hey girls, it’s okay to be smart” it does it through a lens that equates appearance with ability. 

She starts by giggling self-consciously after saying anything remotely intelligent.  When hero Flint Lockwood asks why, she explains no one liked her when she was smart/ugly (as defined by wearing glasses and a scrunchy ponytail holder.)  Ultimately she chooses to go with smart and ‘ugly’, but one should have nothing to do with the other, and it never does for men!   (In this review by Todd Gilchrist on Cinematical, he says “Cloudy again teaches a valuable lesson to young girls about valuing themselves as intelligent people rather than just beautiful ones”–it’s a great review for it’s thoroughness, but why should a woman have to choose between intelligence and beauty?)

This probably would not surprise Doctor Maya Götz of the International Central Institute for Youth and Educational Television, whose 2008 study measured the representation of male and female characters in nearly twenty thousand children’s programs in 24 different countries.  According to Jocelyn Christie in her 1st installment of Kids TV Gender on kidscreen.com, the study showed that “in general, girls and women are often:

     * conventionally beautiful, underweight and sexualized

     * motivated by a romantic interest

     * shown as dependent on boys”

Does this mean we should go out and ban all movies until our children are 18?  Of course not.  But it does offer an opportunity to have a conversation with your child after the movie.  As in “did you like the movie? I liked the movie but I didn’t like that Sam had to choose between being smart or pretty–someone’s looks shouldn’t determine how smart they are.  What do you think?” 

What are your kids watching?  Are you talking about it? 

Photo credits Absent Minded Professor from movieposter.com, and Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs from slashfilm.

The exchange was very funny, all at Rich’s expense, of course.  I thought “I’m enjoying this because it’s not me,” which made me look at who was involved in the sparring:  It was all women…all women operating possibly under the cultural assumption that in our society, men are not sensitive about their weight.  Had this been a woman complaining she had gained 5 pounds, the only acceptable response from another American woman (or I can at least vouch for a Jewish-American woman) is “you can’t tell…you look great!”  Or “aggh, I know what you mean, I’ve gained 10!” followed by “you can’t tell…you look great!”

While this conversation worked here, it might not work in a cross-cultural situation.  In Brazil, for example, my initial deduction from visiting was that it’s okay to have group discussions about a person’s weight.  When my husband I first began visiting 20 years ago, his family members would actually debate about whether I had gained or lost weight from the previous visit.  Initially I was really hurt, and shared my feelings with my husband.  What I came to realize as I learned more about the culture, however, is that it had nothing to do with being insensitive (American interpretation) and it had everything to do with being really comfortable in their bodies, regardless of size (Brazilian interpretation).  That latter position is liberating, and a feeling that I like to adopt.   

At the end of the day, for rewarding connection with others in cross-cultural conversation, it’s important to remember:

1. Your own underlying cultural assumptions (e.g. in my culture you never publicly comment on a woman’s weight)
2. The cultural norms of the person with whom you are communicating (e.g. in Brazilian culture weight is just a matter of fact, and not thought of as something sensitive)
3. That personal experience may trump all (sentiments vary from individual to individual within a culture-helpful to watch and listen for cues if you don’t know someone well)
4. And that each exchange is a gift.  You can use the exchange as a moment of quiet personal learning as you recognize how your own cultural lens frames the conversation, or use it as a moment to share your experience and teach and learn about the difference.

p.s.  Rich, I’m sorry if I hurt your feelings!