Saturday, October 16, 2010

Non-extraordinariness

From Miss Conduct's National Coming Out Day post:

It is the person who is making the extraordinary claim who needs to produce extraordinary evidence. I’m not going to pretend that the claim of gay equality is the extraordinary one anymore. Those who deny it are the ones who are making the extraordinary claims, not me. They are the ones who have to explain themselves.


When I read this, I realized this is something people tend to do, socially. We tend to pretend something that does not apply to the majority, or does not apply to the dominant demographic, or does not apply to the loudest people in the room, is somehow extraordinary, and therefore needs to be explained or defended or justified.

And that's simply not true. Even if something does not apply to the majority - even if something is outright uncommon - that doesn't make it extraordinary, it doesn't make it something that needs to be explained or defended or justified. I don't know how we fell into the habit of presumably coddling/mollifying the majority/the dominant demographic/the loudest people in the room by doing this, but it's really unnecessary and debases us all.

Analogy: I have green eyes. The majority of people do not have green eyes. But that doesn't make my eye colour extraordinary. It's a perfectly ordinary eye colour. If I were going to get my makeup done professionally, I wouldn't have to call ahead and warn them that I have green eyes and ask if they can accommodate that, and I wouldn't have to settle with a makeup job more appropriate to someone with blue eyes. Green eyes are unusual - according to the first page of google results, they occur in only 2% of the world's population - and I may well end up being the only green-eyed person the makeup artist sees that day, but it's well within the range of Things That Might Happen. It's by no means extraordinary, and it would debase us all if we were to start pretending it is.

This is actually something my instincts have been leading me to for quite a while. I blogged before about my tendency not to mark the feminine. What I was really saying was that being female is not extraordinary, and by not marking it I am choosing not to pretend that it is.

I once blogged about this quote from Tabatha Southey:

"Saying, "I'm a feminist," is almost like saying, "I have no problem with Pakistanis" - we're all just going to assume that one, okay? Unless you say otherwise."


What I really meant when I blogged about it was that being feminist or not having a problem with Pakitanis (or being Pakistani) is not extraordinary, and it does us no service to pretend that it is.

I've blogged several times about my own use of upspeak - how it has a purpose, how I'm not going to not use it and how my choice to use my own natural dialect is in fact a sign of security. What I'm really saying is that talking like (and being) a woman under 40 is not extraordinary, and it does us no service to pretend that it is so extraordinary we need to suppress and/or apologize for our demographic markers.

The Globe and Mail recently had an extended feature that they framed as a "discussion" about immigration, and I found it irritating for reasons I couldn't articulate at the time. Turns out the reason I found it irritating is because they were framing immigration as something extraordinary that needs to be explained and defended and justified.

Belonging to a religion or no religion is not extraordinary. Having a child or wanting a child or being childfree is not extraordinary. Having dietary restrictions is not extraordinary. Wearing what you choose to is not extraordinary. Having a same-sex spouse or an opposite-sex spouse or no spouse or a partner whom you deliberately do not call a spouse or any variation on "it's complicated" is not extraordinary. Being young or old or anywhere in between is not extraordinary. Having been born somewhere else or choosing to move somewhere else or staying in the same place all your life are not extraordinary.

None of these things are any more extraordinary than my green eyes (and, indeed, most of them are, statistically, less extraordinary than my green eyes). They do not need to be explained, defended, or justified. We simply need to be aware of and prepared for the fact that they're part of the reality we inhabit, just like how makeup artists have eyeshadow colours suitable for green eyes in their palette.

1 comment:

laura k said...

I hate that people find ordinary life choices extraordinary.

My mother and my sister see me that way. I hate it.