In the early 1970s it was routine for boys at Astoria Junior and Senior High Schools to snap or grab and pull women's bra straps. When I went to the University of Idaho in the fall of 1975, about half of the runners on the cross country team got in the habit of squeezing young women's bottoms when we ran past. It got to the point that women would back up against trees when they saw the University of Idaho cross country team coming. Then someone complained to someone at the university, and our coach said to knock it off. There was no punishment or lectures.
I didn't participate in the harassment, but neither did I confront anyone who did. My point is, the whole thing was viewed by we young men as routine.
Now the routine is being confronted, head on. Men across the political and cultural spectrum are at last being called out for behavior that leaves women feeling humiliated--or worse. We may be seeing hundreds if not thousands of resignations coming. Men have been getting a pass for this sort of behavior for a long time.
Perhaps the time has come when most men will accept this idea with all of its implications: women are people.
Tuesday, November 21, 2017
Wednesday, November 15, 2017
Narrative4 Story Sharing and Radical Empathy
About three weeks ago I took a workshop at Portland State on Narrative4 Story Sharing and then tried it out with my Freshman Inquiry class. What a blast!
Narrative4 is an organization that promotes shared story telling as a way of achieving deep empathy with others, particularly those with quite different experiences or beliefs.
The format is simple but profound. Participants after getting a brief introduction pair up and share a meaningful story with each other. The goal of the listener is to listen closely and to ask questions only if confused. Then the pairs return to a circle of a dozen or so people, and people share and listen to each others' stories. The tellers relate that they feel like they have stepped into someone else's life. Those whose stories are being told are able to examine the story from a different perspective. At the end, the members of each pair tell each other their hopes for each other.
I was paired with a friend whom I have long had great respect for, and her story took me much deeper into her life and how she views herself. In my class, we were blown away by the bravery and intensity of the stories, how people we thought we knew had such deep and powerful experiences. It brought people from diverse ethnic and backgrounds together and radically deepened my regard for the class members, as I now have such a deeper appreciation for who they are and what they have been through.
Narrative4 is an organization that promotes shared story telling as a way of achieving deep empathy with others, particularly those with quite different experiences or beliefs.
The format is simple but profound. Participants after getting a brief introduction pair up and share a meaningful story with each other. The goal of the listener is to listen closely and to ask questions only if confused. Then the pairs return to a circle of a dozen or so people, and people share and listen to each others' stories. The tellers relate that they feel like they have stepped into someone else's life. Those whose stories are being told are able to examine the story from a different perspective. At the end, the members of each pair tell each other their hopes for each other.
I was paired with a friend whom I have long had great respect for, and her story took me much deeper into her life and how she views herself. In my class, we were blown away by the bravery and intensity of the stories, how people we thought we knew had such deep and powerful experiences. It brought people from diverse ethnic and backgrounds together and radically deepened my regard for the class members, as I now have such a deeper appreciation for who they are and what they have been through.
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