People are made of color
There are plenty of perspectives on things in life. At first they all seem pretty shallow and simple – black and white to speak in terms of color – things are one way or another and that’s that.
Then we start to familiarize ourselves with these ways to look at life and we see the many shades of grey in-between. We see that there’s not simply just women or men in the world. There’s masculine women, feminine men and more. There’s not just extroverts and introverts either – there’s many variations in-between. Not just gay people or straight people but plenty of stops along the way.
So then we start to get a more rich look on life. It’s not just 0% or a 100%. Something can be 40% or 60%. So then we’re happy for a while that we understand the world and the people living in it. But then we see that those perspectives we have treated separately actually interacts with one another.
A thing in life is not just 40% that or 60% this. It’s both. The world is not just many shades of grey – the world is in color – it’s inhabited by people of the most crazy and beautiful tones of color. People that can’t be labeled by a simple perspective – that can’t be labeled by a simple number – that only can be labeled by the unique combinations of perspectives that make up their very own unique lives – their very own unique colors.
And that’s what’s so great about people. That people are complex individuals – not robots that’s all built alike. Rather than being possible to label in black and white we all bring our own rich perspectives to the situations that we are in.
This means people can’t be dealt with as simply “women” or “men”, “extroverts” or “introverts”, “gay” or “straight”. The only dignifying and respectful way to deal with a person is to recognize the true extent to which that person is made up of plenty of shades of plenty of perspectives – recognizing that they may not be very much like those others they at first might have looked a lot alike. By recognizing that we acknowledge them as true individuals. True individuals with truly individual needs and abilities. A person that has to be dealt with in its own unique way, with no quick fixes or shortcuts.
This to me is what equality and feminism is all about. Seeing people as the colorful selfs they are rather than as packages of black and white labels from which one can pick and choose and judge. Feminism and equality is all about you and me both recognizing each other as who we truly are – every day and every hour – trying to find the colors in a grey day-to-day world.
Equality, colors – rainbows, individuals – people are people and people are color – it’s important, it’s needed, it’s right.