Everyone knows about the “Barbie” movie and how it highlights a patriarchal society where men are often praised for simply being white men (especially if they are physically attractive.) while women have to work their asses off to get any kind of recognition, especially if they are women of color. Even with the Oscar nominations, Ryan Gosling was nominated for his part as Ken while Margot Robbie and Greta Gerwig were ignored by the academy voters, giving us a real-life example of one of the themes of the movie. While Ryan undoubtedly deserves his nomination, so do the other actors and the director of the movie.
This kind of stuff happens all the time in daily life. I work at a mental health clinic as a psychologist. At my work, we had a staff meeting where a supervisor was asked how many people we served in our clinic. What was funny is that the lead psychiatrist had no idea. She guessed about 500. I was infuriated because I had learned in my review that I had seen 2000 patients in the past year alone. A couple of people were surprised I had seen that many people but most said nothing. Then another supervisor made a half-hearted attempt at praising therapists for being so “strong” to make us feel better about being worked to death. A young male white therapist said he too had seen 2000 patients the past year and everybody began to sing his praises in the meeting. How wonderful he was, what a great job he did, what a great group he did, etc. I didn’t say anything because well, what could I say? What could I say that would not make me look like an asshole? While again, my male colleague does deserve praise and support for his work, so do I.
Percolations 