You’re an adult, right? As an adult, you’ve had certain experiences, and from those experiences you’ve drawn certain conclusions. So people who have experienced similar circumstances should see things they way you do. And if they don’t, they’re wrong. Right? Wrong!
The second form of dumb thinking I’m writing about is projecting one’s experience and views on others. It is the expectation that people in similar situations to your own ought to see things as you do.
However, different people come from different upbringings. Different people have different experiences that affect how they experience new situations. And finally, different people are just plain different – they have different personality traits. This causes them to, well, be different.
Homemakers vs. Career Women
An example of this that comes up in the media every few years is the so-called “proper role of women. " That is, do women belong in the home, or in the workplace?
The stereotype of the 1950s was that the role of women was to stay at home to be mothers and homemakers. If a woman went to college, it was to find a college-educated man to marry. The only acceptable careers for women (according to the stereotype anyway) were teaching and nursing.
But some women did not find the home life fulfilling. Some longed for the stimulation of adult companionship during the day, a need not satisfied with knitting circles with other women. To some women, the role of homemaker felt more like a prison.
During the 1970s the women’s liberation movement cast off the shackles of housewife-hood and promoted the image of career woman. From the 1970s into the 1990s, women were supposed to have it all – husband, children, and career – and love it. Women that did not have paid employment outside the home were viewed as old-fashioned -- behind the times.
But in recent years there has been a backlash. If what the media says is to be believed, more women than before are rejecting the workplace to become full time home-makers and moms. On TV talk shows, new homemakers accuse career women of being selfish and neglectful of their children and husbands. On the others feminists see the new homemakers as representing a step backward for their cause, as if providing women with fewer options means more freedom for women, not less.
Folks, not all women are the same. Some women are completely fulfilled by devoting themselves to their children and the immediate needs of their family. Other women crave adult company during the day, enjoy the challenges provided in the workplace, or gain satisfaction that they are making a positive contribution to the world within in the career they have chosen. Other women would like to raise their children full time, but sincerely believe that they are best serving their families by bringing home a paycheck.
Why must women be negatively judged because their individual path to fulfillment differs from that of someone else?
Gay Recovery
Another heated area where people project is the “gay recovery” controversy. For gay rights and anti-gay rights activist, this is a political powder keg. If homosexuality is a natural, innate state, then conservatives who are uncomfortable with homosexuality must learn to accept gays and lesbians and their personal lives as they except other people to accept their own. But if homosexuality is a condition that can be “cured,” then it may mean the end of gay and lesbian culture, as homosexuality again becomes a condition to be treated. Both gay activists and anti-gay activists have much to lose if either position is proven true.
For these reasons, there is a lot of flack going back and forth between the two sides. I even found a web site for “
ex-ex-gays!”
But both positions assume that that everyone who is gay or lesbian is gay or lesbian for the same reasons. The cause or causes of homosexuality have never been conclusively shown. Also, this is America! Can we not respect the personal preferences and choices or our neighbors? Data also shows that a number of people are bisexual to a certain degree. A person who is bisexual may very well be in a gay relationship at one point in life, and be married to a member of the opposite sex later in life. They may be successfully establish a relationship with the opposite sex the same way a man that likes a variety of female body types may be married and willing give up sex with different kinds of women. Other people may be 100 percent innately gay. To shoehorn them into heterosexual relationships serves the interests of no one. The fact that some gays appear to “change,” or than others cannot does not mean that all gay and lesbians would have the same experience. Everyone is an individual. So both sides should stop projecting their own experiences onto others, and respect others for the life choices they make for themselves.
