(April 12, 2018 at 10:23 am)Whateverist Wrote: I wonder if there is anyone on these forums who doesn't sometimes feel stereotyped by one of their demographics or another. I imagine every theist here feels dismissed or at least not fully and fairly appreciated at least some of the time. The same is probably true for homosexuals, transexuals and asexuals. Race of course can have that effect, as can differences in physical and mental capacity. Women must feel that whenever discussions about what to do about their uterus start up again. Conservatards would probably feel this way too if they had feelings. Gun nutters probably feel terribly misunderstood.
For me, more and more, I feel age to be the thing that gets me sorted into a particular box. Funny how that works. Because with any luck all of us here will get to experience being older. But it is a oneway mirror. When you get older, you still remember the way older people felt different when you were younger. But you don't feel much different from the inside. I suspect that must be the case across the other demographics too, except we won't all inevitably transition through being female, black, homosexual or liberal just by virtue of not dying.
For the most part, I treat age with the respect it deserves. I sometimes use old as an epithet when someone's pissed me off, but I look forward to having a dignified old age. (At least dignified when I'm not shitting myself.) We watched a movie called "Leisure Seekers" last night. A fantastic look at old age and dignity. I left crying.
Being a woman has been the thing that's made me feel marginalized the most. My ex used to say to me whenever I dared to tell him how I really felt, "You have a mouth like a man. If you were a man, I'd punch you in it." It was one of his favorite things to say, to which I would reply, "If you were a man, I'd expect you to." Of course, that meant nothing, but got his macho ego all fired up.
