Shifting Diversity

More than once, as of late, I've been sitting in a room and suddenly realized, not only is the room around me incredibly diverse, but I am just as diverse as my surroundings. I know, I know, I don't look like it. Trust me, I get that all the time. At my job, I am the only Caucasian person in my department.  And I was told once, not in so many words, that given that, they didn't expect me to "be the way [I am.]"  It is true, I am very very white. And as far back as you go in my history, you won't find anything else. But in this world, "diversity" can involve so much more than race.

Last week, Mimi and I had St. Patrick's Day dinner at P.F. Chang's (not even kinda Irish, but what can you do!).  Dinner was wonderful, by the way, but I am a chronic people watcher and I couldn't help but look around.  In our little area, there were a half dozen combinations of people.  Immediately to our right was the 100% typical nuclear family-- white mother, white father, one son, one daughter. But to our left was a couple (clearly newly dating), black female, probably early 20's, white male, early 30's.  Across from us, Arabic male, white female, beautiful mixed child-- all speaking Spanish. Across from them a young black man and his (probably) Hispanic girlfriend.  And then of course there's us.  White female, Asian female.  If you want to dig deeper, we both have dual citizenship in other countries- for me, Canada, for her, Turkey. She's half-Korean, half-white, and oh yeah, I mean, we're gay, if that counts.  And in those things we are both different from each other and different than our surroundings and that makes us diverse as well.

And more to the point-- it gives me hope. Being an abomination myself, it gives me hope that what was considered just as abominable-- an interracial couple seated at the same table, even more, an interracial couple having children-- not that long ago is now commonplace at P.F. Chang's on a Saturday night.  And we're there too, maybe a little more secret than the other "different" couples, but we're there. And someday soon our waitress will look at us the same she does the others- like nothing's different.  Even though it's all different. We're all different.  And despite the cheesiness of the sentiment- that's what makes the world go round.

Let Me Get This Straight

First, I would like to apologize, this is far more political then I generally let this blog go. Second, this has nothing to do with me and Mimi-- except, it does.

As a non-heterosexual female, I generally stay away from issues of birth control, abortion, and the like.  I don't figure it's very fair-- my odds of an accidental pregnancy are... well I just don't figure I have a lot of room to cast a vote.(Once in a social entrepreneurship class in college, during a conversation on the morality of abortion the one non-female person in our class tried to defend a strictly pro-life argument... he was quickly informed he was not allowed to weigh-in on that particular discussion.)  The point is: I don't feel it's fair to weigh in on a situation I could never be in. And I stand by that.

But that's not the point.  I looked up the info on the Planned Parenthood website because of all the hullabaloo that's been going on lately across the country.  I've read the tweets (@PPact) and followed the stories, but I wanted to see how the #s play out.  This is what I see for 2010:

Service Breakdown:

• 38%    - STI/STD testing and treatment
• 33.5% - Contraception
• 14.5% - Cancer Screening and Prevention
• 10.4% - Other Women's Health Services
• 3%      - Abortions
• 0.6%   - Other Services

From my understanding, the argument/defense of the Republicans fighting to end funding for Planned Parenthood (and other family planning services) is that they are not making birth control (or other services) illegal, they're just making people pay for them on their own... hmmm... on their own.  Is this with the health care that (those same) Republicans are trying to take away my access to? So as a young female, early in her career, who may/may not have access to good health care I'm supposed to... what? 

We're not talking about selfish services here.  STI/STD prevention/treatment has a distinctly positive effect on a large-scale. Contraception gives us as a society, and specifically women, the chance to chose when we are or are not ready to bring life into the world-- again, a distinctly positive impact on a society that cannot afford to have more mouths to feed than food to feed them.  Breast cancer screenings... they have nothing to do with sex.  Nothing to do with anything anyone could dare cast a moral judgment on and yet we are so quick to deny care.

We can't have it both ways.  We can't spend day in and day out pushing the vital, undeniable importance of the nuclear family and then toss women to the curb and hope they survive.  I've realized in these last few months that the entirety of the women's health debate is so much bigger than sex.  This is so much more than abortion.  This is about priorities.  It has been proven in study after study, where women go their families go.  And now the same party that has fought for "perfect" families, is fighting to cut funding for women's health, and further to make it harder for any of us- male or female- to have access to the health care we need to pay for those services for ourselves.

I just don't get it.  The entire matter ridiculous- but they're doing it.  They're winning. States are agreeing to cut funds, and casting their vote that women aren't all that important.  I disagree.  We are important.  And I shudder to think what the impact will be on us as a society, male and female, if they are successful.  Less screenings means more stds; less birth control means more ill-timed pregnancies; less care means more preventable deaths. Personally, even though not all of those services apply to me- they're worth my tax dollars. Are they worth yours?