Face-to-face

I’m a white American girl bossing around dozens of black African men.  I receive more as a living allowance during this mission than most of my staff earn as a salary to support their families.  There’s a big cultural gap between us.  Skin color, language, nationality, socio-economic status, education.  You have to dig pretty deep to find a greatest common factor (humans alive in 2014?).

I remind myself of this as I’m struggling with the injustice of having to tone down my management style because I’m a woman.  It’s not fair that I have to be nicer and softer and more indirect than everyone else because it’s a little bit hard to stomach that I don’t have a penis.

How ridiculous is that?

Not ‘poor little me fighting on the frontlines of feminism,’ but the ridiculousness of caring about equal treatment for women in the face of racism, poverty, underdevelopment, malnutrition, and an entire population that is dying of a disease that was eradicated from the developed world a century ago.

But is it still valid?  A valid point, a valid argument, and a valid fight do not become less valid because of gross injustices that appear next to it.  Right?  But you have to pick your battles; choose which hill to die on.  Which is it?

I’m here fighting against malaria, which is the leading killer of children under 5.  But I’m surrounded by inequality, lack of opportunity, racism, poverty, and ignorance.  It’s exhausting to stick to your values and continue to operate according to a creed or code that you carefully built over decades of experience in a first-world country (or countries, even).  I’d even hazard that it’s impossible to not compromise.  And that’s a bit hard on the mind.  I have to accept that I’m a second-class citizen if I’m going to prevent children from dying of malaria.  But those girls that survive childhood malaria will then grow up as second-class citizens.  Which is not ok.  But you have to fight the enemy in front of you, and first you save that child.  Then you give that child a blanket.  Then maybe someone else will dig a well for that child to prevent her from walking miles to get water every day of her life.

Maybe the ad campaign spam message that the phone company sent to everyone in the country, saying “educate girls!” will have an effect.  At least for one daughter, one child somewhere.

And maybe in 20 years, that daughter saved from malaria today will be a first-class citizen, just like her brother.

But I’m still struggling on if and how I can back down from being too aggressively masculine for all of my colleagues.  Sorry if this woman has teeth.