New:
1. Green Grass, Running Water by Thomas King
Reread:
1. Witness in Death
Saturday, November 30, 2019
Sunday, November 24, 2019
Another option for Captain Awkward #1237
From Captain Awkward:
In addition to Captain Awkward's idea (which are definitely worth reading - a lot of interesting food for thought about what happens when etiquette no longer serves us well), I have another script suggestion:
"Let's not do gifts any more."
You might cite reasons like "We're all adults now, we can all buy whatever we want for ourselves just as easily as we can buy things for each other. We all know what we ourselves have and need, whereas we can't see what the others have or need."
If your mother is going to be disappointed by the thought of her children not exchanging gifts, you can add something about "What's really important is being together."
(If you want to keep exchanging gifts with your mother, your initial script can be "Let's not do gifts among siblings.")
This approach will achieve several things:
Basically, the worse your siblings' intentions, the more this approach punishes them, whereas the better their intentions, the more this approach unburdens them. And all while requiring no effort whatsoever from you!
Hi!
I am 28, she/her. My sister in law (“A”) is also 28 and my brother (“D”) is 31.
I have a question about gift etiquette.
Last year on my birthday, A and D gave me a bunch of used DVDs. They got me slightly damaged copies of a couple movies and every season of a TV show my parents liked in the 90’s that I have never expressed any interest in. They wrapped each one individually so they could watch me unwrap them and giggle. I got the joke – this is a terrible gift! Hahaha – but I wasn’t included in the joke. With each one I opened, I got more confused, which seemed to make it even more funny for them.
That Christmas, they did it again, and this time they did it to my parents as well. They got me individual seasons of a TV show that is available in its entirety on Netflix and that I have had conversations about with them in the past where I said I did not like the show. They got my parents copies of DVDs they already owned. All of these were slightly beat up from being previously owned. They giggled and said things like “That’s an important one” and “Better get on watching that soon” the whole time.
My parents pretended to like them the whole time, but as A and D had already done this on my birthday, I finally got frustrated and refused to open more presents from them, because they just kept coming. We all take turns opening gifts and every time it was my turn, it was another used DVD.
Meanwhile, I work very hard on gifts. Last year I got A, a notorious anglophile, a certificate to a years subscription to a service that gets a ton of different British TV shows she had been wanting to watch but hadn’t been able to get access to. I nestled the certificate in a box of fortune cookie fortunes I had collected throughout the year (she collects these and plans to cover a table with them someday). For D I spent months searching for a sweater that had the Coca Cola logo on it. (He loves Coke. He once wrote an essay on its history for a college history class.) These were in addition to other things – games they didn’t have (they love board games) and nice teas (they enjoy tea). I spent ages trying to find thoughtful gifts and then I wrapped each one in nice paper that’s in their favorite colors.
The Christmas before last they didn’t get me a joke gift. They got me a “gummy candy maker.” It was essentially brightly colored silicone molds and unbranded Jello to put in them. It was obviously a children’s toy, and when I opened it, it was sticky from being previously owned. I pretended to be interested and thanked them, which made them smirk at each other. They also gave me a wine-scented candle. It was branded as being from a winery A’s parents had gone to a month or two prior. (Meaning I think they regifted it.)
So they have always given gifts like this, last year was just kind of a new level.
After they left last Christmas, my mom pulled me aside and was like, “Do you know what was going on with all the used DVDs?”
I said, “I think they just thought it was funny.” She seemed a bit crestfallen. She gives gifts similar to mine. She had gotten A a rare kind of tea set.
Furthermore, I don’t think A used the gift certificate and I know D got rid of the sweater because this year Mom said we should take a family photo wearing goofy sweaters and D said he didn’t have one. I said, “What about the one I gave you last Christmas?” He said “Oh, right. I might still have that.”
This is not a money thing – they both make more money than I do and buy nice, new things for themselves regularly. They’re just giving me joke gifts and doubling down when my feelings are hurt. I guess they just don’t like the gifts I give them.
I don’t mean to seem like I’m bragging about being super great at giving gifts or I’m entitled to lots of cool presents. I only meant that I try to put a lot of thought into their gifts and save up for them for a long time. They take a long time to think of and pull off. And A and D get cheap gifts at the last second. I would rather they didn’t get me anything at all.
My question is, what is the etiquette for receiving gifts that hurt my feelings? Do I have to keep pretending they don’t? What should I feel about trying really hard to get them things they like and having them openly dislike them? I want to just get them Amazon gift cards this year, but if they decide to get me non-joke presents this year I’ll just look like an asshole. I don’t know what to do or say.
Sorry this is so long. Thank you in advance.
In addition to Captain Awkward's idea (which are definitely worth reading - a lot of interesting food for thought about what happens when etiquette no longer serves us well), I have another script suggestion:
"Let's not do gifts any more."
You might cite reasons like "We're all adults now, we can all buy whatever we want for ourselves just as easily as we can buy things for each other. We all know what we ourselves have and need, whereas we can't see what the others have or need."
If your mother is going to be disappointed by the thought of her children not exchanging gifts, you can add something about "What's really important is being together."
(If you want to keep exchanging gifts with your mother, your initial script can be "Let's not do gifts among siblings.")
This approach will achieve several things:
- If your siblings dislike the gifts you give them, this will free them from that burden!
- If your siblings like your thoughtful gifts, this will deprive them of that pleasure!
- If your siblings struggle to find an appropriate gift for you, this will free them from that burden!
- If your siblings enjoy watching your discomfort as you open an unsuitable gift, this will deprive them of that pleasure!
Basically, the worse your siblings' intentions, the more this approach punishes them, whereas the better their intentions, the more this approach unburdens them. And all while requiring no effort whatsoever from you!
Saturday, November 09, 2019
Not blogathoning this year
Traditionally, I blogathon on Remembrance Day.
However, this year's goal is to eliminate things that don't serve me well, and blogathoning would not serve me well in the current context.
I do have a quite a few posts half drafted and they will come along in due course, it's just spending an entire day on it that would be unhelpful.
However, this year's goal is to eliminate things that don't serve me well, and blogathoning would not serve me well in the current context.
I do have a quite a few posts half drafted and they will come along in due course, it's just spending an entire day on it that would be unhelpful.
Tuesday, November 05, 2019
Why is there a "gender" field in Elections Canada's voter registration?
You can use Elections Canada's Voter Registration Service to see if you're registered to vote.
You enter your name, date of birth, gender and address, and it tells you if there's an entry on the voters list that matches those criteria.
My question: why is gender one of the criteria?
It's obvious why they ask for your name.
Your address is relevant because it confirms the riding you're eligible to vote in and the poll you should vote at.
Date of birth confirms that you're old enough to vote. It can also help distinguish you from other people at the same address who share the same name (given that it's not uncommon for parents and children to live together and that it's not uncommon for children to be named after their parents). Also, historically (with the existence of the phone book) it's been fairly simple to find out a person's address, but less easy (or, at least, requiring some degree of acquaintanceship) to find out their date of birth. Added to that, date of birth is a data point that doesn't change. You can change your name, you can change your address, you can change the gender marker that appears on your ID and personal records, but your date of birth stays the same.
But gender doesn't add much to proving or confirming someone's identity.
Because so many given names are most commonly associated with one gender, it's not terribly likely that the gender marker would help differentiate you from other people with the same name. It can happen that people with different genders have the exact same name, but it's not nearly as robust a factor as address or date of birth.
And, because so many given names are gendered, it's not a workable factor for authenticating your identity either. A malicious actor (or a bot programmed with data scraped from baby name sites) would probably be able to guess the gender of the majority of people on the voters list.
On top of the fact that using gender as an identity factor adds little to no value, it also creates a situation where any negative impact is felt strictly by the most marginalized demographic.
People who continue to use the gender they were assigned at birth will have no problems whatsoever with choosing the same gender as appears on the voters list, or with having their gender as it appears on the list match the gender that appears on their ID.
But people whose gender marker on their official documentation has changed may find that their previous gender marker is still on the voters list, which would mean the online system says they're not registered to vote when in fact they are. Or it could cause problem at the polling station, when the gender indicated on the list doesn't match the gender indicated on their ID, or the poll worker's perception of the voter's external appearance.
At a minimum, the presence of a "gender" field on the voters list creates the possibility of extra red tape for transgender voters, non-binary voters, and any other voters whose gender marker has changed at some point in their lives. Worst case, it could prevent these populations from being able to vote.
But it would have no possible impact on people whose gender identity and gender marker align with what they were assigned at birth.
Since we still live in a world where non-cis people are all too often marginalized, this means any negative impacts of having a "gender" field land squarely on the marginalized group.
Elections Canada does deserve credit for introducing a "Gender X" option on the voters list. But I do encourage them to look critically at whether they need to be including gender at all. Does it actually add any value? And is that value worth the burden that it places squarely on the marginalized group?
You enter your name, date of birth, gender and address, and it tells you if there's an entry on the voters list that matches those criteria.
My question: why is gender one of the criteria?
It's obvious why they ask for your name.
Your address is relevant because it confirms the riding you're eligible to vote in and the poll you should vote at.
Date of birth confirms that you're old enough to vote. It can also help distinguish you from other people at the same address who share the same name (given that it's not uncommon for parents and children to live together and that it's not uncommon for children to be named after their parents). Also, historically (with the existence of the phone book) it's been fairly simple to find out a person's address, but less easy (or, at least, requiring some degree of acquaintanceship) to find out their date of birth. Added to that, date of birth is a data point that doesn't change. You can change your name, you can change your address, you can change the gender marker that appears on your ID and personal records, but your date of birth stays the same.
But gender doesn't add much to proving or confirming someone's identity.
Because so many given names are most commonly associated with one gender, it's not terribly likely that the gender marker would help differentiate you from other people with the same name. It can happen that people with different genders have the exact same name, but it's not nearly as robust a factor as address or date of birth.
And, because so many given names are gendered, it's not a workable factor for authenticating your identity either. A malicious actor (or a bot programmed with data scraped from baby name sites) would probably be able to guess the gender of the majority of people on the voters list.
On top of the fact that using gender as an identity factor adds little to no value, it also creates a situation where any negative impact is felt strictly by the most marginalized demographic.
People who continue to use the gender they were assigned at birth will have no problems whatsoever with choosing the same gender as appears on the voters list, or with having their gender as it appears on the list match the gender that appears on their ID.
But people whose gender marker on their official documentation has changed may find that their previous gender marker is still on the voters list, which would mean the online system says they're not registered to vote when in fact they are. Or it could cause problem at the polling station, when the gender indicated on the list doesn't match the gender indicated on their ID, or the poll worker's perception of the voter's external appearance.
At a minimum, the presence of a "gender" field on the voters list creates the possibility of extra red tape for transgender voters, non-binary voters, and any other voters whose gender marker has changed at some point in their lives. Worst case, it could prevent these populations from being able to vote.
But it would have no possible impact on people whose gender identity and gender marker align with what they were assigned at birth.
Since we still live in a world where non-cis people are all too often marginalized, this means any negative impacts of having a "gender" field land squarely on the marginalized group.
Elections Canada does deserve credit for introducing a "Gender X" option on the voters list. But I do encourage them to look critically at whether they need to be including gender at all. Does it actually add any value? And is that value worth the burden that it places squarely on the marginalized group?
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