Monthly Archives: October 2013

How to talk to foreigners

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With so many people I meet, one of our early (if not first) conversations tends to go a bit like this:

They: So where are you from?

Me: The short answer is Europe.

They: But really, where are you from?

Me: *sigh* Born in Bulgaria, legally Austrian, have spent most of my life in the UK now but also lived in other places in Europe. European.

They then proceed to tell me about every Austrian they’ve ever met, and/or that one time they went skiing in Bulgaria, and what they thought of it. If they can’t think of anything to say about Austria and/or Bulgaria in particular, they start fishing around for anything to do with Eastern Europe and/or Germany. “Oh, I met a girl from Romania once…” On a really bad day, Austria or Bulgaria will have been in the news for something. “Oh, isn’t it awful about that Austrian guy keeping his daughter in a basement for years and raping her?”

Then there are some of my favourite/particularly weird variations. There are the Austrian expats who latch on to the “legally Austrian” part and interpret it as “Austrian”. There’s a reason I use “legally” as a qualifyer. We probably don’t have a lot of Austrianness in common. There was also the Austrian in Austria who’d been told by the person who introduced us (who should have known better) that I was “from Bulgaria”. She then proceeded to tell me at great length about her business trips to Bulgaria, completely ignoring the fact that actually I’d been living in the UK for well over a decade at that point and hadn’t been to Bulgaria in about 4 years.

On the rare occasion when I do stick to “European” and refuse to explain further, I also get some interesting comments. Most recently, it was something along the lines of “I wonder if in the future we’ll all say we’re European.” Well, I guess if in the future everyone has a set of life experiences that shape their identity in this particular way, then we will.
What’s perhaps worse is that most of the people I have these interactions with tend to be nice, fluffy, generally left-leaning types. None of them are EDL or BNP supporters, or even UKIP or Tory voters.

I totally get what people are trying to do: they’re trying to keep the conversation going and they’re trying to establish rapport by finding something they have in common with me. That’s how smalltalk works and that’s why it’s so often ghastly – you’re extrapolating from tiny pieces of information to try and build a connection with someone. What these comments actually achieve is basically a microaggression. Let me give you some examples of how some of them translate in my head:

“I went to Bulgaria on holiday once. It was lovely/grey/strange/I don’t remember much of it.” – “I think of one of the complex places that has shaped your identity solely as a holiday destination. My opinion of it is important.”

“Oh, I work with lots of Austrians. They are lovely/not German/German.” – “I am sure you are just as lovely/German/not German as all these other Austrians I’ve had brief interactions with. My opinion of Austrians is important.”

“I met a girl from Romania once. She was lovely/strange/Eastern European.” – “My knowledge of Eastern European geography, politics and culture is non-existent. My opinions on the subject are important.”

“Oh, isn’t [inevitably misreported newsworthy event in Austria/Bulgaria/Eastern Europe/Germany] awful/interesting/strange?” – “I vaguely pay attention to mainstream media and form all my opinions of things I know nothing about based on that. My opinions are important.”

“Oh, you’re Austrian/Bulgarian!” – “I asked you a question and couldn’t be bothered to listen to the answer.”

“Oh, aren’t we all European?” – “I cannot conceive of the set of life experiences that have shaped your identity and I think you’re just saying this for the attention. My opinion is important.”

Congratulations, you’ve just killed any rapport you may have been trying to establish. If you’re lucky, I will nod and smile at you inanely and move the conversation on – or go talk to someone else. On a bad day, I may decide to subject you to some of my opinions of your country. They have been formed over the course of a decade and a half of living, studying and working here. Your media is racist. Your housing stock and transport infrastructure would have greatly benefited from being flattened in the Second World War and rebuilt from scratch. What on earth made you think it was a good idea to have carpet in your bathroom? And while we’re on bathrooms, seriously, have you not heard of mixer taps? Other foreign inventions you may wish to consider include salad dressing, proportional representation, and Leibniz’s notation.

If you want to save yourself that conversation here are some ideas. If my origin story is really something you wish to pursue in conversation, there is no shame in admitting that you know very little about Austria or Bulgaria or other places where I’ve lived. “You know what? I’ve only been there on holiday. What’s it really like?” is a perfectly good conversation starter. “You’re European? What kind of experiences led you to identify that way?” is not half bad. “Legally Austrian, you say? What’s the story there?” That’ll do. “That’s cool. I’m from this tiny village in Wales and this is what things are like where I come from.” That’s pretty interesting, and might highlight points of difference that we can bond over much more successfully than an imagined shared experience of parts of Europe you know nothing about. If in doubt, move the conversation on. We can talk about your job, your hobbies, my hobbies, how we’ve both found ourselves at this event and what we think of it – plenty of options there.
Extrapolating and trying to find points of commonality is how smalltalk works. But maybe we should move beyond smalltalk. We might all learn something from the experience.

[#ALD13] The final frontier

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It sneaks up on you, Ada Lovelace Day. I’ve written about a variety of women as part of this over the years: Eve, Lise Meitner, Caroline Herschel, and my mother. This year, I want to take us slightly further afield – I want to take us to space.

Valentina Tereshkova

Valentina Vladimirovna Tereshkova left school at 16, and then switched to evening classes so she could work during the day. By her early 20s, she was a textile worker in a local factory and an amateur skydiver. It was her expertise in skydiving that eventually led to her selection for the USSR’s female cosmonaut corps. Between February and November 1962, Tereshkova and her four colleagues underwent extensive tests and training, and four of the women eventually passed and were inducted into the Soviet Air Force.

Only two years after Yuri Gagarin, the first man in space, on June 16th 1963, Valentina Tereshkova became the first woman to fly into space, piloting Vostok 6. She was 26 years old. She orbited the Earth 48 times and was in space for nearly 3 days, logging more flight hours than all US astronauts up to that point combined. During her flight, Tereshkova gathered important data on the effects of spaceflight on the female body, took pictures of Earth, and passed within 5km of another spacecraft, Vostok 5.

After her spaceflight, Valentina Tereshkova took the opportunity to continue her education. She studied engineering and by 1977 obtained a doctorate. She became an instructor and test pilot and later a research scientists. She also entered politics and currently serves in the Russian State Duma.

Sally Ride

Sally Kristen Ride didn’t join NASA until the age of 32. Before that, she obtained a bachelor’s degree in English and physics, as well as a master’s and a PhD in Physics, all from Stanford. Her career at NASA was varied: she was the capsule communicator for two early space shuttle flights, and helped develop the shuttle’s robot arm.

On June 18th 1983, almost exactly twenty years after Tereshkova, Sally Ride became the first American woman to fly into space. She was a member of the 5-person crew of the seventh space shuttle mission, on board the Challenger. As part of the mission, Ride used the robot arm to retrieve a satellite.

Unlike Tereshkova, Ride flew again, in 1984, though after the Challenger disaster in 1986 her career took a different turn, and she led NASA’s strategic planning effort. After she left NASA in 1987, Ride became a professor of physics at the University of California, San Diego, and later led two NASA public outreach programmes. With her partner, Tam O’Shaughnessy, Ride also co-founded Sally Ride Science, a company which produces science education materials for children, and co-wrote a number of children’s science books.

Sally Ride died on July 23rd 2012.

Some asides

In the 1960s the US weren’t terribly keen on sending women to space. Whereas other Soviet achievements in the space race, such as the launch of Sputnik in 1957 and Gagarin’s flight in 1961, sent the US into a panic, many regarded the first woman in space with derision.
However, a privately funded programme was established in 1960 to put Jerrie Cobb and a number of other women through the same tests that male astronauts in NASA’s space programme took. 13 women passed Phase I of the tests, with several passing Phase II and Jerrie Cobb passing Phase III while Wally Funk tried to take the Phase III tests after the programme was ended.

The science didn’t seem to match political attitudes of the time which is how it took another twenty years before an American woman flew in space.

Some other firsts

Svetlana Savitskaya was the second woman in space, though she didn’t fly until 1982. She was the first woman to walk in space.

The first American woman to walk in space was Kathryn D. Sullivan in 1984.
The first Briton in space was a woman, Helen Sharman. She was also the first woman to visit the Mir space station.

The first Iranian in space was also a woman, Anousheh Ansari. She was a spaceflight participant on the Soyuz TMA-9 mission to the International Space Station in 2006, and also the first Muslim woman in space.

Biphobia is not (only) an LGBT issue

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I’ve been trying to explain biphobia to straight people. For some reason, some of them seem to have reached the conclusion that biphobia is purely an LGB community issue – bisexual people are excluded or erased by lesbians and gays, and this is in no way straight people’s problem.
It is true that bisexual people encounter biphobia from parts of the lesbian and gay (and sometimes wider QUILTBAG) community. I have had plenty of people at supposedly LGB(T) events talk of “lesbians and gays”, gay people tell me they don’t get how I can be “attracted to both”, and lesbians tell me I should stop sleeping with men. Having said that, there isn’t a single square on my biphobia bingo card that straight people haven’t manged to tick off, generally before lesbians and gays.
I’d even go as far as saying that, on a case-by-case basis, biphobia from within the QUILTBAG community can hurt more – simply because we would like to be able to assume that QUILTBAG spaces are safe for us, and being faced with exclusion, erasure and prejudice there is jarring and painful. This does not, however, absolve straight people from responsibility for biphobia.
The main reason biphobia can look like it’s mostly a “lesbian and gay” issue is that in predominantly straight environments you often have to get past the homophobia to get to the more subtle and nuanced biphobia. This puts bisexuals – in all kinds of relationships – in a very awkward position indeed. A bi person in a same-sex relationship may feel that they’re lucky to be “tolerated” as gay and therefore feel uncomfortable about rocking the boat further by coming out as bi. Equally, a bisexual in a different-sex relationship has the choice of either passing as straight (often the safest option) or challenging homophobic remarks and exposing themselves to homophobia and biphobia. This double trap often makes bisexuals the first buffer between heterosexism and homophobia on one side, and the QUILTBAG community on the other. It’s this combination of heterosexism and monosexism that hits bisexuals especially hard.
So if you’re a straight person who considers themselves an LGBT or QUILTBAG ally, do remember that there is more than just the L and the G to the community you’re trying to be an ally to. Don’t assume that the gender of someone’s current partner tells you anything about their sexuality. Don’t assume that bisexuals fighting for visibility and recognition is just infighting within the group that has nothing to do with you. Do not ask people why they are flaunting their sexuality, or tell them which of their experiences do or do not give them the right to define their own sexual orientation.
Do make sure you use inclusive language. “Lesbians and gays” is generally bad unless you really very specifically mean “lesbians and gays”. LGBT is better. In many contexts QUILTBAG is even better. Do recognise that different parts of the community sometimes face different different challenges; and try not to throw one part of the group under the bus in order to be an ally to another.