Sprouting Off

Prejudice is dislike of a whole group based on a negative (sometimes isolated) experience with someone or something belonging to that group; or sometimes, for no discernable or logical reason whatsoever. For instance, I am prejudiced against Brussels sprouts because when I was six, my mother put some on my dinner plate and tried to convince me I would love them. I loved Twinkies. This lump of hypothetical food included none of the attributes associated with the possibility of love. They were green. Snot was green. Peas were green (and also mushy and disgusting, but easily hidden in a wadded up napkin). This miniature cabbage head was too hard to mush up and too big to hide in a napkin. I had already formed my negative opinion. I would hate it. Self-fulfilling prophecy or a premature ability to discern the sublime from the revolting, I attempted to taste one. As soon as this globular little bit of greenish matter touched my lips, I gagged and ran for the bathroom. From that day forward, I had an ingrained prejudicial hatred of round green vegetables. We sprout haters are a small, secular group, but you’ll recognize us at dinner. While you’re enjoying the chomping sensation of your little sprout fest, we’re the ones who are subtly fork flicking the little green globs onto the floor and punting them under the table because even the dog won’t eat them.

Many people, more tolerant than I, do not understand my prejudice and have tried to educate and unsuccessfully convert me into a sprout lover. “They’re good for you,” they explain. Fried cockroaches provide protein - also not a valid argument destined to make them any more palatable. “If they’re cooked right, they have a subtle nutty flavor,” I’m told by those I (secretly) refer to as the nutty sprout lovers. Perhaps it is mistrust of my mother’s lack of cooking ability that caused my misplaced hatred of the sprout, but the prejudice is firmly entrenched and probably apt to remain so. Most people develop a real affinity for their prejudices and are likely to balk at being parted from them. I am one of those people.

And not only am I prejudiced against BS, I carry it a step further and discriminate against them too. I actively dislike every one of them based on prior experience with the original one, using several of the discriminatory behaviors to express my displeasure with their existence. I verbally reject them, (no thank you, none for me, please get those things away from me before I hurl). I have even, at times, put down whole platefuls of green vegetables just because they included these mini-cabbages. I also avoid interacting with them. I won’t touch them or look at them in the grocery store. I avert my eyes and pretend they don’t exist. And I would never, ever allow them in my house. Though my hatred of them runs deep, I have never actively discriminated against them by marching in protest, requesting that farmers stop growing them, or campaigning to have them removed from the fresh vegetable category. I don’t lack the conviction; only the time. I have refrained, too from physical attacks and extermination, never threatening them, stomping on them or throwing them against a wall. And I haven’t, nor would I try, to rid the world of all of them by burning or plowing under the fields in which they grow. They’d probably just grow back anyway.

I know Brussels Sprout bigots who don’t discriminate, and I have tried to follow their egalitarian vegetative example by changing my unequal (and perhaps, unfair) treatment of these members of this group into something more socially acceptable. I have even gone so far as to admit that I admire and even love many of the sprout’s relative vegetables – beans, peppers, spinach and even its closest relative – the cabbage – as long as it isn’t cooked. But I still can’t rid myself of the illogical aversion to the sprout.

Institutional discrimination against Brussels sprouts, of course, does not exist, and my vegetable analogy is not meant to make light of individual or group prejudices or discriminations against people, all of which are serious societal problems that can cause far-reaching negative effects on those who harbor them and are harmed by them on a daily basis.

Though it isn’t necessary to be prejudiced to discriminate, discrimination is rooted in prejudice. Perhaps prejudice is the lesser of the two evils because prejudice is while discrimination does.
But if we could “cure” or abolish prejudice, would that necessarily stop discrimination? Individual and group prejudices, while they are hurtful to individuals or groups of people, are not the cause of the most important problems those that the discriminated against face – institutional discrimination. Institutional discrimination is not only often generally accepted without question, it is so firmly imbedded in our society that it is harder not only to eradicate, but sometimes, even to detect.

We know when our white male boss not only laughs at, but believes in the truth of his own jokes about “dumb” women, he is prejudiced. We also know he’s sexist because he represents the dominant majority – those who enjoy and often take for granted as their due, the most rewards for the least amount of effort. We know when he assigns the best tasks and most desirable hours only to men, and the worst and least desirable to women, or when he refuses to hire women at all, that he discriminates. But when our prejudiced, sexist, discriminating boss uses his authority within the rules to promote only men, institutional discrimination might not only allow it, but encourage it.

If, for instance, a promotion requires overnight travel, women who have (or might have) children might be neatly, automatically eliminated without blatantly breaking any anti-discrimination laws. It could, at the very least, discourage some women from applying for the promotion. In our society and within our family institutions, it is still true that women are the major caregivers for children. Biologically, of course, they are the only ones who may carry and breastfeed their children, but widely accepted norms and values still characterize women as being the more loving and nurturing of the two genders. A perfect example of the difference in societal attitudes about mothers and father is illustrated by divorced women who don’t have custody of their children. They are arguably the most harshly judged and deeply scorned group in our society. Though a mother may have selflessly set aside her differences with her ex-husband, deciding, for the children’s benefit, that he will be in a better position to raise them than she, she is rarely given the benefit of the doubt by men or women. She is at the least, judged “selfish,” and at worst, an “uncaring, unfeeling monster who doesn’t deserve to be a mother.” The father with custody of his own children, on the other hand, is often labeled a saint or a hero.

Women are, by their gender and if of child-bearing age, at a distinct disadvantage even now in the corporate world. There are anti-discrimination laws in place to prevent gender based discrimination, but it cannot and does not prevent the reality of motherhood from interfering with women’s careers. This combination of pervasive ageism and sexism centers around the fact that women of certain ages are still perceived as being unable or unwilling to commit fully to their jobs as their loyalties will be necessarily divided or favor kids over career. And sometimes, these women do choose (or give in to the pressures to choose) the kids, putting themselves on the slower career track or halting the train altogether. And this choice maintains the myth and makes it harder for future generations of women to be taken seriously in the business world.
One of the outcomes of this type of institutional discrimination is that in many instances, women, assuming they’re hired over their male counterparts, still earn less than men for doing the same job. This may start within our educational institutions, where many studies have shown girls do not receive the same educations as boys when they are co-educated, especially in math and science. And people who start with a disadvantage almost always end up disadvantaged because fewer advantages require more effort for the same rewards, resulting in, not only a domino, but a snowball effect.

Working harder for less causes stress, which, in turn causes health problems, resulting in more days absent, fewer promotions, more necessary (and expensive) medical care, resulting in less disposable income, and less money equals less power, less respect, fewer better opportunities, which causes more stress, followed by more health problems. In fact, one of the harshest effects caused by institutional gender discrimination might be premature death. According to the American Heart Association, coronary heart disease is now the leading cause of death for American women. This might be, in part, due to the fact that in our society in general, and in the medical profession specifically, many still erroneously believe that “women don’t have heart attacks,” and thus women often fail to recognize the symptoms and/or are treated differently than men by the medical community. Our educational, medical, and family institutions appear to be involved in a discriminatory conspiracy to keep women not only barefoot and pregnant, but poorer and unhealthier than men.

Boiling Brussels sprouts releases a horrible, lingering stench into the air that permeates the entire house for days. Discrimination on an institutional level is just as pervasive, but much more subtle. Most of the time, you can’t smell it or taste it, and, unless you’re looking for it, it’s hard to see. Human beings aren’t vegetables, of course. One Brussels Sprout is much like any other. People, on the other hand, are complicated and individually unique, each with his/her own experiences, thoughts, skills, opinions, desires, needs and, quite likely, a few prejudices. We cannot control how we feel without a great deal of examination, discussion and education (tolerance is a lot of work), but we can change the ways in which we react to those feelings. When, in prejudice, we practice, allow or ignore discrimination on an individual basis, we set the stage for institutional discrimination to persist, escalate, invade and destroy all our lives. If we let our society categorize us like miniature cabbages based on just one shared characteristic, such as gender, perhaps we deserve the categorization because it certainly seems to suggest more of a vegetative state than a human one.