Today I was handed a project that has me a little at odds.
You see, I work for an organization that has not been a historically great nor grand supporter of ‘The Gays‘.
This is not a particularly worrisome thing for me as I live in Canada and they are legally required to respect my rights and honor my benefits. They are not allowed to fire me because of my orientation or treat me like a second class citizen. But this doesn’t mean I am not acutely aware that they are not so mindful of the rights of others in countries where LGBTQ rights are not as protected as where I live. In fact – they are outspoken and active in trying to spread their beliefs that those rights shouldn’t ever come to pass in places like the U.S.
The project – is one on Dignity. It involves decorating an object (I’m being purposely vage here) and will be displayed at the main office(s) around the world as a discussion point on Dignity.
I work with mentally disabled adults at a day program. The organization I work for has extended their project and asked that our branch of services extend this opportunity to our clients as a way for them to express how they feel about dignity – and how it pertains to them in their lives. I can’t quote verbatim their memorandum of expectations. Sufficient to say that they asked that course language and vulgar imagery be excluded from the artistic expressions.
Being someone who is an out member of a group, who have not had respect or inclusion offered except grudgingly from legal obligation… I Don’t feel that Dignity and my employer – are synonymous. I am quite flabbergasted at the arrogance that they are displaying in regards to discussing dignity at all – and not surprised at the strict guidelines required in regards to the artistic expression of people who want to talk about their own personal struggle for dignity.
Yes yes, we know you’re gay – do you have to be so… you know… expressive about it.
IF this was a personal discussion about my dignity – as a woman and from the perspective of a queer artist… I’d have to say I’d start with the history of woman and the struggle for equal rights which is still ongoing. Written in script across the entire piece. Tiny – so I could fit it all.
1916: Canadian women in Alberta, Manitoba and Saskatchewan get the vote.
1918: Canada gives women the vote in most provinces by federal law. Quebec is not included.
1929: Women found to be “persons” in Canada and therefore able to become members of the Senate. (My grandmother was 2 when she became a person.)
1940: Women of Quebec are granted voting rights.
What kind of words do those last four paragraphs bring to the forefront of my mind? ABOUT FUCKING TIME!
On July 20, 2005, Canada became the fourth country in the world and the first country in the Americas to legalize same-sex marriage nationwide with the enactment of the Civil Marriage Act which provided a gender-neutral marriage definition. (via Wikipedia)
Which means – I was 31 when it became possible for me to marry the person I love. But this leap and bound in civil rights, between my grandmother becoming a person to my right to marry the person I love – took 83 years.
Does that bring to mind any course language? I feel like the dignity of women – gay and straight has been an exhaustingly long and hard fight and it’s still going on to this day.
I’d dip the bottom of my art piece in blood red paint, and I’d make damn sure I’d leave space to mention how a fat old republican managed to lump my gender into a neat little box and label it whore not too many moons ago.
No explicit language. Nothing corse, or lude or vulgar….
punchpixel 