Leadership and Diversity Introduction Post
Leadership and Diversity Introduction Post
I am Man, here me MEOW!
I would like to think that I am just an average guy, who tries to make the best out of the cards he’s be dealt in life. I feel that I don’t fit into most social stereotypes that I’m supposed to as a “white male.” I’m not married, so I don’t fit into the box of being a suppressive husband who keeps his wife at home, barefoot and pregnant and is the sole provider. I’ve never really gone out on a date, so a “playa” I am not. I am simply, Matthew. I’m a son, brother, uncle, and a person of faith.
Growing up, family was very important, and end of the day, it’s all we had. I was raised with my two older brothers by a single father who was self-employed and worked hard every day to put food on the table. I feel that growing up with little privilege both taught me to value the important things in life like family, as well as having compassion for those who too, are of lower means.
End of the day, doing was needed to be done to survive, was what it meant to be successful in life. If that meant working all summer long to be able to buy school cloths for the fall, that’s what we did, and that was ok. We were expected to work growing up, I mowed lawns to build up my saving to go to college, and I worked at the local farm store to buy feed for my pigs which had turned more into pets than food. We worked, we lived and we loved, that what the Blythe family did. I don’t feel that we fit into any specific societal roles, or gender roles (having a dad who was both mother and father,) it was and continues to be, simply our story.
I have a hard time processing the idea that my race or gender has helped or hurt me in life. I think if I had to apply this question to my undergraduate educational experience, I’d say that it put me at a disadvantage. Financially, I wasn’t able to apply for certain scholarships that were only intended for minority students and as a person who just got average grades, so I didn’t qualify for the academic scholarships.
But that’s ok, I have no expectations that I should be allowed to get those benefits nor have I felt the need to seek them out. Maybe it’s because I haven’t had the disadvantages of other, since I am a white male, but I wasn’t taught growing up to look at people like that.
I think social class, especially in America, has the biggest advantage / disadvantage. I would consider myself to be “middle class” but if you consider the economic range that middle class spans, up to $250K according to Mitt Romney, I am far from middle class. It seems to be that either the media or society in general likes to put people in a box to make it easier to classify them, even when that box doesn’t really fit. While I own my home, I’m far from having 3.5 kids and boat in the driveway or a cabin on the lake.
I never really thought that my gender would affect me when it comes to my job, until I started working at WSU’s College of Nursing. I work in a building that is predominantly women and there are less than 5 men on staff in the college. Working in this environment, I almost feel like the “Token Male,” especially when it comes to lifting heavy objects. It’s an odd feeling to be in an environment where there’s such a predominance of one gender. What’s even more interesting is on our website and other marketing venues, they almost always show a 50/50 guy and girl ration in pictures, but there’s only about a 10% male student population in the college.
The positive side to this is I get to feel what it’s like to work in a place where all the leadership (Dean and Associate/Assistant Deans) are all women and the only male is the finance director. I feel this has helped me gain a better understanding of what minorities feel like, whether that is based on gender, race or social class, and the importance of working in a place where there is a better balance of diversity, throughout the hierarchy of power.