I know I'm sounding more and more like I don't like my family, but eventually I'll get to its good qualities too, because there are some good qualities too.
I want to talk about gender in my family, the gendered roles and attitudes. To start with I will say that I think of myself as somewhat of a feminist, but I don't think there's anything wrong with traditional gender roles if the people involved feel comfortable with that. But what I do object to is expecting that everyone is going to be willing to likewise adopt traditional views and roles in this regard.
Now to insinuate that there is any sexism in my family will most certainly raise all kinds of protests. But, to be fair, our family constitution lends itself to internal sexism, even if the individuals involved don't otherwise consider themselves thus.
I could go into some history on this subject, but I'm going to, instead, just deal with the present (and near past). Probably a big impetus in this regard actually comes from mom. What I mean is that she is helpless in many ways, such as anything technical and finances.
But there has also been a history (I guess I have to go back a bit on this one) of sort of a familial version of the "good old boys' club". Dad did special things with my brothers that developed a kind of relationship that I am not privy to. Some of these things include river rafting down the Colorado River (in the Grand Canyon) and biking 400 miles from Seattle to the town in British Columbia where mom is from.
On the other hand, I think the relationship between my mom and I has been more adversarial, so that in recent years I've begun to think she has thought of me in a more competitive way. I'm not positive, but I don't think this has been so present in the male relationships in the family.
But in the several years before dad died, when I called (long-distance from the US Midwest or East Coast) more often than not if dad answered the phone he'd only talk briefly with me and say that when I called mom always perked up, so he'd hand the phone to mom. Maybe I don't fit the typical female stereotype, such as having to take female friends with me when I go to the bathroom. Why would I perk mom up any more than my brothers? I know they both did a lot along these lines, especially the brother in Seattle, but dad's repeated assertions made me think that mom wanted a unique female bonding with me. Since mom is so frail and there has turned out to be virtually nothing else I can do to help her that my brothers aren't already doing, this is the only think I can help with. But there still remains this sense that this bonding somehow includes a female competition element, which I don't really like.
So, in my family, relationships are pretty well defined along gendered roles and there appears to be little to nothing I can do about it, but I don't really like it, especially with the other distasteful (to me) elements. Again, it appears that over and above anything else you can say about me, I am a woman and that defines who I am, what I can and should do, etc. Hopefully you expect me to say that I'm not at all comfortable with this state of affairs.
So what are my options vis a vis all these things I don't like about the family? The options are precious few, but include 1) accepting the rules of play and joining in, 2) minimize my contact with the family so as to try to avoid as much of the yuck as I can, or 3) abandon the family altogether. I can't think of any other options, but I'm open to suggestions on that one. The positive qualities of the family, as a unit, will need to be seen against the backdrop I've presented in these past few posts and evaluated accordingly.
***
We're still in the chapter section "A MODEL OF THE NEWCOMER EXPERIENCE," but now we're in a new sub-section - "Sense Making" - and a new sub-sub-section - "The role of conscious thought in coping."
"[Langer (1978: 58)] proposed that conscious thinking is necessary when the outcomes of our acts are inconsistent with anticipated outcomes or when scripted behavior is effortful or interrupted." (p. 240)
This does make a certain amount of sense... to an extent, but I don't think it's entirely true either. That is the aspects of a situation that strike you as unusual could well lead to your being conscious about them and thus result in your consciously trying to make sense of them, whether by trial and error or asking other members of the organization.
But I think that there could be things that are sort of under the radar, where you may feel some discomfort or uncertainty, but you don't quite understand it. In these situations, I think there would be a lot that you're not conscious about. Also, you could just be oblivious to signals from the organization or to potential cause-effect relationships between your actions (or words) and those of the organization (or individuals within it).
Since I have some language learning/teaching background (English as a second/foreign language), I'm going to turn to that background now, without looking up references and the like, however. In language learning - whether first language or second (or third or...) language - generally young children pick up this skill more or less unconsciously. But they don't particularly know the rules of the language, hence grammar instruction in school. As you get older, though, you tend to rely more on conscious rule making and trial and error, or listening to others for examples of how to speak.
In language teaching, some methodologies (for teaching older youth and adults) have tried to replicate the early childhood experience of language learning, but there are limitations with these approaches, although they do have some benefits too, such as the risk of errors becoming fossilized if not corrected, which (the act of correcting) would most likely mean reverting to conscious language learning. That being said, however, relying completely on conscious language learning could lead to halting communication as the learner attempts to think through each grammatical issue while in the act of communicating.
I don't think this comparison is completely unwarranted, for at least a couple reasons. Language is a special skill that is fundamental for how we think and practically everything else in life depends on language. Also, language involves special psychological and physiological factors that generally aren't nearly so relevant for other areas of learning. Likewise, understanding one's socio-cultural milieu involves (I think - I'm not so sure of my theoretical underpinnings here) aspects that we just take for granted and never really thought about. For example, even people who generally are aware of the issue of body language might not know that personal space is an issue in body language and so would not pick up on any disparities in new situations (unless, perhaps, someone pointed it out to them). As an adult you might have the socio-cultural equivalent of a reasonably good grammatical knowledge, but there would be gaps in your basic knowledge that would make learning a new socio-cultural context could be a hindrance, although, again, children could pick this up unconsciously more easily than adults. Part of the reason for this, I expect, is the hard-wiring of our brains and the signal pathways in it (one thing teaching tries to do is strengthen desirable pathways or mental connections) is more well-set and we're more blinded by our native (first language/first culture) way of sense-making. Young children might not be so hindered.
Still, as I already said, it seems there would be a certain amount of truth to the statement here, as long as you keep in mind the limitations I've just discussed. In this light, I expect that things that are glaringly different (black and white, not light gray and white) and things that touch on areas you otherwise recognized as being cultural you would be more likely to be conscious of. However, in cases where there is a broad swath variance from what you are familiar with and/or in situations that involve more subtle differences or cues a child, adapting unconsciously to the situation might have advantage of the adult, much as in language learning. Working with Soviet emigrants I witnessed enough cases where the children served as interpreters for their elders, and anyone familiar with the world of immigrants can vouch for this phenomena. I think it's also true for culture, not just language, but the child might not be as helpful to their elders in this sphere.
Returning to the Vienna context, however, I think that the mission had developed a fine-tuned ability to reveal or hide organizational truths, at least in part, but intentionally making cultural cues confusing. In such a situation it would be nigh impossible to make sense of things, no matter how conscious you were of cultural differences. I think you'd have to have some understanding of other fields of study to make sense of the "whys" and "what fors" of apparently conscious activities that went beyond just routine cultural norms. In other words, a course in cross-cultural communication or language studies, for example, wouldn't cut it. In my case, my understanding of how the Soviet Union treated believers was my reference point as did my understand of how cults operated, which were specific cultural reference points that guided me in my sense making of the mission's organizational culture. Unfortunately, the usefulness of these reference points remained throughout my tenure with the mission. And with these reference points I was made conscious of things I witnessed or experienced in the Vienna mission that seemed relevant, in one way or another, to standards in my mind. But the veritable plethora of signals at times and the frequent changes made it difficult and confusing, although I could compare even this to my theoretical guideposts (USSR, cults).
I think probably once you entered the belly of the beast - became an insider in the mission - you would be guided into a certain logic that would translate the things I, as a veritable outsider or quasi-insider, that would reframe the meaning of how the mission operated so that it would be not just more comprehensible, but also more somehow more palatable to Christian and theological sensibilities.
***
"[W]hen scripts fail, the individual must develop explanations for why the actual outcomes occurred and why the predicted outcomes did not." (p. 240)
Very conveniently for the mission, new missionaries would be adapting to both mission life and life in a foreign country, so the mission could defer causation of any difficulties in making the transition as being due to life in the Austrian context, thus alleviating any possible repercussions the mission might face due to there being any possible problems inherent in the mission itself and how it treated its newcomers.
The mission would say (using the text's terms) that the scripts only failed vis a vis the Austrian context, not the mission context. After all, the mission was just an extension of Evangelical life and culture back home, right? (If so, that's pretty scary; it gives a whole new perspective on Evangelical life and culture back home. Unfortunately, I think there is some truth to this concern, however, inasmuch as what I witnessed in Vienna is an outgrowth of church life back home.)
***
"In attribution research, individuals have been viewed as naive scientists, who make sense of events on the basis of available information..." (p. 240)
This paragraph goes on to address areas along this line that have or have not been adequately researched. I won't comment on this now, because I already said enough in my comments above regarding language and cultural learning. It's been years since I've read these texts and I'm not reading ahead, for the most part, as I go. If I did that I'd really never get done with this project. Eventually, though, I'll have to go back and try to tie everything together, streamline it, etc.
***
I'm going to stop here, but we should finish with this article with my next post.
