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Soft Bigotry of Low Expectations
The “practice of expecting less from members of a disadvantaged group and thus implicitly encouraging those people not to reach their full potential.”
Note: There are more poor gifted & talented people than rich gifted & talented people.
1980’s Affirmative Action for Women *
We scored high on every test and fit every criteria:
Driver, Messenger, Delivery, Stock, File Clerk all around Gofer who could spell good, female for the box checkers, and oh, by the way must heft a 50 lb load 20 times a day uphill both ways.
As female, we simply are not expected to work equally in a male oriented job.
Preposterous. What female could carry the physical work weight of the male. Probably not many, but many do and what these boys failed to consider was the notion that this female could lift 100 lbs.
Discrimination of Low Expectations
Things that are usually or traditionally performed by one (insert stereotype here) are intruded upon by others who are considered outsiders with less natural skill, ability or not expected to comprehend entirely because they are outsiders with lesser status.
Discrimination of low expectations is rooted in fear, insecurity.
For Example:
Male work environment can require physical strength, stamina and may include coarse-talk, bad-jokes, horse-play and pranks.
Women bring Civilization to the Frontier
Little women made everybody stop cussing, spitting, shooting up the town,
Women brought in sheriffs, fancy clothes, put in sidewalks and took out the good fighting mud pits
Women wanted soft beds and real windows and floors…
Translation: Women ruin all the fun.
shopping for groceries
Women intrude … We do.
We’re nosier. We talk more, ask more questions, pry and sometimes pit people against each other. We disobey rules.
It’s the evolutionary result of ruling the roost (home) to establish pecking order which as most husbands realize their share of the pecking order includes taking out the garbage, doing all outdoor manual labor, killing bugs…and dishes in order to be an equal partner in the home…
It’s only natural for males to assume that a woman working alongside a man means he’ll be taking out the garbage, doing all outdoor manual labor, killing bugs…vacuuming in order to be an equal partner at the work place while she’s establishing pecking order in the office.
Main Points of Speech
Where discrimination of low expectation happens in our speech:
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- The male coworkers immediate skepticism and low expectation of our ability to lift 50 pounds
- Dutch low expectation of Mitch’s ability – small town, country, backward, inexperience
- Mitch low expectation of our ability to compete at a Man’s game
- Dutch repeated low expectation responses ‘…that won’t work. because’…
- Mitch humorously saying “does it make you feel like a man to beat me?” upon defeat and our response of “Yes ma’am” to equalize the tension.
- Dutch returning to assume low expectations of Mitch who had improved his game considerably. It probably never occurred to Dutch that student Mitch might improve during his absence.
- Experts tend to be arrogant, adopt a know-it-all, superior attitude and forget that in order to be an ‘expert’ of a field others must be neglected.
- Experts can become so engaged in their field of interest that other abilities atrophy.
- Dutch either forgot or neglected to realize the condition of staying expert is to constantly learn/improve.
- Through low expectation manipulation of the game for Mitch ‘s “benefit” as a novice, he handicapped his own learning progress.
- Chess is as strategical as it is psychological. When Dutch strategically handicapped his game he seized teacher/authority and put Mitch into the student/novice psychological disadvantage.
This cycle prevented Mitch from learning to play the game correctly, therefore he rarely won over the ‘expert’ player.
Change is Afoot
- We rejected Mitch ‘s low expectations and played the ‘man’s’ game correctly mano-a-woman-o.
- Psychologically established my ‘expert’ status his mind…at least to the point where he began consistently winning.
- Mitch gained confidence and became an expert player, prepared to challenge the Dutch mano-a-mano.
- Both men displayed low expectations of our ability to play chess
- The entire male staff displayed low expectations. We were expected to disappoint.
- Discrimination comes from all levels and directions and not always obvious
- Remedies to ‘fix’ discrimination can be just as subtle.
We over came these low expectations, not by complaining or making excuses buy by proving them wrong and pulling our weight.
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/soft_bigotry_of_low_expectations
