Reflection on Diversity free essay sample

Everyone has had at least one experience in life where he or she felt like â€Å"other† or perceived someone else as â€Å"other†. Some of us have had experiences where we have made a connection with someone who was â€Å"other†. Merriam-Webster defines â€Å"other† as â€Å"one considered by members of a dominant group as alien, exotic, threatening, or inferior (as because of different racial, sexual, or cultural characteristics). This is someone who is perceived by the group as different and not belonging in some way. I recently went through a life change and found myself in the position of â€Å"other† frequently. I was going through a divorce and I was dating someone who was also going through a divorce. In the early stages of dating, I met all of my significant other’s friends and we would spend a lot of our time with them. I found that I was about ten years younger than most of them, or just a few years older than their kids. We will write a custom essay sample on Reflection on Diversity or any similar topic specifically for you Do Not WasteYour Time HIRE WRITER Only 13.90 / page They had all been friends with my significant other and his wife for years and would frequently spend time together, go on vacations together and some had even gone to college with them. This group of people consisted mostly of prominent business owners, doctors and engineers. Their wives were all college educated women that had been stay at home moms since they had gotten married. I was much younger than these women, a mother of three young children and working two jobs. While everyone was always cordial, I often felt very out of place and was obviously in a situation of â€Å"other†. This group all had common interests, lifestyles, backgrounds and an achieved status-â€Å"The social position that results from actions or behaviors on our part or the part of others (husband/wife, parent, doctor, etc. † (Weekly Lecture). I attribute the greatest contributing source of feeling like â€Å"other† to the fact that I was a mother with a full-time job. While, according to Bell, Nearly 60% of women with children under 5 work outside the home (Bell, 250), I was made to feel like the minority in this setting. It was assumed that I worked full-time out of necessity, because I was a single mother of young kids. I would get incredulous looks when I said that I worked full-time even while I was married. It was a foreign concept to this group that I worked because I enjoy being a nurse and want to contribute to society by caring for others in a position that doesn’t hold much power or prestige. While this is a minor example of feeling like â€Å"other† in a world full of prejudices and discrimination, this was something that I had never before experienced. I had never been made to feel like the outsider and never been subject to an ethnocentric subculture like the one present in this small Midwest town. The experiences I had while interacting with that group gave me more tolerance and perspective on human behaviors than I had ever experienced as a nurse in a small community. As a result, I have learned to be more accepting of people that are perceived as â€Å"other† and to appreciate that everyone comes from a different background.