Week 2, Chapter 3, Post 1: Partisan

Chapter 3: "Theories Are Partisan" (page 63)

The authors of the book write on page 63, "The history of organizational communication typically emphasizes the interpretations of dominate white males in Western culture, with little attention given to how members of oppressed, marginalized, or subjugated groups like women and minorities would tell the story."

This particular sentence resonates with me because I am a minority and a woman. I remember in elementary school how out of place I felt when my teachers tried to make references to American past times in order to give us students a visual to tie in with lectures. Growing up with immigrant parents, I didn't have the same childhood experiences as some of my classmates. My parents didn't take me to baseball or football games, to rock concerts, to theme parks, etc. and I didn't grow up with parents that listened to American music so I didn't know who the more iconic music artists were. When it came to history lessons about past wars, it felt awkward being from a country involved in a highly controversial war. I knew that many Americans had fought and died in this particular war and that it was a particularly bitter one for the American people as protests ensued and war veterans returned home in a state of post-traumatic stress. I almost felt like others viewed me as an enemy.

As an adult in college, I took a Women's Studies class and it was then that I realized and understood why I felt the way I did in elementary school. The history lessons and other subject lectures had been through the perspective of the white male. Through no fault of my teachers and professors, this is the way textbooks had been written and this is the way it was taught at the time. For a class assignment, I attended a play at SDSU. (I can't remember the title of the play at the moment). The play's time setting is in the 40's when women had very limited rights. During that time period, wives were expected to put on a smile for their husbands while the husbands treated them essentially like a child. I bring up this play because I watched it with my boyfriend. Our interpretations of the play were completely different. I tried to express my viewpoint as best as I could from the stance of a female and as a student taking a women's studies course. He explained his viewpoint through the perspective of a male and as an observer of the play that has not taken a women's studies course.

The authors mention partisanship being present in the workplace. I have encountered experiences in which a colleague recounts a meeting she had with our boss and then later hearing the boss recounting her meeting with my colleague. They were both talking about the same project but they were approaching the project with their own agenda at hand. They both had something to gain from the project and would collaborate on it but the manner in which the projects were described to me were different, if that makes sense.