Todays podcast was about making assumptions about people, and how Worldview’s shape what we consider right and wrong, shaped by what we think of as normal/familiar. At the beginning of the podcast, Dr. Bezios example of women being told to cover up with their dress codes in schools, businesses, etc, really spoke to my own personal experiences. My high school was very strict about specifically women’s dress code, as we were not allowed to show our collarbone, shoulders, legs (above the knee), could not have colored hair, wear any sort of hats, or certain types of jewelry. Although there were some rules “in place” for the boys, they were not regulated, as many guys walked around my school with tiny shorts on, pants exposing their underwear, tank tops, as well as all sorts of hats and hair colors/styles. When a girl told a teacher/administrator about a guy breaking dress code, we are told to move on or are overreacting, but if any faculty got a glimpse of a girl breaking dress code, we were immediately punished. This assumption that women need to control their own bodies because men can’t (and many other examples) shows how these cultural assumptions and standards can play into implicit bias and even stereotypes. We see in media, around us, and even hear from others that “women dont want to cover up” because they “use their bodies for attention of the opposite sex”, and that is why we would maybe choose to wear a tank top in school, work, or even just out in public. This has now become an assumption of women from some people (especially men), even though most people just want to wear a tank top because they like the top, or if it’s hot outside. 

The other part of the podcast that spoke to my own personal experiences was discussing how laws that are meant to be colorblind can be used to disproportionately affect communities of color, and can affect our words views. More specifically, Dr.Bezios example that “If you were raised in one of the affluent communities, you may have a view of drugs that it is mostly a problem in inner cities/minority populations, and you might know people in wealthy communities that do drugs but might not think of them as the “real problem””, and how american society perpetuates this. This makes me think back to specifically when I went to a mostly white, affluent, middle to high class elementary school, which had little to no diversity. We would have a “be drug free” week each school year to discuss drugs, and everyday during that week we would be shown a video in class about it, showing both why not to do drugs and hearing stories from people who did drugs. From the music, to the visuals, to the people chosen to be in these videos, all that was shown to us was minority populations in inner cities doing drugs, almost trying to stereotypically characterize these people as “thugs” or the “real problem”. Showing this to a bunch of 5th and 6th graders could greatly alter their implicit biases and assumptions about the world around them and certain groups of people. I ended up going to a very diverse middle and high school so I thankfully got to learn about different cultures/experiences and learn about “the real problems” vs the ones shown to me, but this truly shows how american society perpetuates certain assumptions.