Today I was interviewed by a couple of students around diversity… How do I manage the cultural difference both at work and in my private life. The discussion was actually quiet interesting, it always is. Discovering how others see you in such an environment is definitely enriching, but I was amazed though on how people tend to generalize everything.
I should say that I was a real case study for them! Young professional, woman, foreigner (and not any foreigner, I came from an Arabic north African Muslim country), so basically, I offered the whole package! That was all funny to me, I laughed when they expected me shocked, but hey, laughing is the best medicine.
As expected, we spoke about stereotypes, about Saudi Arabia, about being a young professional with all my cultural background in this country and in this environment… And what I’ve noticed is that people think that every young Arab woman will behave the same! Honestly, in that global environment we are living in, the differences start to be so thin, barely noticeable, and the whole diversity that you can see is no longer based on age, gender, ethnicity or even belief. We are diverse and different because our personalities are simply different, because our view of the world is different, certainly not because we were born in a place instead of the other. And I feel that this will be the tendency. If I can say that, at least by the way I perceive things, while I only had a PC at the age of 12 and Internet at the age of 15, what can we say about the other generations after us that actually start their lives with an iPhone at hand?
I have no lessons to teach, not even a thought of the day, I just want to share a view: let’s celebrate our differences, because each one of us is different, and we are all the same.
No comments:
Post a Comment