Silence Is Not Necessarily Acceptance

By Author: peter
Total Articles: 191
Comment this article

At our next session, we first asked our participants what they thought about the novel Parrotfisb. They felt Wittlinger's portrayal of a transitioning teenager was unrealistic and more optimistic than they had expected. This expectation may be due to the saturation of strife-filled portrayals of LGBTQ persons in the media and literature. His process just seemed too easy. Furthermore, they did not feel a close connection with Grady, a Tag Heuer Carrera Replica distance they speculated may have been a result of the quality of writing. For them, Parrotfisb possessed a tension between relaying information about transgender youth and telling a captivating story.

Our participants noted the lack of a backstory to Grady. "What was he like when he was younger?" they wanted to know. Wittlinger never lets the reader see the younger Grady, and the reader is left wondering what internal process he went through prior to deciding to disclose his identity as a trans-gender male.

Diversify Sources of Sales and Supplies. To help avoid wild ...
... swings in sales and profits, companies may seek out foreign markets and sources of supplies. Many companies take advantage of the fact that the timing of business cycles — recessions and expansions — differs among countries; that is, sales decrease in a country that is in a recession and increase in one that is expanding economically. In addition, by obtaining supplies of the same product or component from different countries, companies may be able to avoid the full impact of price swings or shortages in any one country.

Increase in Global Competition. The pressures of increased foreign competition can persuade a company to expand its business into international markets. It can do this more easily because of the technological, governmental, and institutional developments just discussed. Today, companies can respond rapidly to many foreign sales opportunities. They can shift production quickly among countries because of their experience in foreign markets and because goods can be transported efficiently from most places. Companies also can distribute component and/or product manufacturing among countries to take advantage of cost differences.

As the participants moved through the conversation, however, they revealed that they had connected with aspects of Grady's experience, including his dealings with menstruation and romance. They referenced the scene in which his period arrives unexpectedly at school, and this association illustrates some of the risks of using LBLNs that feature Replica Audemar Piguet gender variant and transgender characters. While female readers recognize (and might possibly empathize with) the character's embarrassment and fear in this situation, a female reader who compares her experiences with Grady's must also consider his unique identity. Failing to do so would reduce understanding of gender variant and transgender experiences to essentially male or female ones, erasing their unique subjectivities and limiting the possibilities of what readers might take from these narratives. Therefore, we offered the perspective that Grady may view his period as a betrayal of his identity as an adolescent male, whereas for girls, menstruating is part of their identity as female adolescents.

Much of Parrotfisb is set in a high school, and readers witness the harsh treatment Grady receives from many of his classmates who bully him incessantly by arranging for humiliating episodes, spilling milk on him, and not speaking to him. One of our participants recalled a transgender teenager at her school and noted that this student was basically "left alone" by the other students and faculty. This observation led another participant to observe that "silence is not necessarily acceptance."