Diversity

Diversity. It's something you hear about a lot. Specifically, about how we need more of it. And while I don't disagree, I think we sometimes lose sight of why we need diversity and why a lack of it is a bad thing.

In my opinion, diversity isn't a goal in and of itself. The real goals are equality and representation. When you have those, diversity should arise naturally in a way that mirrors real life. Worth noting is the fact that some mindfulness is required to make this happen. Even in the most egalitarian circles it's easy to under-represent minorities simply because they're less visible.

Which is precisely why representation is important in the first place. When a group has low visibility, we tend to ignore it, often unintentionally, making the group even less visible. This effect is even more pronounced in media, where appealing to the largest group of people is often advantageous. This process also isn't limited to literal minorities. Women are terribly underrepresented in media despite making up half the population.

Additionally, not all representation is equal. The presence of minority characters is not enough if those characters don't receive equal treatment. When representation is done wrong, you get token characters.

There is a unique challenge when it comes to representing queer characters. Unlike race and sex, sexuality and gender identity often aren't obvious. On the one hand, unless it comes up, we have no way of knowing if a character is queer, and hence no representation. On the other hand, overplaying a character's sexuality/gender identity can reduce that character to a single trait. It's a fine line that can be hard to hit, even for writers with first hand experience.

There are similar challenges when it comes to religion. However, religion is often correlated with race and can sometimes be inferred from a characters clothing (a cross necklace, hijab, etc) and speech.

Anyway, the bottom line is that characters belonging to group should appear at least as often in media as they do in real life. This isn't a moral fact, just a statistical one.

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In other news, I have a job offer! I have not officially accepted it yet, as I was still interviewing with another company when I received the offer, but I will be making a decision before the end of the week, with proper employment following soon after!