Regardless of reasons for masks, let’s not pretend something consequentially human is not being gravely compromised.”[T]hen we shall see face to face.” Cor. 12:13
I put a little rant on my 7-Quick Takes last week about a situation I was in where I felt that I was being disregarded and cast aside. In that same week, I made a request of a gentleman of some authority and he literally waved his hand at me and walked away.
Both of these situations took me back a bit and the more I thought about it, I wondered if my face mask had anything to do with how I was being treated by men.
I’ve blogged before that I opted to go with a scarf-like face covering. I liked the idea that I could tie the covering around my neck and then I wouldn’t lose it or forget it. I also liked that it looked more like a fashion accessory than a medical tool. My covering is very breathable too so my face doesn’t feel too hot and I don’t feel claustrophobic under there. This was my way of trying to be compliant with the restrictions in my area.
But now I’m wondering if that was a mistake. Maybe I should be wearing something that looks more antiseptic. Something that screams “I’m taking this pandemic with all deadly seriousness!” I am theorizing that seeing a woman of my age with a flowery face covering just reeks of insignificance.
Then there’s the matter of ALL face coverings inhibiting communication. I don’t care what kind you’re wearing, it’s hard to capture 100% of what is being said when it is muffled behind a mask. Yesterday, I visited with a friend of mine who is in her mid 70s. She has slight hearing loss in one ear. When she goes out she doesn’t talk to anyone, because she cannot understand what is being said back to her through the face mask. A younger friend of mine in her 40s who has profound hearing loss has struggled through this pandemic too. When you depend on lipreading for understanding, you loose a lot of comprehension when facemasks become the mandated norm.
If you watch a bunch of young people get together, they are always taking their masks down to talk. My daughter tells me that at her place of business, when she is helping a customer, many of them will take their masks down to tell her what they want. They know instinctively that it’s harder to be understood with your face covered up.
This is true even if the person is using a microphone. I watched news coverage last week during the RNC convention and the hurricane coverage. Thank goodness for closed captioning, because if the news person is wearing a mask it’s easy to mishear something. Honestly, it was easier to just listen over the radio. At least those professionals know how to enunciate.
Then I think there are facial expressions and unspoken communications that are being missed. If you can only see from the eyeballs up, I think a lot is lost. How does one smirk or give a shy grin just using eyeballs and eyebrows? Maybe the man I was working with couldn’t tell that I was really and truly, sincerely, trying to be helpful. Maybe my eyes didn’t communicate that. Or maybe it’s just easier to be dismissive of older women you don’t know when you can’t totally understand them and can’t see their faces.
Then there is all the hostility around the mask question anyway. People are mad that they have to wear them. Other people are mad if you don’t wear them right, or if people opt not to wear them at all. Then anti-maskers are mad at the people complying with the mask mandates. It’s a big ball of tension and stress.
At the beginning of the pandemic, I thought this would be something like the 9/11 disaster. I thought it would pull us all together. It hasn’t. It purposely has kept us 6 feet or more apart. And then the masking of America has been akin to the Tower of Babel. Our speech has become garbled and confused.