Comments on Tess and Ivette's Posts

I don't know if it's kosher to comment on other's posts, but I was thinking about Tess's comments on intersectionality as relating to what we talked about in the Mujeres Sin Fronteras meeting about moving outside of our comfort zone and widening our circle of comfort. Tess mentioned that working within two cultures can feel like going down a river with one foot in each of two canoes. But can the the "problem" be reframed? In one way, when you step into a new culture and begin to develop as a person in that culture you are blowing open your circle of comfort and becoming a more versatile, expansive person. The metaphor that comes into my head is the idea of a house. When I was younger and only knew how to operate in one culture (or even 1 subculture, if we think of, say, High School), it was like I was living in a house, but I never left my bedroom. Gradually, as I was exposed to different cultures and began to see how I changed as a person when I was immersed in that culture, and accepted that the way I acted in that culture, though different, was "me" too, my 'self' got a whole new room! Welcome to the den, sit down and stay a while! I think it's easier for me to think about it in this way, though, because these cultures were not necessarily in conflict with one another, so I never felt like I was betraying my loyalty to any group by immersing myself in another group and taking on their mores, styles, attitudes, etc.