Being Amber Rhea

Something I find interesting and disturbing is how freely people of my generation give out their social security numbers. (I do it myself all the time!) Think about it, how often when you call customer service for somewhere like a bank, or a cable company, or any other place where you have an account do they ask to “verify your social security number?” Some people even use it as their driver’s license number. When I was in grad school, I remember our awesome CS professor, Dr. Dan, telling us that an important rule of designing good web apps was that under no circumstances should a person’s social security number be used as a username, password, or any other type of identity verification. This is what leads to the ease of identity theft, and anyway, social security numbers were never meant to be personal identification numbers, although that’s basically what they’ve come to be. (And I can understand the rationale - it’s easy, everyone has a unique SSN, it’s assigned by the Federal government, so why not use it as an ID?)

One thing that really struck me and made me realize that this cavalier attitude toward SSNs is a phenomenon among younger people was back in December/January, when I was dealing with all that AT&T bullshit for my grandmother. (Not sure if I ever wrote about it here; I think I Twittered about it, at least; but mad props to Darcey’s boyfriend for finally getting that shit sorted out, as it took absurdity to new depths of cartoonishness.) When I would call AT&T they would constantly be asking for her social security number. It didn’t matter that I gave them her name, address, account numbers, phone number, explained that I was her granddaughter and she’s in her 80s and doesn’t have the time or energy to deal with this fucking bullshit which even I could barely make heads nor tails of… no, they wanted that magic, golden social security number! So I called Gran and asked her if she’d give it to me. She refused. She even refused to give me just the last four digits. She said she’d never associated her SSN w/ her account anyway, because it’s not something she gives out.

I found that to be really interesting and important to think about, how protective she is of it, not even revealing it to me, her granddaughter, whom she pretty much thinks can do no wrong. Also, on a somewhat related note, she had been getting phone calls from people trying to scam her out of her MasterCard number, saying they were from magazine companies and such; she saw right through it. I think sometimes we don’t give older folks enough credit - we assume they’re stupid or naïve in matters like this. But in many ways they can be more responsible than people our age!

What do y’all think about the social security number thing? (And of course, if you don’t live in the US, I’m sure you DGAS!)

Just a couple other things, then I should get ready for bed. When I think about all the day-to-day, deeply entrenched, utterly unquestioned sexism in our society,* I get really sad. It’s another reason I just can’t participate in all the drama of various blogs, and certainly not in most political events of any sort. (Sex, Wine and Chocolate being an exception… gotta buy my tickets for this year, and you should too!) When I hear people being so dismissive about sexism, using oppressed people as punchlines for their unfunny jokes, refusing to listen to someone else’s lived experience, immediately dismissing anything associated w/ the name “feminism,” and just generally being jackasses, sure, on one level it makes me angry; but mostly it makes me profoundly sad. And I don’t know what to do with that. I have a history of internalizing my anger and sadness in self-destructive ways, so I have to resist my old patterns; and yet still I’m left wondering, mouth agape and arms wide open, what do I do with… this massive, overwhelming THIS?

Here are two posts from my archives as examples of what makes me feel so sad and dragged down:

• September 22, 2006: Cruel and Unusual
• November 17, 2006: More hell yes

On some level I have that doe-eyed idealistic hippie thing going on: I want to make the world a better place. I truly do. I want the world to be a place where people respect each other, listen to each other, and learn and grow from that listening. But too often people are just shouting over each other trying to see who will be the loudest, with the same voices always “winning.”

Lastly, I’ve been unhappy with the way a lot of people have reacted to my news of my BlogHer Atlanta panel. It’s really bizarre, actually: when I first announced it, immediately the responses came in of why people can’t go. The justifications, almost being too quick to say they can’t come and here are all the reasons why. Not a simple “congratulations” or “that sounds cool” or “I’m happy for you”; no, it was all, “I can’t come.” To me this defies basic decency and common sense. That is not how you act to a friend. More on this later though, I’m too tired to write anymore of it for now… I’m all drained after writing about the sexism stuff.

* I’m sick of using the phrase “in our society” - but I can’t think of a better one. Ideas?