Sensitive Issues

If you're reading this, you probably know what I do for a living. And many of you do the same thing. While I wouldn't say it's a passion, creating educational materials (that's mainly textbooks and testing materials, for those of you not up on the industry jargon) is definitely a good gig that allows me a great deal of flexibility--and the money's not bad, either. Every once in a while I get to work on a project that I believe is really effective and meaningful, but for the most part, most of the big publishers are producing the same mediocre stuff under different titles. As they try to maximize profits by meeting the needs of a huge audience, they often miss the mark completely.

One of the big issues in educational publishing is "sensitivity." It's been an issue as long as I've been in the business. For a long time now certain topics have been off limits. Obviously, you can't write stories about sex and violence. You can't write about religious holidays or Halloween because someone might be offended. Minorities and the elderly must be shown in a positive light--they can't be depicted as criminal or feeble, respectively. Children on bikes must always wear helmets and people in cars must have on their seat belts. Physical handicaps must be depicted with regularity, but, for the most part, the handicap must not be an issue. Fictional characters must represent people from a variety of ethnic and social groups. Magic and magical creatures are completely off limits, as are witches, ghosts, demons, and vampires; although, strangely, trolls and goblins are okey dokey.

There are some sensitivity issues that might surprise you. Children must not be depicted playing cards or using dice as a part of a board game--because cards and dice can be used in gambling. In math activities, children may use number cubes, but you may never ever call them dice. Children shouldn't be depicted consuming foods of little nutritional value, such as ice cream, candy, or chips. And they definitely shouldn't drink cola. Many publishers try to stay away from anthropomorphism although some will allow talking animals in stories for Kindergarten and first grade.

Again, these are issues I've been aware of for a long time; they're part of the educational publishing culture, so to speak, and they don't surprise me any more. At least they didn't surprise me until I received a document from a client today that left me almost speechless. In addition to the things I've mentioned above, and a bevy of other similar issues, the following are off limits:
* References to animals mating (Hmmm. That's going to make teaching life sciences a little tricky, but I'm not working on science right now, so okay. I resolve to avoid writing about mating animals!)
* People throwing up (Frankly, this doesn't come up much in the materials I've worked on, but still, this one surprised me. Does some group have religious objections to throwing up? Is it political? I don't get it!)
* Embarrassing words, such as "breast," "brassiere," and (I'm not making this up) "toilet" (What the hell?)
* Physical unattractiveness (such as obesity) as the focus of a selection if the issue is not resolved positively
* Men wearing earrings
* Biographies about people shown to have led less than exemplary lives (Whom does that leave, exactly?) or about living people who may not continue to lead exemplary lives (I'd pull out my crystal ball for that one, but I'm pretty sure crystal balls are off limits, too.)

But here's my absolute favorite "sensitive issue" from the new list:
* Classification of people as animals (e.g., "People, like other animals, need food to live.")
Seriously? How can this be a "sensitive issue"? People *are* animals. Where's the controversy?

These things make me insane. I completely understand that in order to stay in business, educational publishers have to sell textbooks. And in order to sell textbooks, publishers have to make sure they're not pissing anyone off. But when we get to the point that we're avoiding actual basic facts, like the fact that people are animals, in mass market products, I don't really see the point.