Gender sure is tricky these days. And while I consider myself open-minded on the topic, I find myself clinging to conventions. Calling a single person “they” just because that person wants me to do so is both a scientific and grammatical discomfort for me.

The gender issue is just one of the social issues percolating in a period of American history I can best describe as one defined by unrest and friction. As strong as those efforts for acceptance are, so are those that seek to dismantle them. Race is another coal on the fire.

These gravitational societal undulations don’t go unfelt, even in this old school white man-dominated industry and, yes, this white man-dominated magazine that covers it. They have figured into your human resources programs and, yes, our editorial decision making.

I can’t speak to your decisions, but I can share on ours. That cover in September 2020, with agricultural activist John Boyd Jr. on it? My initial reaction to that proposal, amidst the uprise of the controversial BLM movement, was ‘No.’ It wasn’t that he was Black. I didn’t want to do it only because he was Black.

Ultimately, I approved it. One, companies like Smithfield Foods are seeking to diversify their base of contract farmers. And, well, that photo was stunning, a piece of art. It sure as hell was a diversion from our norm, one I’d hoped would prompt a reader to pick up that magazine and turn the page.

We went through similar reservations in choosing this magazine’s cover girl, Andrea Tucker. Earlier this year, Smithfield made her the first female to take the helm as manager of the company’s Tar Heel, N.C., pork packing plant.

This time, it was a woman, editor-in-chief Lisa M. Keefe, who lamented the fact that a female plant manager is a rarity, period, let alone that Tucker was taking over the largest pork processing plant in the world. I had to remind her that she was the first to push Tucker’s appointment to Level Big Deal, and, well, she had to help steer me clear of asking gender-biased questions.

Again, I also didn’t want to put Tucker on the cover only because she’s a woman. But, of course, the fact is, she is a rarity. She represents a company’s efforts to pave the way for more people who aren’t white men. And, hey, her personality was infectious, with a wide smile that surely will warm thousands of employees to her.

But more than that, in visiting with Tucker I couldn’t help but admire her focus not on her historic milestone, but on energizing her people — no matter their gender, race or political beliefs —to do a good job and aspire to a better position on the job and in life.

That’s a breath of fresh air.

The discomforts we find in social issues, in my mind, are a human survival mechanism. We feel safe with what is “normal” to each of us. It may not come to be, in our lifetime, that Black people or females — let alone LGBQT or non-binary — will be the overriding “norm” in the traditional meat processing industry.

But in facing these societal discomforts — with a willingness to learn from new faces, voices and souls — we can achieve enrichment and substance.

Editor's note: This article appeared as the Editorial in the August issue of Meatingplace magazine.

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