Week 20: The identity spectrum

“Your appearance is now what we call Residual Self Image.  It is the mental projection of your digital self.”  - Morpheus to Neo, The Matrix, 1999.

I wanted to pick up a thread on last week’s theme of the identity spectrum.  Gender is one aspect our overall self-identity.  Another component is our personal perception of our physical bodies.  In one sense, gender is a sub-category of physical identity, because external secondary sex characteristics have a strong categorical tie with our gender identities, whether they are in agreement, disagreement, or some state of neutrality.

Physical characteristics can also have a profound influence on feelings of self-worth and ego.  Perhaps we are unsure of our capacity to be objective critics of ourselves.  Thus, we may rely heavily on the actions and reactions of others to inform our physical presentations of certain traits and our decisions about fashion choices, body modification, and other identifying characteristics.

Self-identity with respect to outward physical appearance recalls a similar question to the one I posed last week - the question of ideas found independently of social influence.  As with gender identity, it’s challenging to dissociate individualistic conclusions from those that have been taught by society as though they were true by default.  On the surface, we can look at things like the trend of the ideal sexual body in the media and its influence on our feelings of sexiness.  Going a layer deeper, we arrive at a place where we can begin to wonder about the origins of body stereotypes and other identity trends, and whether our physical self-identity is in fact a product of ourselves at all, or if it is an exclusive byproduct of imagery and social pressures.

Aristotle said something to the effect of “the virtue lies in the mean.”  It lends credibility to my writing when I paraphrase Aristotle because he was way smarter than me.  Point being that the truth of many things lies somewhere in middle-ground between extremes.  It’s very difficult to give a succinct and truthful definition of “self-identity,” even though I’ve been talking about it for 5 paragraphs.  Fundamentally, the identity pie chart that I use to represent “me” - a product of instinct, inborn genetic characteristics, and environmental factors - has unclear divisions.  

Thus we circumvent the binary - exclusively self-projected vs. the exclusive product of society and media - by suggesting that how we appear to ourselves must be some combination of inborn and external factors.  I make my self-image agree with how society says I ought to look to a certain extent.  This seems fairly obvious, but it raises another interesting question: which component of is the more valid contributor to self-identity?

Put another way, if we were to ask Aristotle, and I were to pretend that I could speak on his behalf, he might say “well, kids, it’s probably best to locate some comfortable balance of the two.  Nothing wrong with having a nice wardrobe, but make sure you’re comfortable in your own skin.”  It seems like a valid point, but it falls short of explaining why the highest value is given to a “balanced” self-identity over one that trends towards an extreme.  

In a similar way to the male-female gender spectrum, some individuals will be further along the physical identity spectrum towards one extreme or the other.  One one hand we may find, say, a monk who lives where there are no mirrors and has dedicated years to introspective meditation.  I feel it’s fair to say that such an individual would project a self-image with very little influence from fashion magazines.  On the opposite end of the dial, we find the most culturally immersed people who seem to draw exclusively from images and popular trends - and the need to stay ahead of them - to inform and define their physical self.  Which view is more authentic?

By what measure is the merit of one expression of physical identity weighed against another?  If we call someone a “fashion victim,” we imply that they are a slave to trends and pop culture.  But they might rebut by saying that approval from their peers, the masses, and their competition to stay ahead of the curve is empowering.  To present one’s self for constant physical scrutiny under the social microscope can lead to bold moves of creativity, outlandish experimentation with self-image, and it can be the trigger of massive cultural trends.  This seems to give high merit to this end of the spectrum since its consequences can generate large ripples in the pond of society.

Conversely, it seems tempting to idealize the quiet, introspective life of a monastery.  Surely an identically-dressed group of monks who are given to thoughtful, quiet contemplation would be much more self-aware and internally grounded in their construction of self-image.  Free of the constraints of popular approval, they seem to be in a position to evaluate their corporeal forms through a true, clear lens that is not clouded by the gaze of society.  But alternatively, they’re really boring.  “It’s so much fun out here!” cries the fashion mogul.  “Perhaps, but the fun is temporary, while the self is eternal,” the monk sagely replies.  Who is more correct?

When we identify and qualify our physical bodies, the origin of our perceptions may not be present in our thoughts.  Perhaps our self-assessment - of our looks, of our body type, of our feelings of attractiveness and ego - cannot be objective since it is unclear whether our reflection is internally consistent, or if it would appear different to us under less socially influenced circumstances.  I would suggest that the absence of this knowledge makes our personal role in determining our self-image a matter of where we choose to assign value on the identity-spectrum.  Just as a female is no more “correct” than a male, perhaps our understanding of physical identity is most valuable or most consistent when it places us at the point on the spectrum where we feel the highest sense of self-worth.


Word count:  999(!)*

*When I realized it was close, I totally did this on purpose.

Week 19: Questioning sex and gender

If you’re not watching the US election primaries, you might have missed the latest ad from Rick Perry, a Republican candidate for the 2012 nomination.  In the video, entitled “Strong,” (I’m not going to link to it, just search on YouTube if you want to watch) Perry attacks gay and lesbian members of the US military.  He suggests that the real victims of oppression in the US are the poor, poor christian school children who are supposedly barred from praying and celebrating Christmas in schools.

There has already been substantial backlash against Perry, and rightly so.  He is a disgusting human being, a bigot, and given his candidacy, unfortunately  representative of a significant number of Americans.  Volumes could be written about all the things that are wrong with this ad and the man who approved its message.

The firestorm is underway and I don’t have much to say politically that hasn’t already been said by a great many bloggers and journalists.  But since this topic is getting significant attention at the moment, I’d like to take the opportunity to throw a less political opinion into the ring.  It’s easy to forget amidst the highly charged debates that a major obstacle to resolving questions over lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) rights is the language that frames the debate, and the inherent conflicts and false dichotomies that arise from the terms themselves.

If you’re reading this, it’s probable that you were brought up in a home (and a culture at large) where you were taught from birth that sex and gender were inexorably linked, that there were clear divisions between men and women, and by extension, clear margins between sexual preferences.  This teaching makes any individual who doesn’t fit in a well-defined sex/gender box an other, an outsider, and it is dehumanizing.  It’s important here to emphasize that cultural impressions of sex and gender are not universally recognized facts or absolute truths, even though they’re presented that way and taken for granted as such.

A glance through an anthropology or sociology textbook will bring up numerous examples of cultures - both past and present day - in which there are several genders recognized depending on but not limited to the sex, age, and personal desires of the individual.  I’m not an anthropologist, so if you’d like to learn more on the specifics, do a quick Google search for “the third gender” and have a browse through some of the articles.  Don’t worry, I’ll wait.

There are millions of people who live in gender roles that are not clearly defined by man/woman/gay/straight dichotomies.  It’s unfortunate that the spectrum of gender and sexuality has been turned into a political battleground.  It turns an issue that ought to exist within the domain of the individual and their private relationships into a divisive piece of political and cultural theater.  Parties on both sides put up walls and sling stones and arrows at each other.  Meeting at some common ground between the battalions is rarely the objective; it’s all about enforcing the “correct” view on the Other.  And it’s upsetting that the language being used to frame the debate victimizes people by planting them in a camp that’s alienated by its very definition.

Now this is obviously an oversimplification of an extremely complex issue, but I only have 1,000 words to get through it, so if you would, please bear with me as I put on my hippie hat for a moment and dream of a better world.

I like the scene at the beginning Monty Python’s “The Meaning of Life.”  A birth has taken place and when the mother (Terry Jones in a wig) asks about the sex of the baby, Graham Chapman replies “...I think it’s a bit early to be imposing roles on it, don’t you?”  It’s purely for comedic effect, but if you’re so inclined, you can read some pretty interesting questions in to that statement.  What if we didn’t tell everybody right from the get go that they were a boy and therefore ought to like girls, or visa versa?

Before I go too far down the queer rabbit hole, of course it’s true that we have an instinctive, biological imperative to pass on our genes and keep the species going.  Evolution and such.  Obviously the male/female sexual relationship (in the absence of reproduction science, an issue for some future essay) is necessary to keep our species alive.  Does this, however, mean that we are obligated to conform to gender roles that put us into the sorts of culturally sanctioned relationships that produce these “legitimate” children (monogamous, heterosexual marriages/partnerships?)  My answer is a resolute no.

I believe that it’s worth asking yourself how many of your ideas about your sexuality and your role as a man or woman are your own and how many have been placed there by cultural influence.  It’s kind of like the baby nature vs. nurture question for sexual identity and gender.  It’s an extremely difficult question to answer, and I can’t say with any certainty that I’ve sorted it out either.  Regardless, I think that the act of contemplating and challenging our cultural teachings is a very important step in breaking the false dichotomies that are implicit in the words gay, straight, and other definitions that compartmentalize our bodies, our identities and our sexuality.

It’s been said but it bears repeating - if we have love to give and there are people deserving of it, why should physiology matter?  The root of this entire conflict and the problem with horrible people like Rick Perry who perpetuate it is based in a falsehood - the notion that we must choose a gender and a sexual preference and conform to its ideals.  Before they reach sexual maturity, it’s totally unnecessary to disclose the sex of a child.  The consequences of telling people extend about as far as the colour of the clothes and type of toys that they’ll be getting for their birthday.  Why is it that once we cross the threshold of sexual awakening that it immediately becomes necessary to compartmentalize ourselves into a pattern of thought and behaviour that’s associated with strict, defining characteristics of sex and gender?  Maybe some day, we could agree to let people love who they want to, how they want to, when and where they want to, without requiring them to pick a team.

Word count: 1,070