I intentionally live a semi-public life. I blog about work and personal things here, post on Facebook (generally locked to friends-of-friends, which is still a pretty wide audience), post shameless selfies on my Instagram, use LinkedIn, and am highly googleable. I do this because I believe living an open life breaks down stereotypes and misconceptions.
Growing up I felt implicit pressure from my family to present the “right” image to the public. It could be summed up by: don’t do or reveal anything that might prevent you from running for office on an evangelical conservative Republican ticket. And yes, that’s fucked up. This contributed to my shame about being gay and other people knowing that I’m gay. It also boxed me into not wanting to publicly admit that I might do or enjoy activities that might not be seen as “traditionally masculine”.
Over time I’ve realized that while we all present some front to the world, presenting one that demonstrates the breadth and depth of our person and character helps break down stereotypes and misconceptions and allows us to find commonalities in our shared humanity. In short, it helps us to relate to each other.
Growing up I mentally divided up the world into nerds and jocks — you were either smart or attractive, but not both. This certainly contributed to some of my body-image issues. Turns out that’s not true! I’ve always identified as a nerd and over time have both made peace with my body and made great strides on my fitness journey (more on that in upcoming blog posts). It’s also one reason why I post shirtless photos on Instagram — to break the stereotype of what a nerd looks like.1
I likely present a “traditionally masculine” appearance. But let’s delve a little deeper. I often blog about my work in the tech industry – ok, that reinforces the stereotype. I think most people would agree that weightlifting and running are masculine activities and I love both of those. What about reading, throwing pottery, and partner acrobatics? I love those too, but we might be stretching classic masculinity for some folks. Ballroom dancing, baking, and sharing recipes? All things I enjoy and might make some dude-bro’s head start to hurt.
I’m not done: advocating for women & social justice, bellydancing, and knitting? All things I actively do or have done, and I suspect at least bellydancing does not rate on anyone’s “traditional masculinity” scale. Oh, and of course I’m gay and an ardent feminist. So am I masculine or not? Does it matter? Maybe the definition of masculine is so horribly broken and constraining that it actively hurts men and we need to break free of it.
My point is that once you start seeing more of a person you start to break down preconceptions about what boxes they fit into. But until we start showing more of ourselves than the label on the boxes, we only serve to perpetuate the problem.
My openness didn’t happen in a day. I slowly started revealing more about who I am and what makes me happy over time. The more I do it the easier it becomes. I still hide some of who I am for fear of being rejected or judged but that becomes less with every passing year. Eventually I will become the embodiment of Betty White, who just doesn’t give a damn about what people think. #lifegoals
1 Also, frankly, it’s because I enjoy the affirmation since I finally like how I look after hating my body for so long.
Digital Ramblings 