A few years ago, a personal development program required me to be a man for one evening. I borrowed my husband’s suit, shirt, tie and shoes. Admittedly, I had to stuff the toes of his shoes for them to fit. The rest suited well. Struggling to find one’s own, unique identity remains one of life’s extenuating challenges.
I longed to be a man. I wanted the power, the easy recognition, the affirmation of my worth. What I discovered that weekend helped define my identity as a woman. I am woman. My gender in no way diminishes the importance of what I have to say nor the message my work conveys, whether recognised or not. So, I continue to speak and work.
Which brings me to a current crisis of identity. So many reject their birth gender these days. They insist their bodies betray how they identify themselves. I so get it. And I am also thankful I did not have access to physically change anything. The huge winner in all this is Big Pharma. And my tax dollars pay for it.
Cosmetic surgery cannot reveal the true person. In fact, it usually contributes it its demise. So where do we find the root cause of this identity crisis? I suspect the catalyst of Women’s Liberation. The movement opened a cornucopia of questions demanding reasonable answers to millennia enforced parameters and perceptions. It challenged fixed assumptions around the roles of men and women and how we view ourselves. For a time, things seemed to change.
Unfortunately, today, social media reinforces the age-old concepts of how a man or a woman must be. Instead of rejoicing in newfound freedom to be anyway we wish scalpels maim perfectly functioning bodies while forcing a lifetime of servitude to hormonal injections. “Men must be men and women must be women” so we try to change what cannot be changed in the hope of proving one’s innate nature.
One’s innate nature does not depend on the body. The body is only a vessel in which our identity resides. Social parameters would have it otherwise. They dictate the height, weight and musculature of a man; tall, dark and handsome cannot wear a dress. Women are best barefoot, pregnant and in the kitchen. Of course, being blond, well-endowed and brainless help too. And we can only wear dresses.
For me, the saddest part of all this rests in the suspicion that in the loss of hope, nothing and no one wins. Except those in charge of the money, of course. An empty and cruel taskmaster, the love of gold drains the soul of love of neighbour and love of self. Loving myself continues as my greatest challenge. Forgiving myself for being woman, for being creative, for “wasting time” on anything but monetary gain, frees me to love, to create, to be. I do not have to change a thing. I just need to embrace what is here and now.
