THE REPRESENTATION LIE

The media cannot stop talking about representation. Yay, we have a Pacific Islander actress in the 75th Star Wars movie! Women in Scandinavia rule! We have a transgender politician and the world is just so inclusive these days! 

Those statements are misleading of course. Representatives are often exceptions and their presence is not reflective of the general conditions of the group they are representing. A black president doesn't necessarily correlate with significant improvements in the lives of the black community or the death of racism. There is no guarantee that more women CEOs will empower ordinary women. Parasite (once again, great film) winning four Oscars doesn't mean we now live in a translingual world where people don't get frustrated with you if you don't speak the prevailing language. Bill Gates being a college dropout doesn't mean college is now useless and those who can't afford it have nothing to worry about because Bill freaking Gates! What 'representation' often does is create a hopeful yet false narrative of progress and inclusion that bears little relation to the real world, and give those in power more of a reason to dismiss the problems of the disadvantaged. Don't worry if you're held back by (insert social impediment) because look at that one in a million case we all read about in the papers and if they can do it you will too! It also leads to a culture of encouraging people to live vicariously through famous idols, building a false sense of pride in sharing superficial characteristics with them while their own lives stagnate.

However, none of these is the representation lie I am referring to today. What I am talking about is less sociocultural and more personal. It is something I have encountered frequently as a woman and I think it's time for people to stop countering me with this baseless lie. I have lost count of how many times people have told me that the reason there aren't as many female directors / scientists / engineers / any profession associated with men is because women are socialized to believe those professions are not for them owing to having fewer examples to look up to in those fields. To this I finally say--do you think women are freaking fools?

I don't know about you, but when I read the works of Carl Jung at night, I am not too bothered by the fact that he didn't have breasts, and his chromosomes don't deter me from harboring interests in environmental psychology. I don't discriminate between Einstein and Curie based on their gender, and don't find one more inspiring than the other. Many writers I read are male, and that doesn't hold me back from wanting to write myself. I don't turn the channel when Scorsese talks about the art of framing and jump to Katherine Bigelow because I know if anyone ever dreams of becoming an effective storyteller they need to shut up and listen when Scorsese talks. I wouldn't side with Hilary Clinton over Bernie Sanders just because, or come to the conclusion that Mayawati trumps Modi. The idea that just because I am a woman, I cannot draw inspiration from a man, is insulting and honestly based on very little fact. It is infantilizing fake feminism which, when examined deeply, reveals itself to have very little respect for the minds and agency of women. Women need to be told what they should aspire to in technicolor images and news captions starring people with curves, this feminism says. Otherwise, these poor women simply wouldn't know what to do! Now let's give that boss lady a Woman in Business Award because a trophy rewarding a subset of success will emancipate women.

Yeah, right.

While we're counting how many speaking roles women had in Hollywood last year and performing studies on why fewer women commit massive frauds than men, the common woman continues to be empowered by her own self and surroundings, and simultaneously held back by her body, a dwindling social support system in an increasingly individualistic world, and so-called fake feminists who only acknowledge the contributions of women in the world if they are contributions mostly associated with men. In fact, people often use examples of women who 'made it' to shame women who didn't, not taking into account personal circumstances and creating more unrealistic expectations for women than any men's magazine ever has before. Moreover, there is something very toxic about comparing men and women all the time, creating a strange competition with no winners. It's time to think about this because clearly we haven't thought this through.

In the end, I have only one thing to say. If you have a daughter, sister, relative, or female friend, maybe don't go around looking for a female picture she can emulate and worship. Instead, be her example. Be all the things you think she could be, and trust she's smart enough to learn from you and want to be you without having a gender in common. Because you know what? She probably is.