It's a statement that seems to say that we are defined by other's expectations, and it is both sociological and philosophical.
So I have a question about that.
Do you think it is true? Are you defined by what others expect of you or by yourself? Really think about it. By virtue of being cd/tg are you a maverick or are you constrained by the expectations of others?
Yes Virginia, I know that you are Virginia and she is you, but look back in the nether regions of your history (you know, BV -before Virginia ) and think about the way you were before and what social pressures might have helped define the old you.
I have my view on the question, but I will wait until others have commented to put my 2 cents worth in. Hmmm. If someone says "a penny for your thougnts" and you put your 2 cents worth in, what happens to the other penny? George Carlin really was a strange man!!
Carolynn
"It’s not given to anyone to have no regrets; only to decide, through the choices we make, which regrets we’ll have,"
David Weber – In Fury Born
Carolynn wrote:In a link referred to by Susan in a post about a gender swap television series, the male actor made the following observation:
"Who we are is who other people think we are. When that's removed, we're lost. "
It's a statement that seems to say that we are defined by other's expectations, and it is both sociological and philosophical.
Hmmmm. I read it a little differently but completely agree that it's a fascinating thought to follow. My interpretation is that we use other people as a mirror to measure progress toward our inner goal. Without the reactions of others, we don't know whether we're making progress or just deluding ourselves.
What fascinates me is the process by which people decide whose reactions are valuable in their eyes and whose are unimportant. None of us feels complete without a social circle to use as that important mirror, but for some the feedback from a complete stranger can also be devastating, while for others it is completely without meaning. Still others find positive feedback in negative reactions. It's all rather amazing to me and another piece in the puzzle that is humanity.
~ Kimberly
“To escape criticism do nothing, say nothing, be nothing." - Elbert Hubbard
Hi Kimberly. I agree that the feedback from strangers can be important as a means to see yourself in their mirror of opinion. The effects of the teaching and expectations of others who are closer to you can be even more devastating if you let them see yourself, I think.
I remember bits and pieces of my earliest years when they would say "Boys don't do things like that", or "Good boys (that was a biggie with my mom) don't behave like that". The operant words were to reinforce the fact they had been telling me I was a boy and I wasn't supposed to do things like wear their jewelry and a towel for a skirt, and a hankerchief around my impossibly short hair for long hair while cuddling my one and only doll or feeding her. I was three at the time, and knew I was to grow up to be a mommy.
Peers were cousins who lived nearby at that time, and they were such ornery little scuts (my folks never knew some of the things they were responsible for) and yet I was encouraged to play with them and try to be like them, to be a boy. My flippin' role models --not! The worst of their orneryness was excused as boys will be boys, though I was embarassed by their behavior, in which I had been a reluctant participant because I was supposed to be a boy too. The expectations of parental units and really, even those that were supposed to guide and teach us, had the inexorable effect of starting to split me between who I KNEW I was and what they wanted me to be to keep them happy with me.
Early in my teens, my body started to develop in ways my parents didn't think right for a boy, and I was given bi-weekly injections of androgens to "make me have puberty" even though I had started a perfectly good prepubertal process, just not what they wanted. So I had 16 months of bi weekly injections, and I HATED the effects. I went from a slim, a bit short, potential girl, to a gross, hairy in places, deep chested, broad shouldered agressive piece of crap that I could only face in the mirror by focusing on just parts with needed tasks, like shaving, or combing my hair. Below the neck I did not look. When I did, I wanted to die. And I tried to make it so.
Later when I began to transition, what I perceived to be cruel comments by strangers, calling me sir or treating me as a male, reacting to my physical attributes, made me want to crawl into a hole and not come out. But the most insidious was the constant pressure of parents and relatives and other leaders and role models in the society to conform to who they wanted me to be, as a child and later as well.
I also thought about it in terms of external appearance, immediate authority symbols, and so on. I was a Naval officer, and putting on the uniform gave me a degree of instant authority in certain circles, and as I advanced in rank, it was always taken more and more for granted that I was that person. Never mind that I usually felt a fraud.
The same was true in circumstances relating to my career as an archaeologist. On matters that concerned prehistory, I was expected to know about whatever they asked me, even dinosaurs which is the proper realm of the paleontologist while archaeology is the study of past cultures and their people, yet they expected me to know all manner of things. I actually found myself studying paleontology so I could answer some of their questions, just because they expected me to know.
Within the university, I was expected to fit into the world of academia, which actually allowed considerable latitude so long as you followed the dictum to "Publish or Perish". You had to be in good standing with publications, attend conferences, give papers, and speak knowingly of matters of the politic academe. So help me they were the WORST gossips in the world, and I always, always felt the outsider though most seem to think I was one of them.
I think that is what my perception of his statement was, which is not too different from your own mirror concept.
So, how does your view of yourself, within your family, and within your career, church, etc. (each of which may require a different role by the expectations of that society) mesh with your perception of yourself? How does the mirror of society, family, etc. affect your perception of yourself?
Am I even expressing this clearly?
Carolynn
Carolynn
"It’s not given to anyone to have no regrets; only to decide, through the choices we make, which regrets we’ll have,"
David Weber – In Fury Born
Hi Carolyn—
You come across clearly to me, and I liked your post.
Kimberly, I like your take on it, too. Other people are mirrors, to measure one’s progress in any given task. It is indeed fascinating to see which people’s opinions matter, and which ones don’t.
I’d have to say that it’s valuable to have the mirrors. At the same time, other people cannot be the final measure of who you are, or what you want to be. It is very sad to see someone who has reached the limit of what other people allow them to be. Children have this bind, of course, but so do spouses who can’t financially survive alone.
Carolyn, it’s hard to read about your decades-long charades, but at least I’m reading about someone who is making it right for herself, in any way that she can NOW.
Carolyn wrote:
Early in my teens, my body started to develop in ways my parents didn't think right for a boy, and I was given bi-weekly injections of androgens to "make me have puberty" even though I had started a perfectly good prepubertal process, just not what they wanted.
I'm sorry that you had no choice in the matter. That would be painful, to become what you didn't want to become. Even now there would be a lot of pressure for parents to make sure their health plan steered their child toward the development of the gender traits that go with the biological gender. It’s still very rare for parents to allow a child to live as the other gender, too. That possibility was non-existent when we were growing up. (“We” meaning anyone older than say, 15!) So, unfortunately, I don’t think your parents had much of a choice. Maybe I’m misunderstanding exactly what went on, though.
For years, I felt I had to live up to other people’s expectations of what it was to be a hard rock guitarist. While there’s some androgyny in the appearance of Led Zeppelin or Thin Lizzy, there wasn’t much room for alternative behavior. I finally had to throw it all overboard to become a “girl” hard rock guitarist. My younger self would have denounced me, and been horrified. It is an odd thing to live long enough to see yourself change something so basic.
Other people’s expectations mean that there’s certain people who I won’t go to dressed femme. They acknowledge that a woman named Anita exists, but they don’t want to meet her. I respect their wishes, and they don’t meet her.
Last edited by Anita on Sun Apr 26, 2009 4:19 pm, edited 3 times in total.
Many married CDs would like to use their wife as their mirror or sounding board, either as a wish or in the flesh. Much of the time this is not so with wives who object to any degree.
I guess, in a way, I could be the result of what was expected. Then again, maybe there was just a little push in the direction I seemed to be heading.
As a kid I was always taking things apart, studying them, and sometimes putting them back together, sometimes making something different.
At Xmas I'd get presents that were leading, I guess. Electronic kits, etc.
So, now I have a degree in Electrical Engineering.
Swimming was another push. Early on I was scared of the water. Well, not so much the water, but putting my head under the water. Weak lungs in that regard, from having double pneumonia when I was a baby.
My dad would jump in the deep end of the pool and hold me under in an attempt to break the fear. It eventually worked, and I went on to become the fastest swimmer in the area, and on the city swim team.
I still swim for exercise, and no, I still can't hold by breath very long under water.
Other than that, I'd say I am who I was intended to be and not as others want me to be.
When I'm alone I'm Robyn. I think I may always have been.
There have been times, some of them long times, when I've forgotten that, pushed it down below the floorboards of my mind. But still always down there under the floorboards (that's how I picture it), I've been Robyn.
Sometimes that made me scared, sometimes joyful. Often it has made me hide my real self from others.
But I truly cannot think of anyone who influenced or defined me in my Robyn direction. It was way too basic, back before I knew much or thought about anything.
Unless it was my having been sexually abused as a child. I guess being "used as a woman," as the saying is, might be influential in that way. I hope that isn't the influence, but I just don't know.
But in my solitary self the core is Robyn. The rest has been added. If anything, the male part is what has been built and defined through the influence and example of others, not the Robyn part.
Guess that makes me a maverick girl. The boy part would be the one "constrained by the expectations of others," in Carolynn's terms.
And Carolynn, I'd say the other penny is the one that drops.
Carolynn wrote:
...
"Who we are is who other people think we are. When that's removed, we're lost. "
...
Carolynn
I do not agree with this statement at all. Here is a quote from the movie Waking Life.
Philosophy professor Robert Solomon, at the University of Texas at Austin wrote:
The reason why I refuse to take existentialism as just another French fashion or historical curiosity is that I think it has something very important to offer us for the new century. I'm afraid we're losing the real virtues of living life passionately, sense of taking responsibility for who you are, the ability to make something of yourself and feeling good about life. Existentialism is often discussed as if it's a philosophy of despair. But I think the truth is just the opposite. Sartre once interviewed said he never really felt a day of despair in his life. But one thing that comes out from reading these guys is not a sense of anguish about life so much as a real kind of exuberance of feeling on top of it. It's like your life is yours to create. I've read the postmodernists with some interest, even admiration. But when I read them, I always have this awful nagging feeling that something absolutely essential is getting left out. The more that you talk about a person as a social construction or as a confluence of forces or as fragmented or marginalized, what you do is you open up a whole new world of excuses. And when Sartre talks about responsibility, he's not talking about something abstract. He's not talking about the kind of self or soul that theologians would argue about. It's something very concrete. It's you and me talking. Making decisions. Doing things and taking the consequences. It might be true that there are six billion people in the world and counting. Nevertheless, what you do makes a difference. It makes a difference, first of all, in material terms. Makes a difference to other people and it sets an example. In short, I think the message here is that we should never simply write ourselves off and see ourselves as the victim of various forces. It's always our decision who we are.
We decide how to project ourselves, so in some regards, we decide how others see us. Having said that, we do not control people's misconceptions of us especially due to our inability to project who we really are. And this can happen for a whole variety of reasons.
The biggest problems I have had and the worst times in my life emotionally was when I was trying to live up to the expectations of others. These expectations are not a reflection of who we are. They are usually expectations that is in line with what the other person or persons want from us, based on their wants and needs.
It was not until I started living to please myself that my life finally improved. My biggest struggle was realizing that I was not who others wanted me to be. I was Elizabeth, the person I had been hiding. And no one can define Elizabeth, except me.
I can even take this a step farther and say that I do not believe anyone can define who anyone is, except themselves. But most people do not ever reveal who they truly are to anyone except possibly those closest to them.
My entire existence happens in my mind. Everything I see, hear, feel, smell or sense in any other way, is through the filter of my mind. Whether or not anyone or anything is real, is unknown. So because everything has to go through my filters, only I can define who I am.
Noone defines who we are. No human being, as a whole, can be so simplistic as to be defined by anything inferior to the the divine words of creation.
Every human is like a jewel with a million facets. One could spend his entire life cataloguing every minute detail of every facet, but he would only be missing out on the greater picture. Henceforth, we should not care about who defines us or how he does so, we should care about why we desire to be defined. What makes us, as individuals, crave to be categorised with restrictive ideals that only apply partially to the majority of those now bound to it?
Whoa... Don't know where that came from... Anyhow... I just let the theological mumbo-jumbo to the experts and enjoy myself for now. I'll get to work on it when I'm retired and bored of knitting.
''We are strong, yet we don't belong. Born in this world as it all falls apart.''
If I were to accept other's view of me I'd view myself as an overweight 60-year-old man. But here I sit, dressed as a woman, feeling at complete peace with the world.
I think that if you pay attention to what others expect of you, you will be pushed to and fro and never reach a point where you're happy with yourself.
Sooner or later you have to say to the world, "No, I'm right and you're wrong. And if that makes you unhappy, that's your problem, not mine."
Finding Cynthia was one of the best things that ever happened to me, and if other people disagree, too bad for them.
In the main, the replies to this thread are what I felt. I agree that it is the expectations of others, and how much we might buy into them, that give the impression spoken by the rather shallow actor in the statement that started this. Talk about someone with a poor self image and large ego. Oh well.
Thanks for the responses.
One additional question, do you think that being "special" vs. concepts of "normality" indicate a stronger personality than others, or are the attitudes in the responses indicative of everyone? In other words, does being a kind of social maverick show a stronger ego?
Carolynn
"It’s not given to anyone to have no regrets; only to decide, through the choices we make, which regrets we’ll have,"
David Weber – In Fury Born
Carolynn wrote:In other words, does being a kind of social maverick show a stronger ego?
No. There are extreme conservatives with just as much an ego problem as extreme liberals, for example.
You don't have to be liberal to be a social maverick. In fact, in today's society the conservatives tend to be the outsiders in many situations.
I think it takes a pretty strong ego for a man to put on a dress and say "this is me." And I sure feel proud to be part of that group. I don't know much about other kinds of social mavericks.
No, not for me. I have a very fragile ego, easily crushed. It's always been a real problem—I stick my neck out, but then when others jeer, I want to sink through the floor.
All my life I've taken less traveled paths, but it was as much avoidance as daring. It's made my life unusual, and I've done a lot of strange things. Even was a stage performer for a while, though after some years of it the pain and stress and shame afterward eventually made it impossible for me to continue.
So yes, I've been rebellious and a nonconformist, because I couldn't stand to go along with the crowd—but I've died a thousand deaths doing it. So I can't claim to have even an average-strength ego—below average if anything. The things I've done, I've done in spite of that.
) and think about the way you were before and what social pressures might have helped define the old you.
