Being Authentic in a Messed Up World

“Be a first-rate version of yourself, not a second-rate version of someone else.”
Judy Garland

A few years ago, when I was working at a fancy clothing store in London, a young woman in her mid 20s came in with her mother to buy a suit. She was nervous. The suit was for a medical school entry interview, at Cambridge University.

I selected jackets and skirts for her that I thought would complement her, look sophisticated, and suit the occasion. But she turned down every option, choosing instead to buy a disturbingly dumpy-looking skirt and a badly fitting jacket two sizes too big for her. She seemed to be trying to dress like an 80-year old man with no sense of style.

I couldn’t help myself, I had to ask her why.

She told me that she needed to look respectable but not ‘sexy’, capable but not arrogant. If she chose something that made her look too ‘stylish’ or feminine, she felt she wouldn’t be taken seriously. It was a risk she absolutely wasn’t willing to take. I was stunned. This young woman, top of her class, dressed badly on purpose so she would appear intelligent enough to attend Cambridge University.

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, despite being one of the most famous and respected authors in Nigeria, encountered a similar problem. The first time she taught a writing class in graduate school, she was more worried about what to wear than teaching the class itself. Afraid of not being taken seriously, she chose to wear a manly suit. “I wish I had not worn that ugly suit that day. I've actually banished it from my closet, by the way. Had I then the confidence that I have now to be myself, my students would have benefited even more from my teaching, because I would have been more comfortable and more fully and more truly myself. I have chosen to no longer be apologetic for my femaleness and for my femininity.”

Like Adichie, I’m also trying to unlearn the ‘lessons of gender’ that I internalised when I grew up. Unfortunately, when I was growing up I didn’t see many women that were doing anything other than raising children and doing chores, and I grew up in California in the 90s!

Only one of my mother’s friends didn’t have children and wasn’t married. I was impressed because she was an architect, full of passion and character. But despite this, she seemed to spend a lot of time feeling like a failure and crying because she hadn’t yet found a husband and couldn’t have children.

Come to think of it, I don’t remember seeing that many happy women. My childhood daydreams (I daydreamed while I did chores) were about getting married, and having children. I didn’t daydream about having a career. It’s embarrassing, but true. Even now I struggle with the freedoms I have. I struggle to feel I deserve them, and I struggle to know what to do with them.

Adichie talks about the need to address how we raise both boys and girls if we are going to see any real change. “We do a great disservice to boys on how we raise them: we stifle the humanity of boys. We define masculinity in a very narrow way, masculinity becomes this hard, small cage and we put boys inside the cage. […] we teach boys to mask their true selves.”

According to Anne-Marie Slaughter, men need to be supported to make life choices that will make them happy, just as much as a woman deserves to. But if a man “decides to be a caregiver, he puts his manhood on the line. His friends may praise his decision, but underneath, they're scratching their heads. Isn't the measure of a man his willingness to compete with other men for power and prestige?” Just as we have worked hard to make sure that women can participate in every field, Slaughter says that “we should be socializing our sons and our husbands to be whatever they want to be, either caregivers or breadwinners.”

For Adichie, the problem is not only that we ‘stifle the humanity of boys’ but we do a “much greater disservice to girls because we raise them to cater to the fragile egos of men. We teach girls to shrink themselves, to make themselves smaller. We say to girls: ‘You can have ambition, but not too much. You should aim to be successful, but not too successful. Otherwise, you will threaten the man.’”

I have experienced living according to these words, tempering ambition with restraint, careful to make career and life choices that won’t upset anybody or rock any boats. The end result? I’ve been bored out of my mind. I haven’t lived with consciousness and authenticity. “when you are unconscious, your life story isn’t under your control. You’re a brain puppet, which means that your choices aren’t really your own. They are mechanical repetitions of past choices.” (Deepak Chopra, What are you hungry for?) Maybe they are mechanical repetitions of past choices that you never even made. Maybe they are repetitions of the mistakes your grandparents and parents made.

In both directions both men and women are trapped by social gender expectations and limitations. We are trapped by fear and insecurity. I think we don’t typically feel safe enough to express our true selves and be authentic, we conform to narrow ‘male’ and ‘female’ roles and expectations. I think that consciousness and authenticity is what we should be exploring more, then we can feel our way through our own lives, and make decisions about how to live based on what feels right for us.

“When you are conscious, you have control over your impulses. Your brain hasn’t turned you into its puppet. Instead, you use the brain as the mind’s magnificent gift. It turns your intentions into reality, makes dreams come true, and delivers a stream of creativity.” (Deepak Chopra, What are you hungry for?)

“I’ve come to believe that each of us has a personal calling that’s as unique as a fingerprint – and that the best way to succeed is to discover what you love and then find a way to offer it to others in the form of service, working hard, and also allowing the energy of the universe to lead you.” – Oprah Winfrey