Some time ago, my husband and I were in New York City and our friend Willis invited us to come to the party with him. The party was in an apartment near Columbus Circle, overlooking Central Park. It was a pretty big crowd with about 100 people attending. At some point during the conversation,one of the other guests asked me how I was invited to this party.
"We came with Willis" I said
"Who is Willis?" the men inquired.
"A friend of Robert". Still, no recognition.
"The tall, skinny guy, over there..." I continued but he still have puzzled expression on his face
"Talking to Meghan, with a glass of champagne" I tried to identify our friend, annoyed, because it seemed to me that Willis was plain in sight.
"Oh, the Black guy!" he finally got it.
"Willis, the guy in the red shirt" I insisted stubbornly.
I am not trying to show you here how politically correct I can be. I just couldn't get over dumping Willis into this huge 'Black guy' bucket. Willis is smart, funny, flamboyant, artistic and gay. I thought of two other 'Black guys' that were part of my small team at work. Adi is a big, tall men, was born in Sierra Leone, is a single father and avid sports fanatic. Bernard wears Afro, is always proper and dignified and very active in his church. Willis has probably more in common with my husband (no, not he gay part) than with my coworkers.
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Our friends Rose and Mark got married . Rose is an American citizen but she was born in Honduras. Mark is Swiss. They decided that they will live in New York where Mark will try to get a job. He was a lawyer in Switzerland. They went to INS to start naturalization process for Mark. They had totally confused INS workers because they all started talking to Mark, assuming he is sponsoring Rose, not the other way around..
Mark tried to get a job, but it proved harder than they though. He is a confident man, but he is soft spoken and understated. When he went on interviews, he talked about his limited abilities. Nobody could take him seriously, because hearing he is a lawyer, they expected assertive, articulate and aggressive and he was none of it. After over a year of trying to find a job in NYC, Mark decided to accept a job with UN through a Swiss company. As a part of his assignment, he had to travel to Sierra Leone to prosecute war criminals. After he was there for a few months Rose decided to join him in Africa. Children would come up to her to touch her jet black, waist long straight hair and for a first time in her life, everybody referred to her as a 'White Woman' .
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My skin does not signal a difference but my voice does. Many times I meet someone for a first time, I say one sentence and they are asking me "Where are you from?" . It is not that I want to hide my heritage. But is seems kind of personal question. If I happen to notice that somebody has a nice car, I don't ask them how much they make, even if I was curious and I wanted to group owners of BMWs into some kind of list of reference in my head. I also noticed that the people who quickly pop the 'where are you from' question, usually don't ask me about anything else after that.
I am Polish, by the way. Once they learn that, they usually tell me that their cleaning lady is also Polish and that they really like her.
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I talked about it with my Puerto Rican friend and he sent me this:
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Fashion, on the other hand, is the opposite of racial and ethnic stereotypes. It is the way we consciously create our exterior image. It is the story we want to tell about ourselves to the outside world. We don't pick our skin color or the country we are born in or even our family. But most of us can pick our clothes and some of us like to use them to create meanings.
That's why fashion is not superficial (read more about it HERE on one of my favorite blogs, authored by my friend, DaniBP) and interestingly, many times we find out that we have more in common when we share the elements of personal style than when we share the genetic or ethnic background.
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There are many other ways to be stereotyped, being a woman, being young or old, being religious, being from the South, being vegetarian, being a teacher or SAHM....
Have you been a victim of stereoptyping?
Do you think we use fashion to defy stereotypes?
I used to be the fat girl, then the girl with the glasses, neither really bother me, I just think people latch on to the most obvious thing. I really love this line about clothing, 'It is the story we want to tell about ourselves to the outside world." I'm appreciating that more just now than ever, I'm 48 in June but I'm now thinking of myself as a 50 year old woman and I want to embrace that and work out my look for my next decade. I know many of you felt this at 40 but 40 didn't impact on me at all, I was still in mini skirts and heels but I want to get away form overly tight clothes now and ....eh anyone still reading? Boy, what a windbag!
ReplyDeleteTabs you made me snort my coffee for the 8000th time when I got to the end there!
DeleteTabs, I think you tell your story very well, I know you keep talking about the age but all I see is fabulous, sexy , glam, fiercely independent, and very cool. No fat girl in sight, glasses yes, as in rock star sunglasses.
DeleteGreat piece! I think that my style is my attempt to telegraph to the world an outward manifestation of how I want them to see me. I am tiny (5'2") and I head a very large organization and sit at a management table with mostly men and do not like to look like a man, nor do I want to try to emulate the typical boring corporate image of navy suit/white blouse, but want to look polished, chic and a bit cheeky, and like Tabitha, I am close to 50 (Tabitha, I only have 9 more months in my 40s and I hear what you are saying about age and style!) and I often think that when people see me ebracing style and colour that they may initially think I am less serious than my pinstripe-wearing counterparts. so it is always a balance....
ReplyDeleteWMM I wonder if you take them by surprise? I think you do, you do have cheek and I so admire that about you!
DeleteWMM, this must be tough balance, no matter what they say,I am trying to think of good role models , I think some women in politics outside of western culture do the feminine with power very well, but in our culture is hard to escape Iron Lady syndrome...
DeleteI bet you do a great job though.
Okay and ajc what a great post. First of all many thanks to linking to my blog post, I just went back and read it which I haven't done since I wrote it. Thanks for continuing this conversation.
ReplyDeleteYou make such a good point: now that we live in a global culture that thank heavens defies stereotypes clothing is more important than ever, it is less superficial than EVER.
Anyone who thinks their clothes don't exactly express who they are is really kidding themselves!
Do you speak Polish? My son's girlfriend is Polish, (born here but Polish parents) she is very beautiful just like you, and she only speaks Polish at home. I keep telling Old Rascal he should try to learn some!
I have to go to the market now but I'm going to come back and read this again!
I love that post of yours Dani, it was very well done!
DeleteI do speak Polish but unfortunately my younger daughter does not, we speak English to her. I get some grief about it from my Polish friends but she had many problems as a baby and toddler and the doctors told us to stick with one language to make it easier for her to decode. Funny thing is that my husband and I speak both Polish and English with each other but we always argue in English.
I always get the "where are you from?" line but it doesn't bother me here as much as it used to bother me when I lived in France, probably because I felt more like "one of them" (hwy, I do have an accent after all). As per fashion stereotypes, I can recognize an Italian or French from what they are wearing so there must be some truth to them. I can still remember the first thing that an italian collegue told me when I hired her in France, that she could tell I was from Milan from what I was wearing! I think it is all about finding the right balance between compartimentalization and personal style. After all we do belong to a group, even if we don't want to admit it.
ReplyDeleteIt is unteresting Ema, because I associate Italian high fashion with you, you are from Milan after all. But of course there is quite different stereotype of Italian Americans, I wonder if you have to reconcile yourself with that. I once quoted a line from Godfather to one of my Italian friend at work and she told me she hated when people do that. I never realized because it is one of my favorite movies. But I can certainly understand, if anybody try to say a 'Polish joke' in front of me and they will be sorry ;)
DeleteJust want to say I love your blog
ReplyDeleteThank You Justme!
DeleteI'm used to stereotypes. I'm from the South and although my accent is fading it used to be quite strong and y'all was every other word it would seem. That was fine until I moved away for college and my accent really stuck out. Add in big boobs, long wavy, strawberry blonde hair, mini skirts and people naturally assumed I was a bimbo. I started dressing more conservatively and it helped. Somewhat.
ReplyDeleteI was hired as a manager in a large global company while still in my early 20's and conservative, business-like dressing became vital for me. Not just to send a message to others that I mean business but also for my own self-confidence because how we dress has such an influence on how we feel and what we project. Along that line, I avoid trends because when I wear something trendy I feel like a lemming, a bit of a sucker and not at all unique and I know I have a propensity to transfer that judgement onto others who follow trends.
It's human nature to make quick judgement - we learned this as part of survival skills - and to put people and things into familiar context, whether positive or negative. It shows character when people look past the stereotypes and explore the real person.
Interesting that you say that because if anything, I would see you as anti-bimbo as they get. Also professional, business-like, confident and independent, so I suppose your fashion choices work, but of course it is mostly personality that comes to the surface through your style.
DeleteOf course if is very human to make judgements and I am not free from that. And I probably have some preconceived notions as well, I try to catch myself when I notice it happens to me. I strongly believe it is a good thing to always question ourselves about it.