Labels matter.
I follow a number of blogs written by women with endometriosis. It’s nice to have a virtual community that understands the day-to-day of my disease and I often glean important information from other bloggers about endometriosis, including which treatment might work best for me. That said, in my endometriosis blog wonderings last week I learned a very different sort of lesson.
A blogger who calls herself SIF—Single Infertile Female—wrote this post about a man who is interested in her and in other infertile women because he doesn’t want to have children. SIF has some fun at her suitor’s expense while explaining to creeps like him why a woman’s infertility shouldn’t be a minus or a plus for a guy when he’s looking to date.
Though I agree with SIF, I am struck by something. The blogger uses dating terminology to identify herself to the Internet—Single ______ Female is a descriptor used in personal ads—but, if you’re with it at all, the irony of using SIF as a title is obvious. Still, a man felt invited to come on to her because of the label. Either he was not smart enough to see the satire or the title simply spoke to something in him. Most likely, it was a bit of both.
Without getting into a discussion about why this guy is bent, I do find it interesting that SIF’s self-labeling provoked this response from the Internet. It makes me think of artists who shy away from calling themselves artists for fear of coming across as presumptuous, and it makes me wonder about the identities that I present to the world.
How do I communicate oversimplified versions of myself? In what ways am I shaping how people respond to me? What labels should I own and which ones should I give up?
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CATEGORIES: - Endometriosis - Philosophy -
