On Labels

This was a Facebook re-post of a conversation that happened on Paranoiascientist's tumblr: 

Whenever someone insists that people should not use labels, I remember a psychology lecture on language acquisition where the lecturer described the process by which we learn all nouns: First, kids learn a word ("dog.") They then apply that word to everything that vaguely resembles a dog (cats, pictures of other animals). As they're corrected, they learn to create and subdivide new categories that may share traits (e.g. distinguishing between "dog" and "horse," but also between my dog Ralph, and my neighbor's dog Betsie).

What I took away from the lecture is that from the very instinctive beginnings of language, we need labels. Our entire thinking process is based on categorization of traits, or putting things in mental boxes. The entire function of nouns is to use labels as shorthand for entire complex concepts and entities. Not only is "no labels" silencing, we cannot really function as human beings without them.


There is a difference between labels as a tool for communication and labels as a stereotypic reduction that impedes communication. It does help to be able to say "I'm Genderqueer," as shorthand for non-binary gender activist. It becomes a problem is when I assume that all people who use the same shorthand mean the same thing (or share traits not encompassed by the shorthand). But that's true when using ANY language. Human brains are structured to think in categories; it isn't always a bad thing.What they really mean is "don't reduce people to stereotypic and rigid preconceived notions you have about X." But trying to get rid of labels as a communication tool simply because it is sometimes misused is like insisting that no one ever use their hands because sometimes we hit each other.

Lessons from the Photoshop

Esther Honig went viral when she asked 40 photoshop users from 25 countries around the world to make her "beautiful" using a single unedited image of herself.  The results were a fascinating study of beauty standards around the world.

But that wasn't the end of the story.  Since then, the experiment has been replicated with even more interesting results, and we are starting to see patterns emerging as multiple participants from each country begin to reflect a cultural, rather than individual standard of beauty.

Priscilla Yuki Wilson asked 30 participants from 25 countries to make her beautiful, with similarly interesting results.  As a biracial woman, she was particularly interested in whether people would lighten her skin or hair.

And recently, Marie Southard Ospina asked 21 photoshoppers from 17 countries to do the same.  As a plus-size woman, she was interested in whether they would "slim" her.


What can we take away from all three experiments combined?  For me, the three primary lessons are:

1.  There are a lot of people out there who think they're better at Photoshop than they actually are. I think we can all agree on that. 

2.  Beauty standards are radically different in different cultures. This should be obvious to people, but yet each cultural beauty standard claims to be both superior to all others, and universal and/or natural (with a hefty dose of evo-psyc thrown in for cognitive dissonance).

3.  If there are no actual universal beauty standards, then we're probably wasting a lot of time, money, heartache, physical and emotional health, and potential trying to conform rigidly to one or the other, as a culture.

Treated as a preliminary experiment, I think these three projects open up a lot of questions that warrant experimental investigation.  For example:

1.  Marie Southard Ospina was asked by one editor if she was in pornography, but none of the others reported this reaction (despite almost identical poses involving bare shoulders so that editors could add clothing as they wished).  Does this mean that the sexualization of fat bodies is more universal than we think?

2.  If this experiment were repeated a hundred times, involving both professional and amateur image editors, could we start to see a divide between what the media (professionals) consider beautiful, and what the average people in the country consider beautiful?

3.  If this experiment were repeated a hundred times, could we start to see definitive patterns emerge both by nationality and by the ethnicity of the editor?

4.  What happens if a man performs the same experiment?  What about a genderqueer or androgynous person?  How would the editors manipulate the gender presentation in order to conform to their aesthetic ideals?

Caitlyn Jenner

Caitlyn Jenner looks absolutely stunning on her Vanity Fair cover shoot.  I'm very happy that she was able to express her gendered self as fully as she desired, and hope that, in her generous decision to allow the public into her experience, it helps people be more comfortable with transgender individuals in our lives.

But I also hope that people understand that the older, white, wealthy, thin, surgically transitioning, and currently-abled Caitlyn Jenner is not representative of the average transgender person's experience.  I hope that her popularity builds sympathy and support for the average transgender person, but that we build into that national conversation acknowledgement of trans men and women who are poor, in prison, pre-op, non-op, not thin, with physical challenges, of color, homeless (often as a result of coming out to family), suicidal, facing physical and emotional violence, not conforming to gendered appearance or behavioral norms, etc. etc. etc. 

In other words, I love that Caitlyn Jenner is a face of transgender people in the U.S.  I really, really would like her to not be the ONLY face.  Because while her process is probably not easy, it is deceptively easy compared to many. I understand that it is easier for the general public to feel comfortable with a trans woman who so beautifully fulfills their expectations of feminine beauty.  Sometimes we need that vanguard to open up the way.  But it cannot stop at her cover shoot.  At some point, the American public needs to get uncomfortable.