Reading your thoughts on learning to flirt in ways that are more traditionally thought of as feminine gives me some concrete concepts to connect some feelings I've had to
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For what it's worth, I don't see it as artificial for the most part. It likely feels completely authentic to most people who are doing it. But when I become self-conscious about it, then it starts feeling like I'm being artificial.
Some people think of anthropologists negatively because (some of them anyway) break down a cultural behavior into this kind of set of discrete, functional parts and contextualize them as part of a a larger system. I think things can't help but feel artificial to a lot of people that way, even though they are not. I've commented that, if I have kids, I'd get them to read Goffman's Presentation of the Self in Everyday Life, which analyzes behavior with theatrical metaphor. To simplify it greatly, when we are on stage we act in certain ways to have control over how we are perceived. My parents always told me that I could be any way I wanted to and others' opinions didn't matter, but I honestly think a much more analytical, nuanced, and perhaps arguably artificial perspective might have helped me
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Some people think of anthropologists negatively because (some of them anyway) break down a cultural behavior into this kind of set of discrete, functional parts and contextualize them as part of a a larger system. I think things can't help but feel artificial to a lot of people that way, even though they are not. I've commented that, if I have kids, I'd get them to read Goffman's Presentation of the Self in Everyday Life, which analyzes behavior with theatrical metaphor. To simplify it greatly, when we are on stage we act in certain ways to have control over how we are perceived. My parents always told me that I could be any way I wanted to and others' opinions didn't matter, but I honestly think a much more analytical, nuanced, and perhaps arguably artificial perspective might have helped me ( ... )
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