The power and dangers of using labels
Labels are an important element of finding and representing one’s identity, and an incredible mean to build supportive communities. But what happens when labels go from being inclusive to being exclusive?
By now, being part of a strong community has been proven one of the main ingredients to a long a happy life. Unsurprisingly, when looking at the world’s blue zones, community is one of the core components. For those of you not familiar with the term blue zones, these are regions of the world where a higher than usual number of people live much longer than average, and so the fact that community is one of the few common factors gives us a rather unsubtle hint of its importance to humans [read more about it in the original article by Dan Buettner].
Humans are flock animals, so surrounding ourselves with others with who we can identify, is important to achieve a sense of belonging. Our communities give us the support and stability, we need to thrive in as large a world like ours.
Now I know that many would argue that communities were more important back in the days when real danger lurked around every corner, and from a pure survival perspective, I’d agree. That said, I’d argue that it is much easier to lose oneself in today’s world, and it is from that, the importance of identity has emerged.
This brings us right back to the beginning of this article, namely how we use labels to identify ourselves and others, and I’ve got a perfect example from a bike ride just the other day.
As I was biking back home, I found two young kids in front of me. The first thing I noticed was that one was vividly riding a BMX. The second thing I noticed was that the BMX riding kid was a girl, and the other kid was a boy. The last thing I noticed was a sticker on the boy’s backpack, the BLM fist merged with a feminism cross.
I admit, this all got me thinking, as I realized how much the labels we use influence our behaviours, and that kids today grow up in a rather labelled reality. Today it is common to call out everything from race, spiritual orientation to sexual identity, all in one sentence.
“I’m a black, bi-sexual woman in contact with my spiritual self.”
We need the labels to find others like us and connect, but we sometimes forget what it means to put a label on something or someone. Because being a certain way, means not being another.
If I’m white, I’m not black. If I’m a woman I’m not a man, and if I’m a bi-sexual I’m not homo-sexual. When being included in one community you’re automatically excluded from another. One could call it the evil evil cousin of labels, and the way we’ve chosen to solve this today is by creating new, even more, specific labels. Trying to cover every use case there is.
I’m not so sure this is the right way to go, as ultimately it doesn’t solve the issue of exclusion. Once you’ve identified yourself with a label and its community, you are excluded from others. This type of exclusion doesn’t pose any danger, until one day when someone else than yourself puts a label on you, ultimately including and excluding you from something.
I’m currently working with the dating app Feeld, and their approach to labels is that they can be, and to a great extent are, fluid. Even though, ultimately, it is the labels people put on their profiles that help a dating app algorithm calculate whom to connect with whom. The truth is that, if labels can change, their evil cousin exclusion will cease to exist.
If I one day can label myself a married, straight, latino man and the next, a single, pansexual, white bi-gender, there’s no exclusion, because there is a choice.
I might be born with female genitals, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that I identify as a woman. What it means is that my genitals are female. Perhaps my skin is white, but that doesn’t mean that white is a word I use to describe myself.
Recognizing that identity is an element that changes throughout our lifetime is an important lesson to learn, as it teaches us that assigning labels is something that, should be done cautiously. There is a difference between a label representing identity and one that is there, merely to describe.
I am in no way saying that we should eliminate labels, as they play a crucial role in how our society works today. We use them everywhere, from job applications to hospital visits, and they help us understand demographics in a way that empowers us to improve.
What I am saying, is that a given label is a description, while a chosen one is an identity, and I believe it is time we distinguish this difference and integrate it into our societies.
🍑 Peach out
