Despite the push for greater authenticity in our work and personal lives, you’re probably still doing it — covering up the aspects of your identity you don’t think others will like or accept. How much people cover or wear masks is varied, but it’s a universal phenomenon that manifests through our behaviors.
Covering can have a genuinely good intent. But when you don’t do it for the benefit of the community and instead do it only because others are biased, the consequences can be harsh.
In the Hidden Brain podcast, legal scholar Kenji Yoshino and host Shankar Vedanta discuss the influence covering can have and how people can challenge it. In the clip below, you’ll hear a summary of the episode’s main points, as well as my thoughts on how knowing where to have boundaries around covering can benefit your mental health.
[Transcript summary]
Most of my writing career has been in the business space. So, I write for a lot of executives and business leaders. And especially over the last few years in that corporate environment, I’ve seen this big push toward being authentic, being your real self. And I think that’s actually a broader cultural shift where people are really starting to value being seen for who they are and having the chance to have a sense of purpose in life.
But all of us do what’s called covering, which is basically hiding or covering up elements about ourselves we don’t think other people are going to like or accept. And that’s not necessarily malicious. You know, most of the time, all we want is for people to like us and to have a sense of security.
But I bring it up because I was listening to a podcast called Hidden Brain. And the guest for the show was legal scholar Kenji Yoshino. And Yoshino and the host were discussing how this process of covering affects us. And they gave some really good examples of how people can essentially hide in plain sight. So, for example, FDR was very careful about how he physically positioned himself to downplay his disabilities from polio. And again, his intent there wasn’t bad. He wanted to give the impression of a strong, capable leader because he knew that would give the people in the United States confidence.
But in this conversation, the question was really on how covering affects us and where the boundaries should be about it. Because whenever you ask someone to push down or downplay an aspect of their identity, it’s almost impossible to not make them feel some shame about that identity point. And when people feel shame, they’re either going to retreat from others or they’re going to try to cover in different ways to have a shot at still being accepted.
So, just to give a personal example, I’m really tiny. I’m only 4’8″. And I’ve been teased constantly for that. I’ve even been told I wasn’t going to be able to do certain work because I didn’t have a certain physical look and so forth. So, I’ve always thrown myself into my work to do a lot, because I thought, you know, at least if I do all this stuff to a really high quality, you know, that’s my way to look a little larger than life, so to speak. And I still, as a freelancer, I very much prefer Zooms and digital communication, because I really have found that, you know, it’s unfortunate, but people really do take me more seriously if I can do the FDR thing and modify what people can physically see.
Now, one point in the podcast conversation is that there’s kind of this war between authenticity and social good. The example they gave was that, if you’re an absolute jerkface at work and that’s genuinely, that’s really who you are, asking you to behave differently has a benefit for the whole group. But if you’re asking people to change and you can’t identify how the community benefits or gains anything, then you’ve got a real problem. Then everything is just based on bias.
And what really struck me about this show was just how many ways covering can show up. So, even something like assimilating into a new country, you know, maybe you don’t speak your native language anymore, or maybe you’re out looking for a job and you’re really careful about how you word things or what you highlight because you’re trying to give a specific impression. Maybe you dye your hair or wear makeup or certain clothes to look younger or thinner. Or if you’re grappling with mental health concerns, maybe you’re depressed or struggling with some kind of addiction or something like that, maybe you don’t talk about it or get the help you need because you’re afraid people will judge you if you don’t show a happy persona. That one, to me, is really heartbreaking. But you’re essentially just editing or deleting all of these elements of yourself all the time. And sometimes, you know, they discussed how sometimes there’s all this back and forth, and you end up code switching between two different worlds, one where your authentic self is accepted and one where it’s not.
And from my own experience, I just kept thinking about how exhausting all of this is. And from a mental health perspective, I feel like, this is exactly what people need. We all need to be able to see the different ways we cover as we go through the day and ask ourselves what is pushing us to put on the mask we choose to wear. Because like I said earlier, sometimes, there actually might be a social or group benefit to shifting how we’re behaving. And we might have to cognitively rationalize that even though hiding sucks for us individually, there is a greater good behind it. But if that greater good doesn’t exist, if all we’ve got is the group ostracizing someone just because they don’t fit a norm that’s randomly been established, then we have some footing to challenge every single person who tells us to hide, because they genuinely don’t have a rational argument for the hate they dish out. And sometimes we need that logic side to set down the shame we’ve been handed to carry. If we can remind ourselves that what we feel negatively about ourselves is, you know, built on sand, it’s easier to work on letting those feelings go. And if we can let those feelings go, then it’s easier to be who we really are and get into a mental space where we’re finally at peace and have some joy.
My encouragement to you is to consider one of the final thoughts of the podcast, which is that you don’t achieve belonging if the person who belongs isn’t really you. That statement from Yoshino really hit home for me.
So, just consider your behaviors. Whatever you choose to not do, whenever you opt to hide or cover something, ask yourself what your motivations are. Where do those motivations come from? Where were they learned? And if it’s not going to bring a positive to the group, pivot and do what reflects who you really are.