Isn’t capitalism great? Access to any product you can imagine, for the mere price of the general population struggling to get by, in subpar rented housing, while working long hours to ensure they’re too tired to do what they really enjoy. Sounds fantastic, doesn’t it? One of the biggest detriments to this incredibly flawed system is the way its impact on our self-perception. When someone asks you to tell them about yourself, I can almost guarantee that you say your job before anything else. Why? Because capitalism emphasises our contributions over our true selves.
I’ve written before that I often worry I’m “not doing things right”, which has recently caused me to question how much of what I do is subconsciously shaped by external sources. I’ve concluded that, truthfully, I’d probably be living a completely different life if outside influences didn’t exist. It also made me realise, though, that it’s impossible to live completely independent from said influences because of the Internet and, you guessed it, capitalism.
Our society has slowly turned more and more towards “hustle culture”: the idea that we should always aim for more, namely within the professional realm. While I don’t think there’s anything wrong with this in itself, it’s pushed many of us towards an unhealthy relationship with productivity, where we feel guilty for resting, and “living to work” instead of “working to live”. It reminds me of when I got told I should make a business selling jewellery, which quickly sucked all the fun out of something I loved. It exemplifies society’s unspoken rule that our hobbies must be profitable for them to be worthwhile.
The more I reflect on it, the more I take the exact opposite stance: we should be doing more things that don’t benefit our income. Personally, I’m a curious person who loves learning new skills and information, which means I love to read and do crafts simply because I can. Indirectly, this might be an asset for my professional life because it improves cognitive function, though that isn’t why I do it. The risk reduction of Alzheimer’s through lifelong learning is more important to me than the potential increase to my salary anyway.
When I didn’t complete my year abroad, I felt incredible anxiety because I thought I was “falling behind”. However, when I really dissect that, I ask myself what “falling behind” means. It dawned on me that this was yet another example of capitalist brainwashing, where we believe we’re “doing it all wrong” if we aren’t making money or working towards our career goals. I in part blame Linkedin for this; it’s rife with people boasting about their professional achievements while conveniently leaving out the sacrifices they may have made.
The other big obstacle to simply being, is the patriarchy. As soon as we’re born, we’re assigned a societal role depending on our gender that follows us throughout our life: girls are gentle caregivers, whereas boys are logical problem-solvers. Before you roll your eyes and disregard me as a ‘crazy feminist’, I believe it’s harmful for everyone. There are men out there who may have dreamed of being a teacher or a nurse, but societal conditioning teaches them that those are ‘women’s jobs’, so instead they choose a more traditionally masculine role, and vice versa with women who dream of being independent entrepreneurs.
And don’t get me started on beauty standards. While I think that men and women encounter this, it disproportionately affects women much, much more. Women have historically been valued for how they look more than anything else, and it frankly doesn’t and shouldn’t gel with today’s society. With more and more women entering the workforce in the 21st century, fearing that we look too messy, too overdressed, too thin, too fat, so on and so forth, is an extra concern that hinders us from dedicating our time to what really matters.
After beginning to read feminist non-fiction, I was overthinking whether I ‘should’ be wearing makeup, because it’s ultimately a way that women adhere to patriarchal beauty standards. Honestly, that is the reason I became interested in makeup in the first place, but it’s become something I enjoy using to express myself. I have a healthy relationship with makeup, where I can go out without wearing it (in fact, I’m sitting bare-faced in Lancaster Library right now) and I don’t rely on it to make me feel pretty. It taught me that, as with many things in life, self-awareness is the key to understanding why I feel compelled to do certain things.
I’m currently reading a book called Femonomics by Corinne Low, which I ironically received as a gift after I came up with the idea for this post, but it ties in perfectly. She advises making a list of six things that bring you genuine fulfilment, commenting that women often do things with short-term benefits that ultimately detract from our long-term goals. She provides the example that a mother might dedicate time to making homemade cupcakes for a school bake sale so that she’s perceived as a ‘good mother’, which adds more stress to her schedule and pushes her away from her true desire to spend quality time with her family. I’m sure many of us can relate to a similar situation — where we sacrifice our needs to keep up appearances.
It’s a very nuanced and complex situation; as I already mentioned, being part of a society means it’s impossible to live completely independent of societal influence, which I could go on about for hours. These are just a few of my thoughts on the subject, which have helped me to know myself better, however hard that may be in our world. There are some small things we can do to reclaim our happiness and rebel against these flawed rules of society: do things for the sake of doing them, wear a skirt with unshaven legs, cancel that event you don’t want to do so you can relax, go to a meeting without makeup. The world will still be there, and it won’t explode if you prioritise your downtime over a deadline. I promise.
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