Invisible Light

Note: This is generally frowned upon.

Ladies, gentlemen, variations thereof and none of the above, stereotypes are bad. They are not good. This statement is almost trite in its inoffensiveness. We, of all people, should especially know the dangers of stereotypes, having suffered from them for most of our lives. So it is with a heavy heart that I admit that I have participated in the unfair labeling of human beings.

By now, many of you know of my positively unhealthy obsession with Rachel Maddow. So sooner or later I was bound to run into this picture from her high school years:

Holy Mother of God...

Quelle horreur! I feel as though a tornado has ripped through everything I hold true and dear in this world. Seeing this picture emptied me of all thoughts save one: At one time in her life, Rachel Maddow looked like a breeder among breeders. Even that is an understatement. She looks like the bubble-headed popular girls who made me do their science homework for them in sixth grade. She looks like the evil cheerleader in every cliched teen movie, who rules the school like a bleached Marie Antoinette, demanding the proles to eat the nonexistent cake of her favor before she gets hers in the end. Reign of Terror, indeed. 

Yes, I am absolutely comparing the French Revolution to heteronormative power struggles in teen culture. Problem?

The fact of the matter is that if you showed me this picture without the name and told me that this girl would go to Stanford University and be a leading figure in American political discourse, I'd laugh in your face. If you told me that she was going to be one of the most influential openly gay figures in the country, I'd likely ask you exactly what illicit recreational substance you were currently under the influence of, and where I could acquire said substance. I would tell you that this girl and her "type" were pretty familiar to me, and that she used awkward intellectual misfits (ahem) to maintain her grades just enough to maintain her social life, that she had no interest in the world outside her compact mirror, and that she would likely languish in a community college, not for lack of money, before marrying into suburban obscurity. (She looks frivolous, is what I'm trying to say.) Oh, and she is absolutely, no doubts about it, straight. Like a laser, or the Autobahn. Shows what I know.

I quickly realized the implications of my stereotyping. How many gorgeous, brilliant dykes are masquerading as airheads under my nose? How many girls have I brushed off as trivial, prissy, or straight because of their looks and not because of who they truly are? Maybe that girl in sixth grade who only passed because of my "help" really wanted to learn about the scientific method and didn't know how to ask. Maybe Miss Never-Misses-an-Issue-of-Cosmopolitian is studying girly culture as an outsider, like a queer David Attenborough. By the way, that is neither the first nor the last time I have used/will use that phrase.) Maybe that femme dresses that way simply because she likes to, and rejects any of the other roles that come with presenting as traditionally feminine. Then, the most terrifying thought takes hold.

Maybe that homophobic Catholic girl in English that I've written off as gullible and hateful is experiencing reaction-formation to really, really hot lesbian fantasies. And I passed up the chance to let her, ah, come to terms with them!

Picture unrelated.

God, no wonder I'm still single. You girls are like chameleons. I, in my novice, inexperienced, "baby-dyke" state, am looking for a short haired softball playing Birkenstocks toting Indigo Girls worshipping tattooed flannel wearing carpet muncher, and am missing out on the vast subtle diversity of the lesbian dating pool.


I have a couple theories about the perpetuation of stereotypes, and how even people who like to think themselves rational and enlightened can be taken in by them. Stay tuned for next week!