Looks Can Be Deceiving

My daily uniform: Jeans, Danskos, some sort of top. I'm a Caucasian middle class woman with two kids, two years apart. I'm primarily a stay at home mom. I look like That Mom.

Never mind that I'm someone who owns sexy knee high boots and that I can dance my ass off for hours on any dance floor with nothing but water to fuel me. Never mind that I'm someone who has plenty of opinions and lots of passion and that I can make a killer margarita. Never mind that my political ideas range from fairly liberal to rather radical. When I walk down the street, I look just like the typical middle-of-the road stay at home "soccer mom". I don't look like someone who knows how to cut loose. I don't look like someone who rocks the boat. I don't look like someone who consciously tries not to exercise white privilege or class privilege. I don't look like someone with whom, when you hear the guy in line behind us making a stupid racist (or heterosexist, or classist) comment, you can expect to exchange a knowing glance, to wordlessly complain "what an asshole." I don't look like someone who drives around with a big rainbow sticker on the back of her car. But I am. My appearance murmurs, "status quo." But my sentiments shout "revolution!"

I wear jeans because they are comfortable and I feel like they look good on me. I wear Danskos because I had plantar fasciitis and I have to wear supportive shoes, and I like that I can easily slip in and out of clogs. But I recognize that the way I dress and the way I appear to people who don't know me gives off an impression that is really rather inaccurate, because of the stereotypes about people who wear what I wear, who look the way I do. Sometimes I think about going out of my way to find or create a funkier, more counterculture look for myself, but I'm too lazy, and part of me doesn't mind cloaking my identity a bit. I'm so mouthy, people don't have to spend more than a couple of minutes with me before they realize that I'm ~not~ actually That Mom. But it does give me pause for thought when someone like my friend Jeff tells me, "When I first met you, I assumed you were a Republican. The hair, the clothes. You know."

Of course, what you do is much more important than how you look. But it can be interesting to examine one's appearance and what it reveals (or implies), correctly or otherwise. Do you have a "look"? What do you think your appearance says about you? Is it fairly accurate? In what ways do you wear your identity openly, with your appearance, and how are you cloaking yourself, intentionally or not?