Gender and Identification – Feminism and Religion

“Ewww, there’s been a boy in our cabin!” One of my cabinmates squealed. We were at sixth grade camp. Others chimed in quickly: “Gross!”

The evidence? A pair of boys’ cargo shorts, held gingerly between a thumb and forefinger as if they had cooties.

“Ew!” “Weird!” “How’d he get in here?”

The shorts were mine. But I did not admit this.

As a kid, I sometimes wore hand-me-down clothing from my older brother. It made sense. I didn’t have strong opinions about fashion, and the clothes felt just as comfortable and fit just as well as the girl clothes my parents bought for me.

My elementary school classmates didn’t seem to notice or care. But this was sixth grade. This was the first year of middle school. Things were changing, and I hadn’t quite realized the full extent of these changes. Showing up at sixth grade camp with hand-me-down boys’ shorts was taboo.

Imagine a tree.

This tree lives in a park, surrounded by other trees. There’s a lake in the distance, and the tree has plenty of space to spread its leaves to the sun. In the summer, its leaves are lush and green, and in the winter, its bare branches shake in the wind.

Now imagine this tree saying to itself, when its leaves turn brown in the fall, “I am so ugly—the other trees won’t like me.” Imagine the tree next to it thinking, “I am the smart tree,” or “I am mom’s favorite tree,” or “I’m a failure–I will never be a good enough tree” or “I’m going to be the richest and most successful tree.”

It doesn’t seem likely. Yet as humans, we have these kinds of thoughts all the time. They’re called identifications, and every practice of yoga, despite all the incredible diversity of lineages and traditions, is designed to teach us how to let them go. No matter what school of yoga you study, this is the goal: liberation from our identification with the impermanent, changing, and ultimately unsatisfying temporary self, so that we can reunite with the true Self beneath.