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The Collective Identity Crisis
In a college essay I wrote years ago, I asked a question that feels more urgent today than it did then: How do we know who we are if we are told from birth who we should be?
We are a generation caught in a vice. We’re told we are "self-absorbed" for posting a million photos, yet those photos are often just frantic searches for the approval of others. If we are constantly seeking external validation, we aren’t being selfish—we are being erased. We’ve become a society of people who no longer know who they are because we’ve let the "shoulds" govern our "self."
The Mirror of the Machine
This erasure has found a new home in Artificial Intelligence. We talk about AI as a tool of progress, but we rarely talk about its architecture. AI was not created by women. It was built largely by a demographic that views us through a specific, narrow lens.
When you ask an algorithm to visualize a "woman," it doesn't show you the depth of our experience or the reality of our lives. It gives you a mathematical consensus of the male gaze. It’s a polished, distorted echo of what a man thinks a woman should look like.
As a photographer, I see the damage this does. I see women—especially those who have spent decades catering to husbands and children—who look in the mirror and feel "undetermined." They know everything about the people they care for, but they are strangers to their own preferences. They see the AI-ideal and the societal expectation, and they find themselves lacking.
The "Friend" in the Algorithm
I’ll never forget 2017. I had abruptly quit my job, faced eviction, and turned to a male friend for support. His response? "If I were a good-looking woman like you, I’d just be a prostitute or a stripper." In his eyes, my degree in Information Systems, my talent, and my humanity were irrelevant. I was a commodity for the sexual gratification of men. That one comment slowed my progress for a long time. It made me retreat, not out of peace, but out of fear.
The AI we see today is that "friend" on a global scale. It looks at us and denotes us to an idea—an image to be consumed, not a person to be known.
The Sunday Routine: A Day of Digital Silence
In my essay, I proposed a "Day of Silence." I believe we need it now more than ever. To find your self-worth, you have to stop the outside influences from telling you who you are.
Finding your internal voice requires a radical act of unlearning. It requires you to stop letting the "rectangle box" in your pocket control your identity.
This Sunday, I invite you to join me in a practice of reclamation:
Silence the Gaze: Step away from the digital world. Turn off the notifications that feed you images of who you "should" be.
Audit Your Preferences: Think about your routine. Do you wear that lipstick because you love the color, or because it fits the aesthetic you've been told is "successful"?
Find Your Determination: Don't let a hard moment—or a hard comment—be the basis for your life. You are not a middle child, a mother, or a worker first. You are a soul with an original thought.
Stop letting other people live your life for you. Go off the grid. Sit in silence. Hear your own voice. Because the truth is, you aren't doing "too much" or "not enough." You are simply being told who to be by a world that doesn't actually know you.
You are the original sound. Everything else is just a distorted echo.
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