The cost of being visible

Sometime back a very good friend told me that she just wanted to blend in with everyone at the workplace.
She actively picked clothes that enabled her to blend in rather than stand out.

Few weeks back, a couple of other women told me on a reddit thread that they find it tiring to be talked about.
Rather they would like to make themselves as invisible as possible.

One of them used this exact line - "I used to want to stand out, but I am too tired now."

What is it about visibility - that tires out women?

The recent events centering around the protests - where some women became public faces - made me really think about these coversations.

The discourse on social media is not about their politics anymore. It has moved towards who they are. Their appearances, character, morality are being talked about in extremely unpleasant terms.

More than a century ago, British suffragettes campaigning for women's right to vote weren't only criticised for their demands. They were mocked as "unfeminine," ridiculed in newspapers, and portrayed as morally suspect.

Names change, country changes, times change, but the mechanics remain largely the same.

When women become highly visible, the conversation has a tendency of shifting from their ideas to their identities.

We often assume someone chooses to fade into the background because that's simply their personality.

But sometimes, fading into the background isn't preference.

It's self-preservation.

During conversations we've hosted through Papion, I've often realised that appearance is rarely just about aesthetics.

Sometimes, it's about negotiating how visible it feels safe to be.

P.S: Link to Papion - https://papion-glow.online/