The Masks We Wear
And no, I don’t mean the ones COVID made ubiquitous. Those, we wear for a very good, very specific purpose: we want both to avoid infection ourselves, and to avoid infecting others. Presumably, once COVID truly wanes, we’ll be able to shed them—for all that habitual mask-wearing would also help us avoid common scourges like colds and flu.
I’m also not talking about the ones we’re currently shopping for, for the upcoming Halloween festivities.
The masks I’m focused on here, though perhaps just as ubiquitous as the COVID ones, are less visible. They’re also more enduring. They’re the ones we shape and mold ourselves; the ones we choose to wear—often, all our lives—for purposes other than infection control or (in the case of Halloween) an evening’s entertainment.
Decades ago, I wrote a short poem about a mask I was fashioning for myself:
My mask is near completion:
Its contours shaped,
Mechanic functions tuned.
It allows me access to your world;
My passport, talisman, and key….
The poem described my experience as I donned a persona in order to fit into a new workplace. The job was one I’d coveted. I was determined to make it mine; determined to leverage this career-building opportunity to the fullest. But—as the next stanza of the poem acknowledged—I knew there was a cost:
I shudder on the edge of its assumption,
Despairing and afraid:
The mask exacts a price….
I paid the price—more or less gladly—and embraced a career path that proved deeply engaging, challenging, and rewarding. I’m one of those lucky people who can truly say they loved their work. And yet….
That mask I was donning, per Jennie Steinberg, a licensed therapist with Through the Woods Therapy Center, was a “situational mask.” It was just as much a part of my dress-for-success armor as my navy blue power suit.
Situational masks are some of the most common and utilitarian masks. They also are some of those most carefully crafted and worn. Few of us would have successfully negotiated that important job interview had we arrived wearing our party hats. (Arriving at the party in our professional attire—including our office mask—likely wouldn’t have worked well, either.)
In a 2015 blog post, Ms. Steinberg identified two other broad categories of masks, in addition to situational ones: identity masks and emotional masks. Many LGBTQ folks are especially familiar with the first, perhaps because we recall hiding our sexual orientation or gender identity; perhaps because we still do—at least sometimes. In which case the identity mask also serves as a situational mask: our “outness” depends upon the people we are with or the places we are at.
Other people also wear identity masks, of course. In many of my workplaces, women never alluded to their families: no family photos on the desk; no mention of children or spouses. Women with families were seen as unreliable, always just one phone call away from departing the office to tend an ill child or departing a job to trail after a transferred spouse.
Interestingly, family photos on men’s desks were interpreted exactly the reverse: a man supporting a family was deemed more stable and dependable; less likely to flit off to another job. Some of the photos on my male co-workers’ desks were just as much masks as the absence of them were on mine: the photos were those that came with the frames, for all that my co-worker might refer to them as “Wendy, my fiancé,” or “the kids.”
Emotional masks, per Ms. Steinberg, are common, useful tools that enable us to navigate life’s vicissitudes. No matter how shattered we are, we may need to be able to button it up at work or hold ourselves together enough to support an equally-shattered child.
There’s nothing wrong with wearing these metaphorical masks. Just as the COVID ones help us avoid infection, situational, identity, and emotional masks may enable us to avoid unwelcome scrutiny, keep our personal lives personal, and perform effectively at work. Keeping a few masks handy can make that meeting or job interview or big family gathering a lot more comfortable and enjoyable.
The thing about the masks, though—we do need to be able to take them off; to be our authentic selves. It’s one thing to wear our stiff-upper-lip, can-do mask to get through a difficult day at work; it’s another to navigate our entire life in that mask.
Just as we recognize the need to put on a mask, we must recognize the need to take it off. We need to have people and places where we can safely unbutton, be our authentic selves, be vulnerable. It’s a mask, not an impenetrable shell. Or should be, anyway. ▼
Marj Shannon is a writer and epidemiologist. She can be reached at marj@camprehoboth.com.