Fools’ Names and Fools’ Faces on Facebook

As a woman who has declined to put her picture on Facebook—my profile photo is a drawing of me by my daughter—I respectfully disagree with Katie Roiphe's assumption that this somehow represents some reprehensible self-effacement on my part as a working woman. I'm admittedly a little late to social networking, and not exactly a devotee. A friend of mine jokes that my status line should read, ''Sara Mosle is now unavailable on Facebook,'' as I almost never check it. I joined out of curiosity and don't dispute its occasional uses: I have happily reconnected with several long-lost and far-flung friends. But generally these days, I'm trying to spend less time—not more—online, so I might actually do the high-powered job that Roiphe wants me to take more pride in and have more actual face time (as opposed to Facebook time) with family and friends.

In one sense, I agree with Roiphe: I don't like pictures of kids as stand-ins for parents—but not for the reasons she says. I don't think any child's photo (especially that of a non-consenting baby or toddler) should be out there for casual public consumption. It's her face, not mine, after all (and a profile picture can be seen by anyone). Also, plenty of men use pictures of their children (or of their dogs or of Bart Simpson). I don't think any of these people—male or female—are necessarily hiding behind their kids or canines so much as hiding, period. Not everyone wants to be a public figure (even if their careers occasionally require them to be one)—hence my own use of a drawing. Anonymity has its uses, too—something Elizabeth Edwards might have done well to remember. (There are recent pictures of me and my daughter on my actual page, which friends can see, but, to me, this is different from a profile photo that can be seen by anyone.)

But to take on Roiphe's point directly: What is it to her if some woman defines herself by her children? I know lots of women—serious, committed career women—who, if they had to choose, would put their children first. Or more accurately, to borrow from Judith Shulevitz's terrific point, would put their kids first for now—when, at other points in their lives, they have or would put themselves, or their jobs, or a friend, or a partner, or their elderly parents, first. To me, the whole point of feminism is not to dictate to women what their self-definition (which is surely forever changing) should be, but to support the full range of women's roles throughout their lives. Maybe the problem is that Facebook, invented by men, forces women to choose a single photo for their profile—when any woman, almost by definition, is a collage.

Tags: childhood, life, motherhood, privacy, Rielle Hunter; elizabeth edwards; marriage and commitment

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Sara Mosle Writer for the New York Times, The New Yorker, Slate, and others, frequently about education. Sara lives in Dallas, Texas, where she grew up, with her young daughter and family, and is writing about the DIY movement for Double X.

Comments

Funny you should say that...

By: moxyideas | Fri, 06/26/2009 - 02:58

I just read Sara's Etsy.com post, and wanted to give her the benefit of the doubt by reading another post. I was distinctly put off by her take on the popular craft site. So I read this seemingly lighthearted post about Facebook, and find she makes an interesting point about pigeonholing women. It's too bad she's contradicting herself.

From the Etsy.com article:
"In other words, the Etsy.com seller is often a married woman with (or about to have) young children, with a higher-than-average household income, and a good education. These should, in sum, be highly employable women. So, what are they doing, often pursuing hobbies, or working only part-time, on Etsy?"

From the Facebook article:
"To me, the whole point of feminism is not to dictate to women what their self-definition (which is surely forever changing) should be, but to support the full range of women's roles throughout their lives."

To be fair, I believe that "what are they doing" comment was to be a jumping off point to prove her point that Etsy is full of evil trickery, luring in unsuspecting women in with delusions of grandeur. Unfortunately, the whole point of feminism is not to dictate to women what their self-definition should be...

Help! How do I get my personal info off of DoubleX site?

By: melinmelin | Tue, 06/16/2009 - 09:52

Hi,
I blogged once on motherhood and now find myself popping up as a DoubleX (sounds kid of porno-ish) person on the internet, with my full name and birthday. I am a very private person and have never blogged until now.
I am not a social networker/computer person and do not want to be contacted by people thru the internet.
I do not even have a cellphone and have never sent a text messgae in my life! I cannot seem to find a way to erase my account, name, etc, from this site. I have sent email twice to the doublex "contact us"address to no avail.
Can anyone help me? I assure you that if i can regain mey anonymity,I will never blog again.. XX my heart... :))

No Pic of Self is Being a Poor Sport

By: 00Pisces | Fri, 05/15/2009 - 11:49

Sara, even though I generally disapprove of not using a photo of oneself for the facebook profile picture, I think your idea of using a portrait of you drawn by your child is cute and in the spirit of Facebook.

The Facebook profile pic is the way we show the right-brained people out there, "This is who I am and what I'm about right now." The spot where we list our interests, where we work, etc, is for the left-brained people. It's also an indicator of why we are on Facebook. Suit and tie with a gray background? Networking. Family snapshot? Staying in touch. All dolled up? Making ex-boyfriends jealous. Me, snorkeling? Bragging about my latest vacation and making everyone jealous.

Normally I don't dwell on this topic overmuch, but this exchange here on Double X got me thinking about why I have a sense of distaste when I see a profile picture that is not a picture of the person to whom the profile belongs. What bothers me about this, I think, is that I get a sense that the person is being a poor sport and that we don't share common goals for our Facebook exchange. To me, the non-portrait profile picture is a visual cue indicating one of the following:

1) The person is behaving as though the community standards don't apply to them.

2) The person does not care about my time and ease of use--it may be miniscule, but without a photo of someone, if I'm very tired I have to stop to think about who someone is, even if I'm looking at their name. Even family members!

3) Person was coerced into joining Facebook and doesn't get it and can't be relied upon to respond to Facebook invites, etc, which means that instead of being able to use Facebook as an easy social networking tool, I have to keep track of how often you use Facebook so that if I want to invite you to something or if I think you will like a specific article, etc, I have to remember to e-mail you. None of this is that big of a deal, but it is frustrating to have a tool like Facebook and not be able to use it efficiently.

(Facebook needs to develop a feature where you can see a user's likeliehood to see/respond to certain features. Then everyone would know to stop sending me ridiculous applications!)

If you want to put a picture of your kid up as your profile pic, then, you know, fine, I guess, if that's really what you feel your identity is, but that doesn't help me any. Still, a picture of your kid is better than a picture of your grill. It's true--one of my contacts has a picture of his grill as his Facebook profile picture. Though I guess a grill is a tool . . .

You can make your profile picture private

By: mmh | Fri, 05/15/2009 - 08:39

On Facebook, you can make your profile picture private so that only friends (or people from certain networks) can see it. So right now if you were to search for my name, the only info you'd see is that I'm on Facebook, but you'd see that blue stand-in picture they use. I definitely use that feature to hide, but not in the way that you're suggesting--sometimes my profile picture is me with my boyfriend. I'm a law student; I don't want potential employers seeing the boyfriend after a cursory Facebook search and then determining that I'm on the "mommy track."

private profile photo

By: nikkib | Mon, 05/25/2009 - 11:58

Hi, I read your reply and I was wondering if you could help me please. I have been trying to make my profile photo private but have been unsuccessful. How did you manage to do this? Can you please talk me through the steps? I would be so grateful if you could assist me as I really want to keep my privacy on Facebook and would like to keep my profile photo private from prying eyes. Maybe you could reply to my email: nikkibasharudin@hotmail.com. Thank you so much for your time and help.

Nikki

Speaking in defense of my people

By: irobert | Thu, 05/14/2009 - 22:55

?Maybe the problem is that Facebook, invented by men, forces women to choose a single photo for their profile—when any woman, almost by definition, is a collage." This seems pretty unlikely as your explanation, given that DoubleX's comment creation page allows you to choose only one photo for your profile pic too.
As a guy, I have my 1 and 3 year old as my profile pic right now. I can see the privacy concern, but at their age.... It definitely is hiding on my part, though, and I don't think that's wrong. I work in a public field and don't need the hassle.

Identity isn't stable

By: becki82 | Thu, 05/14/2009 - 22:47

I already posted my problems with Roiphe's essay on that page, but I think it's a wonderful argument that women's roles in particular tend to change more than men's, somehow. But I think most of the women I know enjoy this part of their gender identity, and if there is going to be a new feminism, this complexity should surely be at the center of it.

The point about wanting to see "ME" and not my child isn't quite grasping the idea that maybe the child really does represent the woman's identity for the time being, and that should be ok. I just don't understand the annoyance with people's ever-changing Facebook profile pictures. On a more practical note, as a mom of a very young daughter, she and I are in very close physical proximity all the time. There just aren't very many recent photos of me by myself. I don't think this is "compromising" my identity in any way. Should I have made a point to crop her out, just to not be one of "those" women?

Would rather see a picture of YOU

By: selainet | Thu, 05/14/2009 - 18:09

When my best friend finally decided to get on facebook, the first thing I wrote on her wall -- before she put a picture up -- was "Please don't be one of those women who post a picture of their children" As an afterthought, I wrote "not that there's anything wrong with that" in a valiant attempt not to insult all of my facebook friends who had posted pictures of their chilldren in those photos.

If you were to ask me why this bugs me so, I suspect I feel like someone isn't giving me what I'm looking for -- they're hiding behind they're kids when they know perfectly well I'm looking for them. I don't want to see pictures of your kids where I expect to see a picture of you.

There is plenty of space on your facebook page to tell me that you've had a child and to show me what little Timmy looks like. Also, the thing is, chances are your kids probably look exactly to me like everyone else's kids. If you lined up all the photos of those kids in a row and asked me to match which of my facebook friends they belonged to, I probably would get a good 50% wrong. Which is probably why I tend to lose interest in these particular people as facebook friends. . .when they do update their status or comment on mine, the picture of that kid shows up, and now I'm looking at a stranger. It just feels kind of alienating, honestly.

(By the way, my best friend compromised. She posted a picture of herself. . .with her kids.)

Bravo! (And I don't even

By: ErinB | Thu, 05/14/2009 - 17:25

Bravo! (And I don't even have kids.) "Support[ing] the full range of women's roles throughout their lives" -- one of the better working definitions of feminism that I've heard in a while.