Demanding authenticity from the status-disadvantaged protects existing status hierarchies

Evidence

Advising everyone to “be yourself” is therefore unfair as a broad mandate in a world still marked by bias: not everyone is born into a set of privileged attributes and behaviors. The requirement to stay “detached” from the status process rewards elites and punishes non-elites. Before status-disadvantaged individuals can be themselves, they must band together to open a path toward upward mobility. This is the logic behind identity politics, where individuals sharing demographic characteristics unite to raise the status levels associated with their defining trait. But until there is dignity for every immutable characteristic, persona crafting remains an important tool for status equalization. Was it Billie Holiday’s moral duty to stay “authentic” to Eleanora Fagan and not create a new persona? Fellow singer and friend Carmen McRae explained about Holiday, “The only time she’s at ease and at rest with herself is when she sings.” Holiday appeared much happier being her crafted stage persona than having to maintain “Eleanora Fagan.” To stigmatize persona crafting is, then, to support the status ladder as it exists today. — W. David Marx, Status and Culture, 287

Categorization

• ADDENDUM: Directly extends the ‘immodesty/dress as identity signaling’ thread: personas and identity politics as tools for status equalization among the disadvantaged is the same logic of group identity signaling deployed upward through status ladders.
• XREF: connects to: Aspirants to higher status distinguish themselves via group-approved performance to avoid sanctions for norm-breaking — W. David Marx, Status and Culture: How Our Desire for…, 170; Distinctiveness is tolerated only for those who already have high status — W. David Marx, Status and Culture: How Our Desire for…, 175; The authenticity ideal structurally favors the already high-status — W. David Marx, Status and Culture: How Our Desire for…, 275 (+4 more)

Broader Connections

• The authenticity ideal structurally favors the already high-status #corroborates (0.90) — W. David Marx, Status and Culture, 275
• Formal equal access from unequal starting positions perpetuates exclusion #corroborates (0.78) — David Theo Goldberg, The Threat of Race, 115
• Status-seeking techniques like self-branding reflect and reinforce existing social hierarchies. #exemplifies (0.75) — Alice E. Marwick, Status Update, 48
• System justification theory attributes stereotype endorsement to status-quo legitimization #expands (0.72) — John T. Jost and Jim Sidanius, Political Psychology, 140