One crucial way that identities, both visual and inner, are created is with reference to dualisms.
A dualism (or a binary) is a pair of contrasted opposites like light/dark, good/bad, or up/down, where often times one is defined completely in relation to its opposite. It is this relational definition that makes binaries unclear and unfixed, since there must be a point of reference from which to begin. A coffee shop might be light in comparison to a movie theater, but it is dark compared to a sunny field. Thus the meanings of the actual words depend on their context and their relationship to other entities. Light is simply that which is relatively not dark.
Although there is a great deal of linguistic and semiotic theory that concerns all binaries, the implications for the use of the mirror become interesting with terms of social imagery. Some examples would be masculinity/femininity, rich/poor, young/old, beautiful/ugly, and big/small. The meanings of these words are unfixed in a more nuanced way, since they are socially derived and based on consensual definitions. Up is clearly above down, and light is clearly brighter than darkness, but there is less of a fixed relationship between terms of social imagery like beautiful/ugly because they are so subjectively loaded. So where do the meanings of ideas like beauty, masculinity, and youth come from?
Thomson and Hirschman (1995) approach this question as consumer researchers, and suggest that one of the major sources of power in defining binary terms is that of mass media and consumer culture. Their key argument is that dualistic worldviews (such as the strict divide between genders) result in dualistic conceptions of self, which in turn result in a moralistic obligation to situate the body through consumer products and disciplines (Thompson and Hirschman 143-144). That is, people define their bodies and their personalities in relation to prevalent cultural accounts of dualistic meaning (like gender, age, etc). This self-definition with respect to a given duality is accomplished by adhering to consumer practices that are linked to the desired quality that a person wants to incorporate. In turn, desired qualities are often related to coherent texts and images according to de Certeau's claims about the prevalence of homogenous signs.
A poignant example illustrated many times in Thompson and Hirschman's article is health practice. Physical health is portrayed on a very wide cultural scale as lean, clean, and muscular. So those who would like to align with the meaning of healthy, rather than the meaning of unhealthy (which would include fatness or dirtiness), are enabled by exercise machines, low-fat food products, and stylish clothing to do so. In fact, if one wishes to be identified as healthy, then one is obliged to discipline his or her body according to culturally pervaisve practices defined as "healthy." (Thompson and Hirschman 145).
Where do mirrors come into play? They are the venue by which people can monitor their bodies and problematize the parts that don't fit into the self-concept, which is in turn determined by its position in a given binary or set of binaries. If someone identifies as young, then a mirror enables him or her to find wrinkles or gray hairs that can be altered, covered up, or otherwise fixed to maintain the projected identity of youth. Rita Freedman phrases this point nicely when she asserts that "feelings intensify when we confront the discrepancies between our real image and our ideal one" (Freedman, in Cash, 284). This idea of problematizing that which doesn't fit in with an ideal image is the key use of the mirror as a tool for self-monitoring.
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