Archive for the 'Clothing and Fashion' Category

Your body is never the problem: a letter to a sixteen year-old on clothing, style, and creepy old men

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on May 03, 2010
in Clothing and Fashion, Favorite Posts 2010, Modesty and Youth
. 21 Comments

Rachel, who blogs at Musings of an Inappropriate Woman, poses this question from her 16 year-old self: how do I stop creepy old men from hitting on me? Rachel writes of a recent encounter with her favorite advice columnist, Melissa Hoyer:

Me: “OMG, I loved you column! When I was 16, I was going to write in to asking for advice. I wanted to know how I could dress differently to stop attracting creepy old men and start attracting guys my own age instead.”

Melissa Hoyer: “Er, I don’t think I would have been able to help you with that one.”

Rachel explains:

At the time, I had come to the conclusion that the reason I was attracting more attention from men who were 18 or 20+, right through to 40 or so, than guys my own age (the ones I was actually interested in) was because I dressed in manner that was too “adult”. I wanted to write to Hoyer because I was searching for a way to reconcile my desire to dress in clothes that I felt an aesthetic affinity with, with my desire not be designated an “adult” - an identity I was far from ready to take on at 16 - or a piece of meat because of it.

It was a question that was about far more than fashion, though - and I suspect that’s the reason Hoyer told me she wouldn’t have been able to answer it (although I like to think she would have been touched had I ever sent it off). At its heart, it was a question from a girl/young woman trying to come to terms with and navigate her own objectification.

As a feminist and a father, a professor and a former youth leader with years of experience working with teens, I thought I’d take a shot at answering Rachel’s query.

If I were writing to a 16 year-old named Rachel, I’d say:

Dear Rachel,

I wish that I could offer you specific fashion tips that would guarantee that creepy older guys wouldn’t hit on you. For that matter, I wish I could share with you how to dress in a manner that would assure that your peers wouldn’t frequently judge you, either to your face or behind your back. Unfortunately, I can’t tell you how to ensure those things — because the sad truth is that no matter how you dress, no matter what you wear, you will be perceived by some men as a target for their unwanted advances.

You may have heard people say things like “girls who wear short skirts are asking for ‘it’”. By “it” they may mean anything from rape to crude comments and penetrating stares. But as you may already have noticed, girls aren’t immune from harassment when they’re wearing simple or “modest” garb either. I’ve had plenty of students who’ve been accosted while wearing sweatpants or long dresses. I’ve had Muslim students who chose to wear head coverings, and they’ve been harassed both religiously and sexually. The bottom line is that there’s nothing you can wear that will guarantee respect from others. And the reason is that the root of this problem isn’t skin or clothing, it’s our cultural contempt for women and girls.

Have you noticed the way this works yet? If a girl is thin, she’s accused of being “anorexic”; if her weight is higher than the cruelly restrictive ideal, she’s “fat” and “doesn’t take care of herself” or “has no self-control.” If she wears cute, trendy clothes she “only wants attention” and if she wears sweats and jeans, she “doesn’t make an effort.” If she’s perceived as sexually attractive, and — especially — if she shows her own sexual side, she’s likely to be called a “slut.” If her sexuality and her body are concealed, she’s a “prude.” As you’ve probably figured out, the cards are stacked against you. You cannot win, at least not if you define winning as dressing and behaving in a way likely to win approval (or at least decent respect) from everyone.

The advice I’m going to give may sound clichéd, but it’s important nonetheless: you should dress in a style that makes you comfortable. Continue reading ‘Your body is never the problem: a letter to a sixteen year-old on clothing, style, and creepy old men’

Of Boobquakes and the modesty peddlers

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on April 26, 2010
in Body, Clothing and Fashion and Modesty
. 21 Comments

Those up on these things know that today is Boobquake day, during which women are encouraged to show just a bit more skin when out in public. The point is to rebuke the Iranian cleric Hojatoleslam Kazem Sedighi, who recently remarked that scantily-clad women cause earthquakes.

Without commenting on the Facebook-promoted Boobquake phenomenon itself, I think it’s important to note that Sedighi’s comments, as absurd as they seem to reasonable people, exist on a continuum with the only-slightly-less absurd words of American right-wing pundits and preachers. While a great many social conservatives would dismiss Sedighi’s remarks, one suspects that most would do so more out of antipathy towards Islam than out of a genuine sense that what he said was wrong. After all, while the number who believe that a push-up bra leads to cracks in the earth’s crust are few, it’s common to hear conservatives bemoan the lack of modesty among today’s youth (and by youth, they almost invariably mean young women.)

“I can’t believe what young women are wearing these days” is an ancient lament. While it is axiomatic that what scandalizes one generation is accepted as normal by the next, it’s also true that standards tend to fluctuate rather than steadily decline. Think of the plunging necklines of the early 19th century in Europe, and contrast them with the Victorian prudishness that only emerged decades later. These things go in cycles. It’s simply ignorant to assume, as many anxious guardians of public morality do, that “things have never been this bad, and without radical (state or divine) intervention, things will get even worse.”

The real constant in history is the way in which the bodies of young women are seen as threats to the social order (if not also to the stability of the globe’s tectonic plates). Those who believe in the myth of male weakness argue that the vast majority of heterosexual men are driven mad (or at least unavoidably distracted, tempted, etc.) by women’s unwillingness to cover up. Those who don’t understand how testosterone and Y chromosomes actually influence behavior insist that they render males helpless at the sight of boobs and buttocks and uncovered thighs. The social conservatives adopt a simple formula, basing it on a creative misreading of both Scripture and evolutionary psychology (and yes, it’s notable that many right-wing Christians abandon their hostility to evolution when they see that its misuse serves to bolster their argument that women need to cover up.) The formula: social upheavals (and perhaps temblors) are caused by women’s refusal to police themselves (and each other). Since men are incapable of sexual self-regulation, God gave women (and women only) the gift of self-control. When women refuse to exercise that self-control on behalf of both themselves and their brothers, chaos results.

It’s easy to mock Sedighi. But when we repeat the lie that women are more capable of self-regulation and are therefore expected to exercise modesty as a strategy for restraining men and protecting society itself, we are taking essentially the same stance as the befuddled Iranian cleric. Boobs don’t cause earthquakes. They also don’t cause rape. They don’t cause men to be distracted or unfaithful. Exposed in whole or in part, they don’t portend the decline of civilization or of human decency. We need to repeat this message over and over again.

Building a just society means, among a great many other things, reiterating over and over that each of us has the capacity for empathy and for self-control. All of us ought to enjoy the right to delight in our bodies and display them as we choose. And make no mistake: women’s bodies are only threatening in a culture that denies the possibility of universal male accountability, and denies the reality of women’s sexual agency. (Not to mention a society that is ridiculously uncomfortable with one particularly effective way of feeding infants, but that’s another post.) Hojatoleslam Kazem Sedighi is an enthusiastic denier of both possibilities. But so too are many others who disguise their medieval views of human nature behind only slightly less ridiculous assertions.

Happy Boobquake day.

See this post for a take on the real biblical meaning of modesty.

UPDATE:

In a discussion on my Facebook page beneath a link to this post, my friend Joanne writes:

Showing off my boobs doesn’t really make the people staring at them committed to freedom for Iranian women

I think we all agree to that. Note that I’m not celebrating or promoting Boobquake (it ill-behooves a male feminist to do so). I certainly don’t think that displaying women’s bodies is a particularly effective tool for solving discrimination. But I do think that the enforced concealment of women’s bodies is part and parcel of the problem. To the extent that a public, media-savvy campaign can expose (pun intended) our own hypocrisy about women’s sexuality and female flesh, then I think that events like Boobquake are fine. But they need to be a spur to serious reflection and continued activism.

Check out some thoughts at the Ms. blog as well.

Of burqas, mini-skirts, and whopping presumption

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on February 22, 2010
in Clothing and Fashion and Faith and Feminism
. 18 Comments

A couple of folks have asked me about the French attempt to ban the wearing of the burqa or the niqab in public. (Google about for various discussions about the not-always-clear distinctions between the two.) What is important to note is that the burqa and the niqab, terms sometimes used interchangeably and in slightly different ways in various parts of the Islamic world, both involve concealing much if not all of the face. This is distinct from the notion of hijab, which normally refers only to the covering of the hair, and perhaps the concealing of arms and legs.

Before I go any further, let me recommend this short and sensible response from Jill at Feministe. Another good post is here, at Muslimah Media Watch.

The French initiative (which has not been finalized) is motivated by concern for the rights of women. Though only a tiny fraction of Muslim women in France actually wear the burqa in public, they are highly visible symbols of a particular kind of conservative Islam, one that severely circumscribes women’s public role. It is no doubt true that women who wear the burqa do so on a spectrum of volition. Some are presumably forced to wear it; others — and the evidence for this is considerable — do so in opposition to their family’s expectations rather than in acquiescence. One person’s oppression, after all, is another’s vigorous assertion of independence and identity.

Reading coverage of the burqa story in the mainstream and feminist media, I’m struck by what a number of other feminists have also noted: the degree to which those who claim to be acting on behalf of women seem to be certain that they know what women are actually thinking. Concealment of the body that goes beyond a cultural norm is automatically read by some as oppressive, something no woman in her right mind could want for herself. It reminds me of the same damn argument I hear from some of my students about classmates who dress in more revealing clothing.

We’ve all seen it happen in the classroom on a hot day (of which we have a surfeit here in inland Southern California). A young woman walks into class a few minutes late. Perhaps she’s wearing a mini-skirt or very short shorts; perhaps she also has a low cut shirt or a tube top on. From at least some of her fellow students, she will be on the receiving end of both hostility and lust. Listening carefully, one can hear the sotto voce whispers, “Who does she think she is?” and “This is school, not a night club”, or even the simple, devastating, “What a slut.” In nearly twenty years of college teaching , I’ve witnessed this umpteen times. (More so at two-year schools, for reasons discussed in this post on clothing, class, and community colleges.)

When I ask young men and women why they think a female student might wear revealing clothing, most discount the possibility that she’s doing so for comfort or for her own pleasure. “She’s insecure”, they’ll insist. “She just wants attention.” Some get into advanced pop psychology: “She probably doesn’t have a good relationship with her Dad, so she needs male validation.” The notion that a girl could be expressing agency, courage, and genuine self-confidence is almost always dismissed. As those of us who teach gender and sexuality know, young people are all too often strangely puritanical in their insistence that a strong sense of self-worth can’t be congruent with sexual display. And they are certainly nearly universally presumptuous in their certainty about what their be-miniskirted classmate is “really thinking.”

The argument in favor of banning the burqa has never struck me as feminist. I’ve never for a moment bought the notion, advanced by some media-savvy social conservatives in all the Abrahamic religious traditions, that concealing a woman is a kind of feminist act. The notion that men can only respect as an equal a woman whose flesh is concealed is absurd; it sells men short and it does something even more decidedly unfeminist, which is make women entirely responsible for how men conduct themselves. The idea of mandating headscarves, or banning short skirts, troubles me. But the banning of the burqa bothers me equally.

One of the hallmarks of an illiberal, anti-feminist society is that it sees women’s bodies as threats. A society horrified by a display of self-confident sexuality is no better and no worse than one scandalized by the equally public display of deep piety. Religious feeling, like sexual feeling, is in some sense private — but it also is so much a part of us that it is unreasonable and bigoted to ask us to conceal it entirely when we come into the public square.

The French Enlightenment tradition is a fine if not untroubled one. (Rousseau makes me shudder, but Voltaire offers some comfort.) Certainly, the French grasped the rights of the individual before many of their neighbors, and they shed blood to guarantee those rights. And if there is one Enlightenment principle that I cling to, it is the notion that the right of the individual to trouble the conscience of the many ought to be damned near sacrosanct. On a public street, the right of a woman to walk unmolested and unchallenged in a burqa or a bikini is worth protecting. And when we see that woman, we do well not to rush to judgment about what particular constellation of religious and psychological influences led to her sartorial choices.

Holly dyed her hair: more on myths of female frailty, our fear of women’s anger, and what happens when the truth comes out

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on September 02, 2009
in Age, All Saints Pasadena, Clothing and Fashion, The Martha Complex: perfectionism in adolescent girls, Youth and Youth ministry
. 24 Comments

I posted earlier this year against the “myth of female frailty” and the lie that “one mistake will ruin your life”. The topic of that myth arose again this week when I met with one of my former All Saints youth group kids, “Holly.”

Holly, whom I’ve known since she was in eighth grade, is now headed into her senior year of high school; she’s 17. When I first met Holly, and indeed for the next several years, Holly “presented” outwardly as the pretty, outgoing, poised and popular blonde whose passage through adolescence seems almost unfairly graceful. Holly was much sought after as a friend (and more) by boys and girls alike; at our Wednesday night youth group meetings, I often saw not-very-subtle attempts by kids of both sexes to sit on “Holly’s couch” and be near her.

Of course, Holly was far more than the walking embodiment of a stock American stereotype. Not only was she exceptionally bright and a particularly talented writer, her childhood had been touched by tragedy and loss to a degree that set her well apart from most of her peers. A few — a very few — of her friends got to know the depth of that loss and its impact on Holly’s life; I was one of the small group of adults to whom she also regularly turned. I watched her struggle with the disconnect between how the rest of the world perceived her and how she felt on the inside, and we talked often about her frustration with the realization that she was the object of desire, admiration, jealousy, and envy when for the most part, she felt out of place and frequently lonely. Holly’s is not an unfamiliar story — at its most extreme, call it the “Richard Cory” phenomenon after that famous Edward Arlington Robinson poem so loved by generations of misperceived adolescents.

This summer, Holly broke up with her first serious boyfriend, got her first lead in a play, and let go of a great many of her old friends. When I met with her earlier this week, her long blonde hair was mahogany brown. Despite the heat, she wasn’t wearing the short skirts that had been her trademark since junior high school. She wore corduroy pants, a t-shirt, and a vest. Not a trace of make-up on her face, but when we met at a local coffee shop, there was a sense of real happiness behind her eyes. Holly’s making changes; the outside shift reflects an inner transformation — and the brunette tresses a greater willingness to expose to the world the darker, more complex aspects of her personality. Continue reading ‘Holly dyed her hair: more on myths of female frailty, our fear of women’s anger, and what happens when the truth comes out’

Can a feminist read Cosmo?

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on July 28, 2009
in Clothing and Fashion, Feminist Pedagogy, Mass media and Youth
. 26 Comments

I’ve been asked the question that titles this post more than once.

Last week I posted this bit about women and the importance of saving money “just for themselves”. It’s one of those tips that I think young women in particular need to hear. Another tip I often give to my women’s studies students regards their consumption of media: if it’s too hard to subtract, add.

To state the obvious, there’s a lot of sexist, misogynistic media out there. Some of it is in the form of crude advertising aimed at men; much of it in the form of “women’s magazines” which focus on beauty and fashion. Television shows like “The Bachelorette” or “America’s Next Top Model”, magazines like “Vogue” or “Cosmopolitan”, movies like “The Ugly Truth” — all send a troubling message about gender, about appearance, and about the capacity of any of us to find enduring happiness outside of narrowly defined roles. It’s not worth reiterating all that’s upsetting and demoralizing about mainstream media’s portrayal of women. But though many of my students find these magazines and television programs and films to be troubling and damaging to their own sense of self-worth, many also find them hard to give up. Over and over again, I’ve heard my women’s studies students describe reading fashion magazines or watching sexist shows (or, increasingly, looking at mainstream pornography) as “guilty pleasures.” And as a feminist, I’m wary of that phrase.

Obviously, we want to work collectively to reshape the ways in which the media portrays women — and men. It’s a given, too, that every dollar we spend is a vote; buying magazines which promote a narrow definition of beauty, for example, rewards and encourages the publishers and the advertisers. To the extent that we exercise choices within our consumer-driven capitalist system, we are at least partly responsible for those choices. The magazines and movie tickets we buy and the websites we visit matter; our behavior is tracked by curious advertisers and marketers eager to know “what works.” They are already rewarded enough for their contempt for women; why give them more of our precious dollars?

On the other hand, the reality is a bit more nuanced. Many women’s magazines which reinforce a narrow and destructive beauty ideal also feature first-rate writing by women on a wide variety of feminist subjects; magazines like Glamour and Cosmopolitan have run serious pieces in recent years on reproductive rights and pay equity; Seventeen and Teen Vogue have addressed eating disorders and sexual harassment. Those articles get more readers than comparable pieces in the feminist media; indeed, it’s entirely plausible that many women first encounter serious feminist analysis (whether they realize that’s what it is or not) within the pages of magazines like these. Continue reading ‘Can a feminist read Cosmo?’

Of pink

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on February 20, 2009
in Clothing and Fashion
. 23 Comments

Since our daughter Heloise Cerys Raquel came into the world just over three weeks ago, friends and family have been giving us various adorable baby girl outfits. And though we’ve had a few yellow, green, or pale blue items, the overwhelming percentage of blankets and onesies and dresses and shirts and pants we’ve received have been some shade of pink. In our unbiased opinion, Cerys looks marvelous in that color.

I’m often struck by the vehement hostility with which some folks react to pink. For some, it may be a purely aesthetic objection — they just don’t like the shade. For others, it’s the modern association with “traditional” femininity. (As most fashion scholars will tell you, less than a century ago, pink was considered a masculine shade.) Plenty of young women who were both swathed in pink and in sexism as little girls associate pink with the straitjacket of misogynistic cultural expectations. In the minds of some, a young woman’s fondness for rose almost becomes a litmus test for her willingness to live within conventional gender roles. Anyone who has worked with groups of junior high school girls, for example, will know that a mere discussion of the color can lead to rowdy — and occasionally serious — disagreements. I’ve worked with many a gal who went through an “I hate pink” stage; the objections tended to be more political than aesthetic. As they age, most drop all but aesthetic objections to the color. Still, even among adults, I sometimes encounter flashes of genuine hostility to the shade. And I have been asked, more than once, if my wife and I intended to dress Cerys in pink.

Of course, as my friends and students know, I wear pink often. My favorite off-the-rack shirt store is Thomas Pink, though I have green and blue items from that merchant as well. I’ve been wearing pink for more than 25 years, since my high school days in the preppy culture of the early 1980s. I like how the color looks on me, of course, but I also like the subversiveness of the choice to wear it so often. Though pink has waxed and waned as a fashion for men in the past quarter century, I’ve always had pink shirts (polos and long sleeves) as key elements of my wardrobe. And I’ve long enjoyed flouting the convention, common in at least some circles, that pink is an unserious and even de-masculinizing choice for a man to wear.

Pink on a man can mean many things, of course. It can mean “preppiness”, or it can mean a comfort with androgyny. It can even, I’ve been told, be a symbol of a strange kind of classism. One of my exes who didn’t like the color once remarked that she thought that only wealthy (or aspiring-to-be wealthy) men wore pink; her theory was that pink is normally “read” as a feminine color. Therefore, only a man confident of his affluence and of his cultural power would dare to signify his comfort with something so feminizing. “WASPs can afford to wear pink because they don’t need to project obvious masculinity”, she said (or something like that.) She postulated that preppy WASPs know that they already have the culture behind them, protecting them, and therefore they send a certain message about their own power with that willingness to wear the shade. She compared it to the captain of the football team dressing up as a cheerleader for laughs; he can do it because he is such a hyper-masculine icon that he knows no one will seriously dare question his manhood. Someone with less status can’t do it as easily. Or so her theory went. I didn’t think much of it, but I’ve run into others who share similar views.

Anyhow, I love pink — both the soft pastel and the vibrant, aggressive, Miami Beach-on-Easter-Sunday variety. And my daughter, who will grow up with some very strong feminist parents, will grow up with plenty of examples of tough, athletic, and ambitious women. But until such time as she starts making her own clothing preferences known, we will swath her in various shades of rose.

Until Monday: short update

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on June 20, 2008
in Blogging and Clothing and Fashion
. 2 Comments

I’m resting at home, watching the Croatia-Turkey European football quarterfinal. It’s well over one hundred degrees outside, and I have no desire to blog or do much of anything other than do something I so rarely do, which is sit on a couch and be, for a short while, a vegetable.

Posting resumes Monday. Come on Croatia!

UPDATE: 24 hours later, I’m once again on the couch, enjoying two consecutive relatively leisurely days. That hasn’t happened in I don’t know how long, but I shan’t feel guilty. I need this down time. And my wife’s flight lands at LAX in a few hours.

One of my favorite “looks” for myself is a fitted, carefully tailored button-down shirt, tucked into khaki or navy-blue trousers, with the sleeves rolled tightly almost to the elbows. Thanks to Juergen Klinsmann, the former Germany skipper, I see that it’s become a nearly-universal style among coaches in this year’s Euro football tournament. I cannot take any credit, but I am glad this very smart look has spread about. My shirts tend to be pink or pale lavender, however, rather than the crisp white favored by the managers.

Hair length, skirt length, body odor and a bulge in the jeans: what we should and shouldn’t say to loved ones

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on June 10, 2008
in Clothing and Fashion, Favorite Posts 2008, Modesty and Relationships
. 29 Comments

Last Wednesday’s post about controlling boyfriends got quite a few comments. The post dealt with two young women whose beaux wanted them to stop wearing short skirts, or to stop having lunch with decidedly platonic male friends. I don’t want to re-visit that post, but I have been thinking about the ways in which we negotiate reasonable and unreasonable requests from romantic partners. What is “reasonable” is obviously culture-bound, but that doesn’t mean that some frank discussion about the limits of compromise isn’t going to be helpful.

It seems to me that there is a colossal distinction between a partner’s expression of aesthetic preference on the one hand and a fear (or jealousy) based desire to control on the other. (And let’s be clear, the line between the desire to “protect” and to “control” is a fuzzy one, and when speaking about adults, the language of the former almost always masks the true intent, which is the latter. Obviously, the advice a parent gives to a 12 year-old about how to dress is different than that a boyfriend gives to a girlfriend.) For example, it’s not inappropriate to say the following:

“I really like it when you wear black, it suits you.”

“Since you asked, I actually prefer the blue shirt, as it matches your eyes better than that magenta one you were considering.”

My wife has, at the moment, very short hair. I like very short hair on her, and indeed, prefer it on most people of both sexes. That’s an aesthetic preference on my part, and it’s one about which my beloved is not ignorant. Over the course of our nearly six-year relationship, she’s cut it very short and grown it out past her shoulders. When it was long, I never begged her to cut it, but when she asked, I never lied about my preference. “You look beautiful regardless, dear, but if you want to know my own opinion, I think you are at your most spectacular when it is very short.” Continue reading ‘Hair length, skirt length, body odor and a bulge in the jeans: what we should and shouldn’t say to loved ones’

Nouns, not adjectives: Caroline Heldman and young women’s self-objectification

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on April 28, 2008
in Body, Clothing and Fashion, Eating disorders, Mass media and Sexuality
. 8 Comments

The new issue of Ms. Magazine hits the stands tomorrow. Of particular interest is an article by Caroline Heldman, assistant professor at nearby Occidental College: Out-of-Body Image: Self-objectification—seeing ourselves through others’ eyes—impairs women’s body image,mental health, motor skills and even sex lives. (It’s not available online; you will need to splurge for the magazine, which is well worth doing. A subscription is better. Ms., Bitch, and MakeShift are the three indispensables of feminist publishing.)

Heldman:

A steady diet of exploitative, sexually provocative depictions
of women feeds a poisonous trend in women’s and
girls’ perceptions of their bodies, one that has recently been
recognized by social scientists as self-objectification—
viewing one’s body as a sex object to be consumed by the
male gaze. Like W.e.b. DuBois’ famous description of the
experience of black Americans, self-objectification is a
state of “double consciousness…a sense of always looking
at one’s self through the eyes of others.”

In my work as a youth minister and as a women’s studies professor, I’ve seen this phenomenon grow seemingly worse in recent years. Paris Hilton’s remarks about sexualiy and her own self-objectification resonate; in 2005, she remarked that her titillating image is a product of her sexy sense of style, and in reality her boyfriends have commented on her less than rampant libido. She says, “I’m sexual in pictures and the way I dress and my whole image. But at home I’m really not like that. In other words, her sexuality is largely performative, almost entirely a response to an outsider’s gaze and not an expression of her own inner longing for anything other than validation. I’ve brought up this insight of Hilton’s with some of my students, and seen a variety of reactions, ranging from surpise to vigorous nods of recognition. Continue reading ‘Nouns, not adjectives: Caroline Heldman and young women’s self-objectification’

“Chivalry is deeply feminist”: butch-femme culture and a rethink on gender roles

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on March 26, 2008
in Chivalry and performing gender roles, Clothing and Fashion, GLBTQ and Relationships
. 25 Comments

Brownfemipower gets the hat tip and the curtsey for linking to this fascinating post at Sugarbutch Chronicles: Bringing Butch Back. It’s a succinct corrective to many of the received assumptions of Second-Wave feminism’s response to gender roles and chivalry:

Chivalry is deeply feminist to me. When in femmes, I expect femininity to be deliberate, done with the whole knowledge of the compulsory heteronormative restrictions which dictate that women must be and do certain things, particular that we must wear high heels, delicate cloth, restrictive clothing. Femininity is not made for comfort or movement, it is made to accentuate the sexualization of a woman’s body - and that’s why things like holding her doors open (so she doesn’t dirty her white gloves or expensive manicure), pulling her chair out (so she doesn’t have to awkwardly move a bulky piece of furniture, and risk getting it caught on her skirt or stockings and ripping something) or holding her coat (so she doesn’t have to reach around and risk ripping the tight seams in her shoulders or upper back) are necessary to me, as an acknowledgement of how restrictive femininity can be, and of how difficult it is to walk around the world in these clothes, as a celebration of the beauty of femininity on the body, and with deep respect for the courage to costume and perform femme to begin with.

Bold mine.

Most of the discussions about “chivalry” and “courtesy” in the feminist blogosphere are rooted in heterosexist assumptions. Virtually every feminist, early in his or her public “career” as a warrior for gender equality, gets involved in the “opening doors” and “paying for dinner” discussion. It’s remarkable how many young women, convinced that a fondness for playing traditional gender roles is at odds with egalitarian ideology, cite a fondness for “common courtesy” and “being treated like a lady” (or a “girl”, or a “woman”) as a primary reason for rejecting the feminist label. While few feminists claim that a straight woman’s conscious enjoyment of traditional gender roles automatically vitiates her feminism, most feel that it goes too far to claim the enthusiastic participation in “chivalry” as a genuinely “feminist choice.” Continue reading ‘“Chivalry is deeply feminist”: butch-femme culture and a rethink on gender roles’

A loyal wearer of the green

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on March 15, 2008
in Clothing and Fashion and Holidays
. 3 Comments

I’ve got a great many things to do this Saturday afternoon, but not so busy that I couldn’t go digging through my closet to make sure I had a green shirt to wear for teaching on Monday, St. Patrick’s Day.

There are very few annual holiday rituals with which I have always been consistent. I’ve decorated a Christmas tree almost every year in my memory, but I can recall one or two years where I missed out on that tradition. I’ve hid or hunted for eggs every Easter Sunday for perhaps 37 out of the last 40 years, but my memory tells me I didn’t have that chance in 1995, 1996, or 2000. And I’ve worn red or pink on the Fourth of July almost as consistently, but do remember being resplendent in blue seer-sucker in 1993 or ‘94.

Yet every single March 17 in my memory — which extends at least back to kindergarten 35 years ago — I’ve worn green. In elementary school and middle school, failing to wear green was an invitation to being pinched and pummeled. A few times, the green I wore was of the wrong hue; I learned as early as six or seven that the bullies reserved the right to make a final assessment about the sufficiency of the green in which I was clad. And, to be honest, I joined gleefully (and fairly gently) in the pinching of those who through forgetfulness or the desire for attention had nothing verdant upon them. Continue reading ‘A loyal wearer of the green’

“We love your look, but lose fifteen pounds”: of modeling contracts, feminist principles, and the elitist politics of personal purity: UPDATED

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on March 13, 2008
in Body, Clothing and Fashion, Favorite Posts 2008, Feminism, Money and Teaching
. 43 Comments

One of my students came to me yesterday with a question. “Carine” is twenty, and has already taken four of my classes here. She’s getting ready to transfer on to a four-year school, and she’s doing so — to my considerable delight — as a women’s studies major.

Carine is an independent student, and has lived on her own for several years. She’s entirely self-supporting, and her parents have contributed nothing towards her college education. (This is a very common story here.) She is taking a full load of classes, and working a great many shifts as a server in a West Los Angeles restaurant. Though the tips are good, she’s barely scraping by. Her twelve year-old Camry is on the verge of complete collapse. Something’s gotta give.

Since she was in high school, Carine has done a little bit of modeling here and there; it’s provided a little extra pocket money from time to time, nothing too significant. But now, with transfer looming and the economy hitting the restaurant business, she’s decided to investigate making her modeling more serious. She has the right look, and earlier this week, she met with one of the better-known agencies in town. They loved her face and her portfolio, and were quite willing to sign Carine to a “conditional” contract. The “conditions”: lose three inches off her hips and drop fifteen pounds off her already lanky frame. The agency would check in her with regularly to assess her “progress”; if she did as she was asked, she could be assured of steady work. There’s no question that taking this contract would make a huge difference to Carine. It will enable her to transfer, to stay on course for her degree (in women’s studies, heaven be praised), to remain independent.

Carine is a self-described “staunch feminist”. She took my women’s studies class and was hooked; she regularly e-mails me for “more books, please!” I send her reading suggestions at a staggering rate, and she ploughs through them just as fast. And Carine, like so many young feminists I’ve known, was worried about whether taking this contract would compromise those infamous “feminist credentials.” She said something like: “I know the fashion industry sends a lot of destructive messages to women. If I lose this weight, do I become part of that destructive message? Am I hurting other women as well as myself?” Continue reading ‘“We love your look, but lose fifteen pounds”: of modeling contracts, feminist principles, and the elitist politics of personal purity: UPDATED’

The next right thing? Pink.

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on December 12, 2007
in Clothing and Fashion, Feminism, Men and Masculinity and Vanity
. 18 Comments

If the first post of the day was on the theme of “doing the next right thing”, the second deals with a small practical tip from Jeff at Feminist Allies: What Men Can Do: Resist Gender Essentialism (with Accessories!) Jeff was inspired by Melissa’s remark, regarding the seemingly never-ending struggle for gender justice: All I ever do is try to empty the sea with this teaspoon; all I can do is keep trying to empty the sea with this teaspoon.

One of Jeff’s “teaspoons” is his phone:

And it got me to thinking about one of the themes of feminism for me:Small Daily Acts of Feminism. I tend to think that (1)The ‘little’ things are often only seemingly little and (2)Lots of (seemingly) little things add up. Take, for instance, my little pink phone.

Jeff has a picture of his little pink phone.

I’m with Jeff wholeheartedly here. No, Jeff’s pink phone isn’t going to save the world. But as he does point out, it does start a lot of conversations where good can happen. I don’t have a pink phone, but as anyone who looks through my Flickr or Facebook albums can attest, I wear a lot of pink shirts. And I wince when I hear people say things like “Real Men Wear Pink”; I prefer “pink is for everyone”. A willingness to subvert common assumptions about gender is always helpful, especially when that subversion is simple and elegant.

Hurrah for pink on all of us. It’s one of my favorite colors (along with yellow, which I can’t wear), and it has been a staple of my wardrobe for a long time. My fondness for pink isn’t evidence of virtue — but if it inspires any reflection in anyone at all about gender essentialism, then it’s one more teaspoonful.

“Ginormous breasts” at the gym: a response to Isky about the male gaze and responsibility

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on October 12, 2007
in Clothing and Fashion, Modesty and Sexual ethics and transformation
. 51 Comments

My friend Isky sent me an email this week that revisits, yet again, the subject of women, clothing, and the male gaze. I asked him to look at the posts in the modesty category, particularly these (one, two, three) that summarize my views fairly well. Still, Isky seemed to want a specific reply to his situation. As the whole discussion may be triggering or repetitive for some, it’s below the fold. Continue reading ‘“Ginormous breasts” at the gym: a response to Isky about the male gaze and responsibility’

Student t-shirt update

Published
by
Hugo Schwyzer
on July 11, 2007
in Clothing and Fashion and Teaching
. 4 Comments

Seen on student t-shirts just this morning:

“You’re better looking on Myspace”

“Thank you for last night. What’s your name?”

The student with the latter shirt carefully put on a sweater before coming up to me after class to talk. She might have been cold, but I doubt it.