Can fashion be feminist? It's a question that's gotten some traction now that Ms. has a full-length article about it in their most recent edition, excerpted here. My take on this perennial question is that it's asking the wrong question. Asking if "fashion" can be feminist is like asking if English can be feminist. Those on the "no" side could always point to the sexist history of the language that persists in certain common words, but at the end of the day, it's not like feminists in English-speaking countries are going to stop speaking English to make a point. A better answer is, "Language is dynamic and therefore neutral, and we can manipulate it for feminist ends." For instance, we can write feminist things. Or we can replace words like "chairman" with "chairperson".

Same thing with fashion. One problem is that people tend to think of fashion and think of high fashion only---or maybe high fashion mixed with a little bit of trendy but cheap fashion---which is like thinking of English and only thinking of literary fiction, with a couple well-regarded genre novels tossed in for flavor. Because of this, people mistakenly think they can opt out of fashion. They do this by saying things like, "I don't care what I wear, clothes are just for covering the body." (That clothes cover the body is true enough in cold weather, but honestly, people could just walk around naked in the hot weather if clothes had no value as a semiotic system. Their value as preserving modesty is over-rated; even cultures that don't fetishize "modesty"---including some parts of America---have clothes.) I've read enough on this subjec to know that the sociological view is that clothes' primary function is as fashion, and concerns like comfort are less important. Honestly, even modesty is a semiotic function of clothes; that you conceal your naughty bits doesn't mean that people don't know they're there. Which is why different cultures define appropriate modesty differently.

But I digress. The point is there is no opt-out clause. If you don't care and just thrown any old thing on, the message you send the world is, "I don't care and just throw any old thing on." Which is fine, but don't pretend you aren't sending a message just as surely as someone who carefully selects and color-coordinates an outfit is doing. 

Nor is fashion strictly a female thing. High fashion pays more attention to women than men, but because all people wear clothes, we all participate in the system. Personally, I find what' called "street fashion", i.e. fashion put together by ordinary people without a lot of money but who put a high value on self-expression and creativity, to be the most interesting fashion of all. It tends to be more interested in what is flattering, and more fun to look at than 90% of what fashion designers put together. If you take this view of fashion as a whole, then, I would say that of course fashion can be feminist. Even fashion that puts an emphasis on flashiness and beauty can be. Samhita and I discussed this on our recent podcast. Personally, I'm a big fan of using fashion to reclaim and subvert strict gender norms put on women. For instance, I love it when women reject the obnoxious pressure to be subtle in order to be considered "classy"; bring on the bright colors and flashy accessories. Some times we all have to be subtle for certain situations, but I love not having to be. 

While there's often a lot of discussion of these issues on an academic level, one thing I find that's often missing is direct, pragmatic discussion of how to make fashion choices that express feminist values, especially if you want to be both feminist and look good. For that, I really appreciate Greta Christina doing a once-a-week look at fashion from a pragmatic point of view. She's not doing it as an expression of feminist values, but I think that's a byproduct of the project. For instance, yesterday's post is about the difference between fashion advice geared towards concealing the supposed flaws in your body and fashion advice about putting your best foot forward. 

The distinction between the two can sometimes be hard to grasp---part of the problem is most fashion magazines conflate the two---but aside from learning that you don't have to be mangled and uncomfortable to look good, it's probably the most important aspect of doing fashion in a feminist way. One really good example is the question of high heels. A lot of short women are drawn to really high heels because they think it conceals how short they are. This is bad for two reasons. One, high heels are painful and should be used only rarely, if at all. Two, it actually looks kind of weird for short women to wear really tall heels. It's out of proportion with your body, and looks like you've been jacked up, making your legs look out of proportion. Tall women actually tend to look better in really tall heels. If you approach fashion as embracing your body instead of trying to "fix" it, it's much easier for short women to see that it's just as well to wear low or no heels. And of course, tall women are better off not trying to hide it, I think, though there's no shame in wearing a shoe that says, "I won't be leaving early tonight because my feet are killing me."

In my experience, feminists who embrace fashion tend to look awesome, because they eschew the push towards conformity and embrace their bodies as-is. Big boobs? Flaunt 'em. Fat? Sweet, you can get away with big accessories. Flat-chested? Lucky you (or me, in this case), you look great in those loud prints that others tend to overlook. It's way more fun that way. 

Style guides I've read that try to be more "embrace yourself as-is" and less "oh my god, hide your shame!" and can recommend are anything put out by the publishers of Lucky, such as The Lucky Shopping Manual: Building and Improving Your Wardrobe Piece by Piece or The Lucky Guide to Mastering Any Style: How to Wear Iconic Looks and Make Them Your Own. They're a little more conservative than I am, fashion-wise, and they do screw up on occasion, but by and large they embrace the idea of embracing your body as-is. For instance, they advise fat women to wear string bikinis instead of try to cover up, on the grounds that most bathing suits that are more modest tend to just cut you off in awkward places, whereas bikinis you tie on create a more clean line. More gleeful and provocative is The Fashion File: Advice, Tips, and Inspiration from the Costume Designer of Mad Men, which also briefly addresses men's wear, as well, and can be used for women who prefer that kind of clothing, though there may be better style guides out there for that. She also has a couple of moments of reflectively treating certain features as flaws, but she mostly stays away from that and puts the emphasis on flaunt-what-you-got positivity. I learned a lot from that book, especially in terms of not being afraid of colors or patterns. 

Other thoughts and recommendations welcome in comments!

Newest Bitch Magazine landed on my doorstep the other day, and while most of it is just great as usual, I have to take issue with one half-page article called "Vicious Cycle: The Irresponsible Aesthetic of Bike Chic", by Kati Nolfi.  I should have known from the title that I was going to be annoyed.  Just the conflation of "irresponsible" with "aesthetic" or "chic" should have set off alarm bells.  But man, was this article some grim stuff.  The villain?  Photo shoots in magazines that show young women riding bikes wearing, brace yourself, fashionable clothes and looking like they may be running simple errands. 

Clearly, this cannot stand. If bikes become chic instead of the province of those who congratulate themselves on sacrificing pleasure, convenience, and good looks for the environment, then what will become of the self-congratulators?  Won't they just have to push themselves into further sacrifices to demonstrate moral superiority to the slaves of ballet flat fashion?

If you think I'm kidding, some quotes:

Street fashion bike photos commodify women as frivolous fashion hounds and seem to go out of their way to find helmetless women in pee-toe heels.  They don't address the street harassment bikers get and the trouble that bike-inappropriate attire can cause.

I'm just going to pause for a moment to point out that Nolfi, in her eagerness to shame the fashionable perched on bicycles, veered right into victim-blaming.  The only way you can believe that showing a woman in a shirt with peep-toe heels on a bicycle is somehow implicated in street harassment is if you blame the victims for what they wear and not the perpetrators for harassment.  To be clear, women get harassed in all sorts of clothing, and no one should have her clothes examined for being "inappropriate" in an effort to curtail street harassment.

But the idea that young, thin, and usually white women are emblems of environmentalism and urban savvy is kind of laughable if you look closer at the photos---can these ladies really be expected to rid farther than the nearest coffee roastery in their impractical outfits, and on bikes groaning with handbags and bouquests of fresh cut flowers?

The problem with this criticism isn't that she's demanding more diversity in pictures of commuter bicyclists, even though the list of race-and-body-size words might be a distraction.  Diversity is an addition-based approach, where we say that we need more pictures of more people. She just want an elimination of this particular kind of picture, on the grounds that it's not real somehow.  Well, first of all, duh.  Fashion photography never is completely real, but evocative.  But her implication that there's something fucked up about a young, white woman using her bike for short trips and shopping makes no sense at all.  When I lived in Austin, my bike was my primary mode of transportation.  And yes, it was often used for carrying bags and flowers and I wore street clothes instead of strapping on my spandex and sneakers.  That's the point---it's a commuter bike.  The idea is that if you want to go to the coffee shop or the grocery store, you take your bike and not the car. 

My feeling is that diversity isn't achieved by eliminating but adding.  More pictures of more people is the solution, not eliminating the pictures we already have.

It's easy to forget that photos of women in full skirts perched precariously on bikes, sans head protection, in traffic are real, and these images belittle the dangers that bikers enounter and the real aesthetic decisions that cyclists make to mitigate them: rolling up pant legs, tucking in shoelaces and scarf ends, wearing shorts or opaque tights under skirts to avoid flashing, eschweing anything flowing or flared.  Sartorial distractions can compromise the freedom and fun of biking, but they're a necessary compromise.

Also, please avoid moving your hips too much.  Not everyone is feeling sexy right this minute, and you're a distraction.

Seriously, that's some depressing stuff.  While I appreciate that feeling sacrificial and self-righteous can attract some people to healthier choices, I really do think it's limited.  Certainly Nolfi's implication---that the only way to promote certain behaviors is to show them as grim and sometimes nightmarishly sad sacrifices made for the salvation of the planet---is going to have extremely limited appeal.  I, for instance, had mainly been exposed to the idea that having a commuter bike in the city was serious business and out of the reach of someone who did things like went to clubs or coffee shops, but was solely the province of hippies who don't mind going around wearing nothing but jean shorts and T-shirts with sneakers.  It was only after visiting Amsterdam and being exposed to a culture wear, heaven forfend, people use bikes to just get around like you would a car that I started to think that maybe bicycle commuting was for me.  Knowing you can wear jeans or a skirt and still ride a bike changed everything.  I took my bike to all sorts of places that are just so unserious!  I took it to clubs, to the movies, and yes, to the coffee shop.  I even....wait for it...used it to transport flowering plants. 

The notion that a fashion shoot is going to keep women from tucking their skirts or tying their shoes is frankly insulting, by the way.  It doesn't take much practice on the bicyle to learn that a flowing skirt should be tucked up under your butt and flared jean hems should be folded.  If you actually hang out by the bike rack at a coffee shop or rock club and watch the hipsters park their bikes, you'll see how swift and practiced they get at hopping off, untucking their pants legs, straightening their skirts, and adjusting their bags before entering the establishment they came to.  The notion that portraying bicycling as compatible with fun and fashion is somehow irresponsible implies that because people--especially women---like to look good, they are stupid.  I disagree strongly.  We should not start from the assumption that women especially are braindead and call that "feminism".

Demanding that pictures of bicycling show it as a serious, fun-free event that is too dangerous for ordinary people with "frivolous" desires doesn't do much except bolster the egos of the few people that this approach suits.  The result is that people whose lives incorporate things like looking good and going to coffee shops are going to struggle to see how bicycling could work for them. 

Take, for instance, what happened at Good when they challenged the folks that work there to stop driving so much. A number of people swore they would start bike commuting, but no one did.  I'm not surprised; to hear some people talk, making the switch requires reworking your life in ways that start to seem unmanageable.  If you start from the assumption that bikes are incompatible with running errands or your wardrobe as it currently stands, you won't get on a bike.  You'll get up and think, "Well, I can't wear spandex to work, and oh yeah, I have to stop by the store on the way home."  Even though fashion shoots with bikes are a bit unrealistic, I think overall the message---that biking can be part of everyday life---is a big plus and should be embraced.

Early morning amusements: Salon caught Fox News being taken in by a satirical article, and reprinting it as straight news.  Not-so-amusing is that they did it as straightforward hate-mongering, and still have not taken the story down or apologized for it. 

The story, which is still featured on Fox News’ Fox Nation website, was illustrated with a picture of a woman’s mid-section and carried the headline “Pakistan: Islamic Clerics Protest Women Wearing Padded Bras as ‘Devil’s Cushions.’” The lead of the Fox Nation story, which sources the piece to the Indian news website sify.com, reads:

The Council of Islamic Ideology in Pakistan has protested the use of padded and colourful bras by Muslim women, and recommended that Pakistani Muslim researchers should try to invent an innerwear that makes female assets unnoticeable.

The problem is, if one takes the time to track the story back to its source, the whole thing is an obvious Onion-style satire—a fact first pointed out by Arif Rafiq of the Pakistan Policy Blog.

Naturally, the comments are filled up with wingnuts using this as an excuse to lambast every Muslim in the world.  Salon quoted one commenter calling Islam a “cult”, just to give you an idea of the levels of stupid and bigoted we’re dealing with here.  Yet again, I find myself irritated lately, because it’s not like I’m Team Islam or anything, since I think all religions are pretty silly.  But American conservatives aren’t making the case against religion.  (LULZ.)  They’re just playing the game of “my made-up bullshit is better than your made-up bullshit”. 

Most of the panels/speakers I saw at the Women in the World Summit were awesome, but by far the most troubling—-though definitely interesting at parts—-panel was one hosted by Andrew Sullivan titled “The Multiculturalism Debate: Is Europe Stigmatizing the Veil?”  It was supposed to be a debate over banning the niqab, which is a face veil, and while some pains were made to try to differ between wearing a niqab and wearing a hijab of any sort that covers your hair completely or just partially, the distinctions got blurry. Some good points were made by Liesl Gerntholtz about how bans—-or requirements—-on religious garb of any sort usually serve only to limit women’s movement, because women who object to the requirement, or are forced to do so by their families, will just find themselves staying at home or being forced to more often.  Ayaan Hirsi Ali made a lot of interesting points, mostly objecting to how this debate swallows up larger discussions about how religion is used as cover to control and oppress women in ways that are significantly more damaging than anything clothes could do to you.  But mostly it was a confused mess, and not helped by the fact that no practicing Muslims, much less anyone who wore a hijab (which Ali sensibly pointed out can often be a non-obtrusive item of clothing, instead of one that says, “Look at how modest I am.”) was part of the panel.  They said they couldn’t get anyone to agree to do it, which to me should have been an indicator that it was time to go back to the drawing board.

Anyway, setting aside the debates on the legal restrictions, one thing that annoys/amuses (we need a word for this in English) me about the whole debate—-and thankfully this was something that was alluded to by people who got up and asked questions—-is that it presupposes that only Muslims fall into the trap of obsessing over how much skin is too much skin, or other questions of women’s “modesty”.  (And it presupposes all Muslims do, which is simply not true.)  I guarantee every fucking person frothing at the mouth at this satirical story has spent some time judging some woman or other for being immodest.  I was thinking about this while watching the panel, and tweeted an observation, I think, about skirt length and bra thickness. 

Which is the irony here.  While all these wingnuts are frothing over an imaginary ban on padded bras, in America, the padded bra is, in and of itself, an object of modesty obsession. While some communities are more liberal, and thus this falls under the radar, in other communities, leaving the house without a solid amount of padding to conceal your shameful natural breast shape is a big fucking deal.  At Slate, Emily Yoffe dealt with this concern.  The question:

I find myself at the age of 31 wondering what proper nipple etiquette is. I recently read an article that led me to realize that some people are offended by the sight of the outline of a woman’s nipples showing through her clothing. I own a variety of bras, some padded and some not. I know that if I wear an unpadded bra and it gets cold, the outline of my nipples will show through my top. My mother never mentioned anything about this when I was growing up (she didn’t object when I sometimes went braless as a teen), and the only person who has ever said anything about my nipples is my boyfriend. I am inclined to think that it is not improper, and I have never been offended by the sight of nipples. Would you please educate me?

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Update: For a more direct take on this whole issue of gun control, check out my latest at the Guardian’s Comment Is Free. But that isn’t to say there isn’t humor.  Wingnuts and their gun obsession always have a darkly comic value.

Every time there’s some horrible gun violence that catches the nation’s attention, there’s an inevitable call for gun control, and then the inevitable hysterical reaction from wingnuts who think that their penises will be taken away the second a mentally disturbed child molester on a terrorist watch list is prevented from buying a machine gun at a gun show.  And in these hysterics, there’s one word that’s used more than any other: “jackboot”.  Jackboots are, according to 99.9% of hysterical gun nuts, the most terrifying item humans have ever produced.  Jackboots are the weapons of choice of thugs kicking down your doors, looking to take your guns.  Liberals are usually portrayed as pacifist wimps by the right, but on this issue, suddenly we’re an army of fascists wielding this most terrifying of weapons, sturdy footwear.

Of course, the reason that wingnuts like to reference jackboots is that these were the preferred boots of the German military, before and during the Nazi era.  And wingnuts love nothing more than comparing criticisms of them and reasonable safety policy to the genocidal policies of Nazis.  Seriously, this “blood libel” and “pogrom” thing is just the next step after decades of “jackbooted thug” being second only to “welfare queen” in the wingnut cliche handbook.  This tendency is offensive to liberals, people with commonsense, Jews, anyone who was targeted by actual Nazis, the victims of gun crime, the soldiers who won WWII, and rationality itself, but it’s also really unfair to boots.  After all, the difference between the evil weapon of war called the “jackboot” and other, sturdy footwear suitable for heavy duty work, such as fighting in the military, is paper thin to non-existent.

I looked up the term “jackboot” online, and after wading through a bunch of right wing propaganda and historical wankery that is so specific that it’s not enlightening, I finally concluded that jackboots are basically just a really sturdy knee-high boot, probably one that is somewhat weather-proof so that you can march through mud and whatnot.  Steel-toes are probably involved in many of these kinds of boots, which do make them good for kicking the shit out of people.  Still, I find jackboots as weapons less terrifying than semiautomatic assault guns with extended magazines, machine guns, and rocket-propelled grenade launchers. 

But, in the spirit of compromise and Jon Stewart’s metaphor of everyone taking turns getting on the freeway, I’m willing to consider a compromise where, in exchange for controlling what we liberals find terrifying (high tech weaponry that can kill a lot of people in short periods of time), we will allow the control of boots that could be used to kick you in the head really hard.  Of course, just like with guns, an all-out ban of the entire boot family is and should be off the table.  Seriously, since moving to a place that has for real winter and where you have to walk everywhere, you would have to pry my boots out of dead, cold hands.  Plus, a lot of boots are really far away from “jack” on the scale of boots-that-look-scary.  So, I thought I’d go through the collection of boots in my house (which, because of aforementioned cold and walking weenie-ness, is a large collection) and rate them on the “jackboot” scale, to get a better picture of what kind of boot control would be necessary to stave off tyranny.

Also, it gives me a chance to play with Instagram, which is not yet implicated as a threat to liberty from liberal fascists.

Boot #1: My rain boots

Jackboot qualities: Tall, ugly, weatherproof, worn for practical reasons.

Freedom-loving qualities: Kind of unwieldy, made of rubber and not leather, associated mostly with girls wearing skinny jeans or leggings in an effort to make these look more fashionable than they are.

Jackboot rating: 5.0

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Today has been kind of a crazy day—-and I expect it will be that way all the way until the election—-so I thought I’d toss out a more fun post for those two things that go together like peanut butter and chocolate, or lube and condoms: Halloween in election years and political costumes.  Putting together a costume that’s basically a political joke is not only a way to relieve some election season tension, it’s also a great way to dodge the “wear your underwear and some cat ears” costume pressure for women.  If done properly, a funny political costume can be a subtle, non-annoying, totally fun way to remind people to vote the next week. In 2008, I did what all brunettes with bangs pretty much had to do, and went as Sarah Palin.  It was so much fun we ended up doing a comedy short video that exploited my costume and a friend’s GI Joe-inspired costume. 

This year, I thought it would be wrong not to do a similar political costume, so after kicking a few half-baked ideas around, I settled on being a “mama grizzly”: 50s era dress, apron, pearl earrings and necklace, and bear ears.  (I’ll probably also do a bear nose and mouth with make-up.)  I’ll probably write a slogan on the apron. I’m thinking “Ban Schools, Not Guns”. 

But if you want to use your costume as a political comment, to make fun of the right, or just to represent some major issue of the election season, there are a lot of options.

*Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell: a military uniform with your mouth taped shut, or at least a big X over it.  (I’m not a fan of costumes that interfere with socializing.)  Attach a gay pride button to your uniform. 

*I’ll bet a tea bag could made out of burlap sack, some string, and a stiff piece of paper for the label.  This is something you could affix a sign to very easily.

*Aqua Buddha. This costume would be especially fun if you live in Kentucky.

*Kelly Baden on Twitter mentioned her Christine O’Donnell costume: “Suit, witch hat, sign that reads “I am You” , straight brown hair”

*“Second amendment remedies” begs to be a costume.  You can get a fake gun and some doctor/nurse costume, maybe with a clarifying sign. 

*You could combine a revolutionary war costume with a clown costume to represent the Tea Party: powdered wig and tricorn hat, clown suit and shoes, red clown nose.  Get a horn and honk at people, telling them to get the government out of your Medicare.

Offer your own in comments!

Been a long time since anything in the clothes-wearing department has been addressed on this blog, so I thought it would be fun on a Friday night to blog a couple of items of interest. First of all, I appreciated that Jezebel tackled the issue of getting your clothes altered, mostly because I—-swear to god—-read this blog post first thing after returning home after dropping off some clothes to be altered. They make some good points, but I want to add that even though it can seem expensive, sometimes have a tailor on speed dial is a lot cheaper than you’d think.  Sure, if you buy brand new clothes and then have them altered, it’s going to set you back a lot.  (Though for a basic item that you’ll use over and over, it’s worth it.)  But there are actually two major ways that using a tailor can save you money:

1) Shopping your own closet. Sadie at Jezebel mentions this, but it’s well worth mentioning again.  A lot of clothes that you might throw out because you’re bored with them or they never looked quite right can be completely remade with a quick trip to the tailor.  For instance, I had a really nice blue dress that fit well, but never quite seemed young enough for me.  So, I took it to the tailor and had the hem raised from mid-calf to a number of inches above the knee.  It went from being a dress I didn’t know what to do with to one that I wear all the time.

2) Buying used clothes. If something is a little too big, but is like $1 at a garage sale, it can be worth it to buy it and have it taken in.  Taking up hems is a big thing for me.  A lot of long skirts are cheaper at resale shops, because they don’t sell as fast as cute, shorter skirts.  But you always have them brought above the knee, if you want.  Sleeves can come off.  Waists can be brought in if you want to take something a little shapeless and make it a little more Joan Holloway.  (Belts can do this, too, but sometimes there’s too much cloth.)  If you’re flat-chested, you can get something that flatters everywhere else for cheap and have the chest brought in.  The three skirts I took in to convert from long to above-the-knee length were bought at garage sales and resale shops.  I’m going to get three fun, young-looking, fashionable skirts that are in excellent condition and totally unique for about $75, max.  It’s hard to get that off the rack.  Some vintage stores also offer cheap to free alterations of their own clothes.

Of course, if you know how to sew, then this is even easier for you.  I don’t, but I’m considering learning some day when I’ve got the time and energy to pick up a new skill.

Link #2 is a great idea.  Someone started a Tumblr blog to collect pictures of Muslims wearing things, so that you can spot “Muslim garb” and know when to be afraid. Helpful pictures include:

And:

Never worry again that you won’t know when to be afraid!

So, the NY Times runs a piece about why female politicians love a specific pair of Kate Spade shoes. The author admits in the piece that it’s sexist to focus on the fashion choices of female politicians so obsessively, while male politicians can expect their footwear choices to largely go unmentioned.  Jill points out that this hedge should protect the Times from criticism for thinking this is such a great idea.  Irin at Jezebel collects the opinions of women in politics who do think this is a story, because ease of footwear is a legitimate advantage male politicians have over female politicians, because men’s shoes don’t actually put their health at risk when they’re on their feet all day. 

I think we can split the difference here.  The politicians are right that the fact that women have to sacrifice their health where men don’t to have a career in politics is a story.  But it’s not the story Susan Dominus wrote.  Dominus might as well have been writing copy for Kate Spade, implying that their $300 wedge heels do a sufficient job of battling the long list of health problems and chronic pain that women’s shoes—-particularly high heeled shoes—-given them.  A real story about this issue would question why female politicians feel they have no choice but to destroy their feet in order to win, and why our society turns a blind eye to the fact that huge percentages of women suffer entirely preventable health problems due to their shoes. 

It’s a question that I’m kind of surprised isn’t dwelt upon more by feminist writers, honestly.  I see more articles about the potential health effects of untested cosmetics than I do the actual, proven health effects of fashionable shoes on women.  That’s why I was glad Leora Tanenbaum wrote Bad Shoes and the Women Who Love Them, and why I had her on my podcast for an interview.  Neither she nor I am denying that high heels are sexy or fun to wear.  But the problem is that they’re not relegated to those rare occasions when you really want to go with sexy and fun to wear, occasions when you make other over the top sartorial choices like funky headwear, microminis, or your fancy jewelry.  High heels, even scarily tall high heels, are considered a regular part of everyday wear for women.  In fact, many women feel they have to wear them to look professional.  Even if they’re standing on their feet all day. 

Patriarchy loves to mutilate women’s bodies, that’s for sure.  Corsets, foot-binding, female genital mutilation—-all sorts of traditions have arisen, and all of them have some relationship to the twin demands on women to be modest yet sexy.  The thing is, we like to pretend we’re not a society that puts such health-damaging demands on women.  And yet, if you look at the actual evidence of what women’s shoes do to women’s feet, we are exactly one of those societies.  (Because I will immediately be accused of creating equivalence between foot-binding or FGM and high heels, I’m not.  I’m talking about kind, not degree.)  A lot of women experience chronic pain because of their shoes.  A lot of them have to get foot surgery to reverse some of the effects.  And for what?  A slightly better calf shape under a knee length pencil skirt?  Why is it so hard to relegate high heels to special occasions, and view flats as the only appropriate everyday wear?

It’s 2010 and black women are still being told their hair is “bad,” ugly, lacks class, etc. If you saw Chris Rock’s “Good Hair”—that’s all you need to know about the pain, the humor and the self-loathing pathology black women (and men) have about natural hair (see my post on it).

And now the style tide has turned in one strange circle, where the women with chemically straightened hair are now being called “trashy.” Sisters, you can’t win. In an article over at Gawker, “American Apparel: Internal Documents Reveal Uglies Not Welcome,” you have to wonder how many people would pass muster for owner generally, but for black women applying for work there, “nice hair” has a different requirement Dov Charney.

Another former [American Apparel] AA manager says that she received the following instructions as to what kind of black girls she should try to hire during the company’s open calls:

“none of the trashy kind that come in, we don’t want that. we’re not trying to sell our clothes to them. try to find some of these classy black girls, with nice hair, you know?”

i will remember that forever, especially the “nice hair” part. he was instructing another manager and i on who to look for during an upcoming open call, and i sat there dumbfounded, listening to him speak while the other manager made “uh huh, got it” sounds on her end of the phone. the other manager on the call with me later became a district manager, and at one point instructed me to tell two of my employees (both of whom happened to be black females) to stop straightening their hair. i refused to do this, but wondered if the mentality behind her request was related to what dov had said.

As everyone knows, I’m an advocate for women dumping relaxers, aka the creamy crack, because that stuff is f*cking toxic. The beauty aesthetic is secondary; natural hair can be beautiful, classy, etc., but as we know, the culture at large doesn’t celebrate the crazy curls and kinks.

More below the fold.

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I’ve been thinking a lot about Amanda Hess’s blog post about how women have to walk through this social political maze when it comes to beauty.  She observes something I’ve written about before, about how there’s pressure on women to put forward a lot of effort to be beautiful, but to conceal that effort from men in order to make it seem you were just born that way.  Much of the pressure to conceal comes in the form of jokes about how frivolous and stupid girl stuff is.  Women are mocked for spending time on their bodies, hair, and faces, for having medicine cabinets teeming with products, for being obsessed with clothes and shoes.  But if you decide to react to all these messages about how you’re a bad person for caring about this stuff by not caring about that stuff, you’ll be considered and even worse person, probably a “man-hater”.  Choosing to say no to even a little of it gets the attention of the NY Times, for fuck’s sake. So clearly, the ideal is to do all the work but hide it from men.  But as Amanda points out, you also need to make the effort not to hide it from other women.  If “effortless perfection” looks too effortless to other women, they can start to resent you for it.  It’s a fucked up situation.

The use of jokes to shame women about doing work they can’t opt out of without getting it worse is all over this New York Daily News story.  In horror, the Daily News reports that women spend an average of three years of their lives shopping, and then proceeds to make fun of women for being incapable of finding useful ways to spend our time.  (Hat tip.)

“I think it would be more than three years,” laughed Sandy Mahadeo, 20, a sales clerk from Richmond Hills, lugging a huge bag from Macy’s. “I love everything about shopping.”

“She goes every day!” interrupted her fiancé, Nicholas Ragbir, 20, echoing the belief of many men who feel women spend way more time than that shopping.

Ha ha!  I will mock her for working so hard to look good for me! Ah, Sandy.  Stop beating up on yourself and tell your man that if he doesn’t like it, you’ll wear nothing but mom jeans and kitten-bedazzled sweaters, and he’ll shut up.

Respondents said they make an average of 301 shopping trips - which add up to 399 hours and 46 minutes - every year.

“I think that’s really unfortunate,” said Marci Bykat, 31, a Brooklyn potter, suggesting there are more productive ways to spend time. “But it’s true.”

They then imply that 299 of those 301 trips involve searching for the perfect purse.  But if you think it’s fishy to suggest that the average woman goes clothes shopping after work on all but 64 days of the year, you’d be right.  They bury this in the last line of the story.

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One of the more interesting parts of Susan Faludi’s Backlash isn’t as famous as her examination of the “women over 40 never get married” myth or her explication of the popularity of “Fatal Attraction”.  Yet, I’ve always thought it was interesting the way that she examined how the fashion industry tends to put its full weight behind anti-feminist backlashes.  In retrospect, the transition from the 40s to the 50s is probably the most obvious example—-as women were ripped from their jobs and bullied back into the kitchen, fashion changed dramatically from sensible, mature-looking clothing (that flatters a whole lot of different bodies) like this:

To clothes that had bigger skirts and often emphasized smaller waistlines and bigger bustlines that often required a lot more painful underwear, but limited movement either way:

In The Second Sex, published in 1949, Simone de Beauvoir praised Americans for sensibly embracing women wearing pants as a normal fashion, but from what I understand, this was also undermined in the 50s, where the casual pants look was increasingly frowned upon.  Similarly, Faludi noted that the fashion designers of the 80s were, like those in the 50s, bound and determined to get American women to wear clothes that limited movement and were feminine to the point of parody—-heavy on ruffles and even on petticoats.  The difference was that women were more empowered in the 80s to rebel, and they did rebel, and a lot of the more extreme clothes never sold well. 

I bring this up, because I think the fashion industry has found a way to get around this problem.  This time around, the backlash is less about making women look infantile and overly feminized, and more about making them feel they have to be skeletal.  Nonny mouse at C&L had an angry post up about this situation, and while I think she’s a bit cruel to women who are super-skinny, I have to say this image she uses tells the whole story:

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Robin Givhan should get some kind of award for the tone-deaf mean-spiritedness of her defense of a fashion industry that insists on models that are on the brink of starving to death—-and often beyond. Okay, it’s going too far to say Givhan is defending it, but she is far too blase, and it’s intellectually dishonest to ignore the fact that mandatory anorexia is not only harmful to the viewing public, but it has resulted in actual deaths of models.  The fashion industry may think that models are nothing but “hangers with legs”, but they are human beings, and driving them to kill themselves with starvation is a straight up human rights abuse. 

That’s the worst part of Givhan’s snitting at those of us who complain about the skinniness of models, but right on the heels of that is how close she comes to an insight before missing the mark completely.  Because I do think that Givhan is right that the models are getting skinnier as the public is getting heavier. 

All those emaciated models have to be seen against the backdrop of a population that is overwhelmingly afflicted with obesity. It has to be viewed in the context of a first lady who has taken up the cause of healthy eating and exercise because nearly one in three children in the United States is either overweight or obese…..

By its very nature, fashion is a business of falsehoods and costumes, all in service to self-definition. The uncomfortable truth about the fashion industry is it has a knack for tapping into unspoken cultural obsessions and taboos. Fashion sets up a rarefied world of perfection that is, in many ways, defined by how much it differs from the mundane, from the norm. And all indicators suggest that as a culture, we hate what we are becoming: fat.

Of course, part of the problem with her analysis is that Americans are not all people, but fashion anorexia is a worldwide phenomenon.  Still, Americans have an oversized influence on manifestations of capitalist culture like fashion, and so I think Givhan’s probably not wrong to round up.  What she is wrong to do is see something admirable in the shame about fatness she perceives.  She compares skinny models to shows like “Biggest Loser” or moments like Oprah’s weight loss that got her into size 8 jeans, and sees this all as Americans working out shame over our deplorable health habits.  But accepting that Americans eat way too much junk and don’t really exercise as much as we should, I still have to say that this kind of social projection is far from healthy.  In fact, it’s trading a shame about fatness with a longing for anorexia. It’s not about wanting to be healthier, but about abusing and punishing any trace of flesh, all of which is seen as disgusting and impure, at least on women. I wrote about this at Double X, where I compared the public applause for anorexia to the purity movement in the Christian right.

The obsession with wiping out any traces of humanity from female bodies in the fashion industry reminds me of nothing so much as the obsession with sexual purity that flourishes on the Christian Right. In both cases, anxieties about the dirty biological reality of life are projected onto female bodies, and the solution proposed is an extreme form of control. As fashion designers balk at anything even resembling soft tissue on women’s bodies, some factions of the Christian right are moving towards extreme forms of premarital abstinence that ban even closed-mouth kissing before the wedding. But since the anxieties they’re trying to quash never actually go away, it’s worrisome in both cases to see what the next steps in appetite-denial will be.

Just as the Christian right obsesses over the virginities of its teenage girls, and uses their bodies as a canvas to project all their needs for “purity” on, so fashion models become a similar canvas to project guilt and anger not about being fat, but about being “sinful”.  Givhan comes close to realizing this, when she says that fashion models are also there to guilt the average, by which she means people who are actually thin by any reasonable measure.  The fashion model isn’t there to shame you about overindulgence, but to suggest that any pleasure taken in food at all is an overindulgence, that eating itself is a disgusting habit that we should abandon completely.  It’s also misogynist, just like the Christian right is misogynist, since the bodies all these scapegoating desires are projected on are invariably female.  Whether it’s a matter of sex or eating, it seems that it’s mainly women who are expected to feel ashamed of having any desires at all, and only women who are expected to take the extreme measure of trying to wipe out the hated desire altogether. 

We are talking about five students who are living a gay lifestyle that is leading them to dress a way we do not expect in Morehouse men.”
—Dr. William Bynum, vice president for Student Services

When sweeping statements like this are made, it makes you want to ask Bynum if he knows if there’s a difference between gay/trans/cross-dressing, since it’s pretty apparent from the ignorant statement that he probably doesn’t. (CNN):

An all-male college in Atlanta, Georgia, has banned the wearing of women’s clothes, makeup, high heels and purses as part of a new crackdown on what the institution calls inappropriate attire. No dress-wearing is part of a larger dress code launched this week that Morehouse College is calling its “Appropriate Attire Policy.”

The policy also bans wearing hats in buildings, pajamas in public, do-rags, sagging pants, sunglasses in class and walking barefoot on campus.

Senior Devon Watson said he disagrees with parts of the new policy, especially those that tell students what they should wear in free time outside of the classroom.

“I feel that there will be a lot of resentment and backlash,” Watson said. “It infringes on the student’s freedom of expression. I matriculated successfully for three-and-half years dressing so how is this a problem?”

It’s one thing to ban droopy drawers and dressing in pajama bottoms on campus because it looks unprofessional, but when you cross into the territory of a blanket statement about gender expression, it’s discriminatory. What if a male student shows up for class dressed in a sharp tailored woman’s business suit, appropriate footwear, etc? to Bynum, that’s equivalent to dressing up like Carmen Miranda with a basket of fruit on her head.

According to the CNN article, Bynum met with the campus gay organization, Morehouse Safe Space, which voted on the policy and overwhelmingly supported it, 27-3. MSS says on its Twitter page that “We are the ONLY LGBT Organization @ Morehouse College. We strive to find an alliance amongst Gay & Straight Students in the AUC.” I think it’s a safe assumption to say the “T” is there as lip service based on that vote. Given how there’s already a lack of affirmation for LGB at many HBCUs, the trans issue is simply not enough on the radar to put up a fight, and that’s sad.

An another article (Atlanta Journal-Constitution), Bynum gives additional reasoning for the no-dresses policy that are also revealing and relevant to note.

“This is necessary, this is needed according to the students,” he said. “We know the challenges that young African-American men face. We know that how a student dresses has nothing to do with what is in their head, but first impressions mean everything.”

It shows you how black (and other POC) trans folk are double damned in their communities—they are the living hurdle to cultural acceptance and thus are vilified in policies like this.

***

The article also notes that at Hampton University that would enrage me—students with braids or dreadlocks are encouraged to cut their hair. Again, locs are becoming more acceptable in the workplace, HBCUs are concerned that aside from an afro (I assume it would only find a short one acceptable), that locs and braids even a well groomed styles, are an impediment to employment when one is already dealing with racial discrimination. It’s not fair, but I’d have to say, in some parts of the country and some professions, this crap is still true. You have to land the job first, and then see if you can “go natural.”

The Morehouse Dress Code Policy is below the fold.

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I know everyone’s talking about the Nobel Peace Prize, but that’s why I can’t think of anything to say that hasn’t been said.  So I’m writing about this instead.

Back during SXSW, I noted that the 80s were back in the most full-throated way.  I need to revise that opinion slightly.  It’s more like the late 80s/early 90s are hitting a high nostalgia peak, and they should be taken as one era, much in the way that the late 60s/early 70s are really one era.  But the fact that the nostalgia/inspiration trip has moved from the New Wave era to the late 80s/early 90s became impossible to deny after seeing !!! last weekend.  There were small-brimmed hats, and those baggy tank tops with the giant arm holes, people.  Moreover, their main inspiration was obviously the Happy Mondays.  Witness, right down to the slow mo applied to the bizarre close-ups of the dancing:

The Vivian Girls don’t sound early 90s, but they have the look down cold:

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Update: I’m adding one more at the top of the list.

I ask if the 80s should come back, even though it’s sort of a moot question because it’s clear that the 80s have come back, and SXSW puts all questions to rest.  For instance, the lead singer of the band Rosie & the Goldbug not only tried to sound just like Cyndi Lauper, she tried to compete with her in the goofy clothes department, as you can see in the picture.

The streets of downtown Austin are awash in neon colors, checkers, brightly colored Converse, slouchy boots, and even, as you see in the picture, leotards.  Initially, I was just against it.  But, upon further reflection, I’ve decided that I’m actually pro-80s (and even the early 90s are coming back!—-flannel everywhere!) in many ways, and so I’m ambivalent about this trend.  I thought I’d do an analysis of the pros and cons, and open it up to debate.

Pro: Cut-up T-shirts. People make fun of the most ubiquitous version of the cut-up shirt look, which is the off-the-shoulder sweatshirt.  Be that as it may, but other forms of this fashion—-cutting off sleeves, using scissors to slant your shirt’s hemline, pencil skirts with angled and hemless bottoms, etc.—-are amazing.  It’s DIY, it’s playful, and it’s sexy without trying too hard.
Con: The no-pants look. Repeat after me: Leggings are not pants.  I’m iffy on leggings at best, especially in this heat, but if you wear them under a dress or a pair of hot pants, you look good.  If you wear them how I’m seeing women wear them—-as an alternative to pants to be worn under shirts that barely cover your butt, if that—-you fail.  I saw a woman wearing cute hot pants, a T-shirt, and leggings, and she looked good.  Too bad the woman I saw wearing a large man’s shirt with a white belt and white leggings couldn’t take a page from her book.

Pro: The return of stripes.  I never quit liking horizontal stripes and wore them proudly through the dark days when no one else did and people said I looked like a sailor.  Now they’re back, and the only reason I’m sad about this is that stripes have stopped being My Thing and now don’t look different at all.
Con: The return of obnoxious checkers. God, I saw a guy wearing checkered sunglasses to match his checkered tie yesterday, and I wanted to throw up.

Pro: The return of the skinny tie/narrow shirt thing. Sharp fashion went through New Wave into the mainstream in the 80s, and this look was the happy result.  You look sharp but not dressed up, and it’s a way for guys to be sexy.  Skinny ties and shirts may not work if you’re a bit heavier, but some guys that are more bear-ish can pull off the suspenders look.
Con: NEON.  Hateful, hateful neon.  I sort of see the appeal a little bit—-bright colors are fun.  Bright pink is acceptable in moderation.  Lime green is actually a neat color.  But when you are talking that neon baby blue, it needs to end, now.  It was stupid the first time, and it’s stupid now.

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Rebecca Traister has a cute article up about how magazines that peddle the high life are having to readjust their editorial so as to reflect the fact that their readership is so worried about money and/or broke that they can’t even fantasize about $500 pairs of shoes without getting a pit in their stomachs.  Articles about shopping in your closet, making the most of your dollar, reinventing your wardrobe with clothes you already have—-everything but the time-honored strategy of buying secondhand.  (Please do not peddle this, fashion magazines.  Pickings are already slim for us long-standing resale shoppers.)  I disagree with Rebecca’s assessment of the situation:

This is very practical advice. It is very sturdy. It is very sage. It is very depressing. As someone who kind of loathes shopping, I nonetheless am horrified by the idea. No one should shop in their own closet unless they are rich and their closet is huge, in which case, they can probably still afford to shop outside their closet anyway. For the rest of us, this is just a fancy way of saying, “Wear the same clothes you’ve been wearing for the past 10 years.” I admire the sentiment, but it’s precisely this kind of workmanlike thrift that could suck all the joy out of magazine reading.

In all honesty, these articles have made me want to buy these magazines. I’d rather learn how to do more with the clothes I already have, due to the fact that buying them means I already like them.  Instead, I just went with a book on how to do vintage with some pizazz, something I had down in the past, but have lost a little of the touch for, and could use some pushing.  People complain about resale prices, but they’re still half of what you’d pay for new stuff, except maybe at Cream Vintage, and it’s often much more unique an item.  And there’s always thrift stores and garage sales. 

But what’s really depressing is that even as the rest of the fashion industry is taking a huge hit, Ugg boots are still selling like hotcakes. Feministe and Jezebel are reporting on this disturbing problem.  It appears that many women, given the choice between decent clothes that flatter and perhaps will last you awhile and a pair of shitty boots that flatter no one and are beginning to be the official uniform of the desperate and insecure, will pick the latter every time.  According to Jezebel, the Ugg situation has reached emergency levels.

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