#stopstaringatmycollarbones

It’s got nothing to do with you. Don’t flatter yourself. 

This links to my common book in that they are both examples of women being pitted against one another. Messages from society tell young girls that they are one another’s competition and you shouldn’t like someone who is more beautiful than you or more intelligent than you because she makes you look bad. Instead of seeing a woman in charge of her own sexuality, we see a slut. Instead of seeing a woman who has put on a short skirt because it made her feel good this morning, we see her trying to get attention. We have to come together and realize we are all women. We have that in common, and it’s so incredibly important. So stop trying to find ways that we are different. 

I think that considering my area of interest as undefinable actually creates a better understanding. Because there are no “rules” or “boundaries” of a concept that is undefinable, it allows the issue and the movement towards equality in that aspect to be flexible and to flow and apply to more than one conversation or topic. Women’s dress is used to evaluate them, it’s used to categorize women into “good girls” and “bad girls”. Women’s dress is regulated and controlled by schools, places of employment, our state, all the way up to our federal government. Women’s dress is used as an excuse for why something bad happened to her or why something was done to her. Women’s dress and how it is seen and interpreted is not definable. This gives me a better understanding of myself and of those around me because it tells me that at any time: I am being judged and evaluated on the clothing I put on my back that day, and that someone may or may not tell me that what I am wearing is not appropriate, and that what I choose to wear may be used as the “cause” of a sexual assault on me.

I was out to dinner with my boyfriend this week for his birthday and he looked at the person in a booth past me and asked the simple question: “is that a girl or a boy?” This puzzled me. And with all of the discussions we’ve had in class, it made me wonder. So I asked “why does it matter?”. He told me that he was just curious. I asked him why he was curious and what would change if it was a girl or a boy. He told me that humans like to categorize things and talked about heuristics. I explained to him some of the discussions we have had in WS202 and talked about how we treat people different based on their gender. It’s easier for us to know if the person is a girl or a boy so that we can more properly and appropriately interact with the person. It was interesting. 

This week, my post for class is about dress defining us. We watched the video “U People” and there was a discussion among the women that really stuck out to me. It was about “fem”, which is a word I wasn’t familiar with until watching the music video/documentary. The whole discussion was about dressing “feminine” or “masculine” and how that is each individual person’s choice. More importantly, dressing “non-fem” doesn’t make you a man, and it doesn’t take away from your “woman-ness”. There is this cultural stereotype and assumption that if a woman dresses masculine that she wants to be a man. It doesn’t mean that. It’s also not okay to assume that makes her “butch” or “gay”. And women who dress “fem” are not automatically straight. We make the snap judgements and assumptions about people based on their dress. It’s not okay. 

This video portrays the danger of growing up as a girl in our world today. The woman narrating the video talks about being called “whore”, “bitch”, and “cunt” as she’s grows up and how she is touched in high school at a party and raped at 21. She says “You would be so disappointed in me, Daddy, because I’m wasted”. The video talks about other dangers, later in life, like an abusive spouse. But I want to focus on the adolescent period where the girl was touched without consent and raped a few short years later. While this doesn’t directly relate to my project, which is supposed to be centered around women’s dress, it does vaguely connect to the victim blaming that goes along with women’s dress when they are sexually assaulted.  It is so sad, so frustrating, so enraging, that the first questions our police officers ask rape and sexual assault victims are: “why were you out so late?”, “how much had you had to drink?”, “what were you wearing?” So sad that our victims are the ones that end up being interrogated. Does a short skirt mean “You can do whatever you please with me, I wore a short skirt because it was my intention to be sexually assaulted this evening”? I guess I missed the memo. Self -expression is a right and choosing to partake in self-expression by wearing a miniskirt does not take away an individual’s right to safety and does not invite police officers to dismiss the harm done to you as something that you were “asking for”. The narrator ends the video with this quote that gives me goosebumps every time I hear it: “I know you will protect me from lions, tigers, guns, cars, and even sushi without even thinking about the danger to your own life. But dear Daddy I will be born a girl. Please do everything you can so that that won’t stay the greatest danger of all.”

https://whisper.sh/whisper/0512153eb9a22b51953138aa757e1743a7f8c5/I-hate-when-people-say-Leggings-arent-pants--Theyre-beyond-comfor

This week I met with a 17 year-old, high school senior who decided when she was 14 years old that bras were uncomfortable and she didn’t want to wear one. When she stopped wearing a bra to school, she was called down to the office and administration told her that she had to start wearing a bra. The student demanded to see the rulebook that explicitly stated that female students were required to wear bras in school. The administrators told her that teachers had complained and said that it made them “uncomfortable”. The student stood strong and insisted on proof of the requirement of a bra for female students. When the administrators could not provide her with this documentation, she was excused and allowed the freedom to make the choice herself if she wore a bra or not. This doesn’t change the fact that the school teachers and principal tried to force and intimidate this young girl to conforming to what they deemed as “appropriate”. The student expanded on her story by proudly saying that she also inspired a entire group of girls to choose to not wear bras on certain days. This was a 14-year-old girl who stood up for her right to be a woman and not be ashamed of this fact or feel like she had to cover up her femininity. She organized a protest of young girls who stood together and said that their school didn’t have the right to dictate their dress.