Letters to the Editor
-
Sad but True
I must say, your idea is not that farfetched. You must admit that most will not feel any form of revulsion at this as much as a dull kind of acceptance. If money can be made by the sexual rovings of humanity, it will be. Be prepared for Durex Presents Get-Your-Cheap-Unconnected-Freak-On Day. Actually, if you toss in pimps and hos parties you can rename it as The Republican Party presents Act-How-You-Would-Were-You-Not-Stifled-By-Oh-So-Bad-Political-Correctness. I miss decorum and I'm 24.
-
ha.
Why is it that on Halloween "all" the women dress like sluts, and "all" the men dress in drag (like sluts)?
Traditionally, Halloween costumes were supposed to ward off the evil spirit who want to possess a living body. What message does slutting-up send to the nether world denizens?
-
Speaking of Women and Apparel...
This is silghtly tangential, but totally related.
I just read a really disturbing advice column right here on salon.com, which renewed my anger about stereotypes related to gender/sexual identity and clothing style.
I'll sum up what transpired in the advice column.
A college-age woman wrote in to Cary Tennis (an advice columnist with salon.com) to say that her openly lesbian boss is inappropriately discussing the young woman's sexual orientation with co-workers. The boss assumes the young woman is gay. The boss calls the young woman "closeted" behind her back and has pushed the young woman to flirt with a male customer, in a seeming 'test' of the young woman's sexual orientation. The young woman (YW) writes to Cary that she herself dresses in gender neutral clothing and doesn't shave her legs and that she has often been called a lesbian because of how she looks. However, she identifies as straight. She reports to Cary that she is distressed about her job situation and doesn't know what to do.
Cary, rather than addressing the sexual harrassment implications of the boss's behavior, takes this advice column opportunity to tell YW that she is, in point of fact, asking for it by dressing in a way that so obviously reads as lesbian. He says the following to YW (my emphasis):
"After all, they don't call it a dress code for nothing. In your dress you apparently express a shifting code of private androgyny; you wear masks; you flirt with passing as this or that; you play at being seen a certain way, and yet, because you hold your true identity close to your vest as it were, you always prove the observer wrong. That is, you play the trickster; you express both allegiance and contempt..."
This is ludicrous. A woman should be able to dress in non-feminine-stereotyped clothing without being considered a trickster. Cary is suggesting that by YW wearing clothes that others think indicate she's a lesbian, that she's being flirty towards lesbians and devious and that YW clearly has serious psychological issues (read: "YW, you crazy ninny! How can you NOT want to dress in a way that proclaims to the world, 'Hey Everybody! I like dick!'").
Cary's words remind me so blatantly of the common (analagous, and yet polar opposite) trope that a woman who dresses with feminine flair is so obviously BEGGING - like the conniving, over-sexed woman she must be - to be hit on by her male boss, male co-worker, local mailman, male bus driver, and the little old man who runs the convenience store. She's a slutty little trixster, waving her imaginary bunny tail in every guy's face.
"But what people see, apparently, when they look at you, is a lesbian -- or at least, let's be fair, they see the social construct we have agreed to call a lesbian. So is your style serving the purpose you want it to serve? If that purpose is to trick people, then perhaps it is..."
Cary here brilliantly empathizes with the stereotypes powerful others have constructed in order to condone their erroneous and oppressive assumptions and behaviors while he simultaneously blames YW for attempting to 'trick' others with her female-motivated guile.
He asks her what purpose her clothing style serves, not considering that HULLO, high heels and panty hose and tight get-ups ARE UNCOMFORTABLE. And many many women are not interested in donning them. The "purpose" YW's clothing choices may serve is to keep her comfy throughout her day. You nimrod.
What is so striking about Cary's response here is that despite the fact that YW has enumerated in her letter to him the ways in which she prefers to be gender neutral (not just in her clothing, but also in her beliefs, including being an active ally of the LGBTQ community), Cary is lamenating onto her the age-old tradition (oh the lovely days of Film Noir) of men accusing women of being devious, sneaky, sexual trixters who are lurking in the shadows, attempting to remain mysterious and hidden and plotting to pull one over on everyone around them, ready to pounce at just the right moment. Cary fell into the trap of seeing YW this way, as if to say, "Well, YW, you're a woman, so you must be trying to fool everyone with your deviant clothing choices, you mischevious harpy."
"We all wear masks. But it seems that the mask you have adopted is problematic. If you want to not be considered a lesbian, your dress isn't working."
Holy crap!! A white straight man just empathized with a sexually harrassing lesbian boss!
This is just surreal.
Let me paraphrase Cary's entire reply to YW:
"YW, if you want to not be considered a lesbian, don't (a) confront your boss or her superior about the statements that justifiably make you uncomfortable; (b) quit your job; or (c) sue the damn company for sexual harrassment. No no no, that would be too aggressive and masculine and empowered of you. Rather, tacitly condone these assumptions and behaviors that your boss embodies and change how you dress! Shave your legs! Wear make-up! Wear skirts! Start hitting on your male co-workers! Sleep with them! Prove that you're straight and stop all this nonsense of gender identity independence. It's stupid, you're losing, give it up."
-----
Just to show my support for women who want to wear comfortable clothing, here's what I'm wearing today:
-A long-sleeved waffle-shirt, blue with little black horizontal stripes
-Old bell-bottom-ish jeans
-Sneakers
-Hair is a mess
-concelear and blush*
Oh, I must just be ASKING for any woman who walks by to grab my gender neutral ass. I must just HATE men, because I don't purposefully spend all my time trying to dress up for them.
*does my readability as a 'woman interested in men' increase in direct proportion to the amount of make-up I wear? I guess today I'm only mildly interested in men and really really interested in women.