Just Following The Rules
After a week of celebrating the iconic movie Mean Girls and dressing like the characters of Mean Girls, I started thinking about the rules I live by in my own fashion choices. If you are not familiar with the movie, it is about a new student who gets sucked into the popular clique at school and learns about "girl world" and the rules and drama that are involved. In the world of mean girls, they can only wear jeans on Friday, they can only wear their hair in a ponytail once a week and on Wednesdays they wear pink. And if you break any of these rules than you cannot sit with the clique, you are banished for the day. These rules are silly and controlling but some friends and I thought it would be interesting to live out the rules for a week. As I was following the Mean Girl's rules, I realized that I have been dressing by a set of rules in my real life that I did not set for myself. It was not until I moved to Los Angeles and going through this week that I realized I was basing my clothing choices off of stereotypes.
Within the last five years I accumulated a set of assumptions for how a particular type of woman should dress. As I am developing my spiritual, political and ideological beliefs I realize that the way I portray myself on the outside represents my personal values and beliefs. A stereotypical example would be when you see a woman with dreaded hair, wearing long flowy clothing (presumably made out of hemp) and a peace sign button pinned to her purse, you could assume that she believes in nonviolent protest, cares about the environment and does not believe in conforming to society's standards of hair. So as I have walked into young adulthood I have unknowingly chosen to follow a certain style of dress, believing that I am dressing the way a woman in my position should.
I am Christian woman, so in developing my personal style my inclination was to adopt the mantra "Modest is hottest". If you are a woman and have been to youth group/church then you have probably heard this saying thrown around. We have all heard a line like this,
"Now ladies lets remember, we should all dress modest, we should protect the guys, we would not want them to fall into sin just because of something we are wearing, right?"
So I wore t-shirts over my bathing suit at camp, made sure my shorts hit mid-thigh and kept skin tight clothes out of my wardrobe. This form of slut-shaming puts cat-calling, unwanted advances and sexual assault, all on the women. When we try to encourage modesty by telling our sisters that they should protect our brothers, we are failing both groups. If you grow up with this idea, it shapes the way you see men. Through this lens, men are helpless animals that cannot control their urges or be held accountable for their actions. I do not believe that for one bit and we need to stop perpetuating this lie. Men are better than that, they can control themselves and they should be held to a higher standard. Instead of seeing woman as victims of assault, we ask what the woman was wearing and justify the abuse. This is a horrible part of our culture and we need to stop asking women how they provoked men with what they were wearing but instead focus on why men think its OK to treat women in that way.
My views on modesty have changed. Modesty is a social construct, just look at other countries and cultures and you will see a range of standards for what a modest woman should wear. To say that someone is not dressing modestly is wrong because your idea of modesty may differ from someone else's. So I now live by my own standard of modesty. Which is whatever I feel comfortable in, whatever fits me (and I mean fit not squeeze into) and whatever makes me happy. That last one is the most important. In the morning when I am picking out my outfit I think about the colors, textures, and shapes of my clothes; and how I can be creative in using what I have. I do not dress for the attention of the opposite sex, I dress for me.
I am also a feminist, I believe in equal rights and treatment for both sexes and oppose society's demeaning, objectifying and ridiculous views toward women. This is a part of me that I am still cultivating and refining. Like most people in our culture I had a certain view of what a feminist should look like, I thought they had short asexual haircuts, did not wear bras and never wore anything girly like dresses or skirts. But before I burned my bra I learned that feminism is not about doing the opposite of what society has deemed girly/sexy but its is about loving who you are and realizing that women are complete people who have a full range of valid emotions, personalities and strengths. As a woman I have the right to choose what I want to wear instead of following the rules of the fashion industry/media. The stereotype of a feminist that I previously believed was an old stereotype that does not represent the people who are fighting for women's rights today. Fortunately I have learned to challenge popular culture. I can stand here and say yes I am a feminist and yes I am wearing a skirt, the two are not mutually exclusive.
So wear what you want, because you want to and if someone tells you, you cannot wear a certain piece of clothing because of your body type...do not listen. Wear what you want and own it. The idea of following the Mean Girl's rules this week started as a joke and was a fun experiment but it is also challenged the way I think about my personal style.
Within the last five years I accumulated a set of assumptions for how a particular type of woman should dress. As I am developing my spiritual, political and ideological beliefs I realize that the way I portray myself on the outside represents my personal values and beliefs. A stereotypical example would be when you see a woman with dreaded hair, wearing long flowy clothing (presumably made out of hemp) and a peace sign button pinned to her purse, you could assume that she believes in nonviolent protest, cares about the environment and does not believe in conforming to society's standards of hair. So as I have walked into young adulthood I have unknowingly chosen to follow a certain style of dress, believing that I am dressing the way a woman in my position should.
I am Christian woman, so in developing my personal style my inclination was to adopt the mantra "Modest is hottest". If you are a woman and have been to youth group/church then you have probably heard this saying thrown around. We have all heard a line like this,
"Now ladies lets remember, we should all dress modest, we should protect the guys, we would not want them to fall into sin just because of something we are wearing, right?"
So I wore t-shirts over my bathing suit at camp, made sure my shorts hit mid-thigh and kept skin tight clothes out of my wardrobe. This form of slut-shaming puts cat-calling, unwanted advances and sexual assault, all on the women. When we try to encourage modesty by telling our sisters that they should protect our brothers, we are failing both groups. If you grow up with this idea, it shapes the way you see men. Through this lens, men are helpless animals that cannot control their urges or be held accountable for their actions. I do not believe that for one bit and we need to stop perpetuating this lie. Men are better than that, they can control themselves and they should be held to a higher standard. Instead of seeing woman as victims of assault, we ask what the woman was wearing and justify the abuse. This is a horrible part of our culture and we need to stop asking women how they provoked men with what they were wearing but instead focus on why men think its OK to treat women in that way.
My views on modesty have changed. Modesty is a social construct, just look at other countries and cultures and you will see a range of standards for what a modest woman should wear. To say that someone is not dressing modestly is wrong because your idea of modesty may differ from someone else's. So I now live by my own standard of modesty. Which is whatever I feel comfortable in, whatever fits me (and I mean fit not squeeze into) and whatever makes me happy. That last one is the most important. In the morning when I am picking out my outfit I think about the colors, textures, and shapes of my clothes; and how I can be creative in using what I have. I do not dress for the attention of the opposite sex, I dress for me.
I am also a feminist, I believe in equal rights and treatment for both sexes and oppose society's demeaning, objectifying and ridiculous views toward women. This is a part of me that I am still cultivating and refining. Like most people in our culture I had a certain view of what a feminist should look like, I thought they had short asexual haircuts, did not wear bras and never wore anything girly like dresses or skirts. But before I burned my bra I learned that feminism is not about doing the opposite of what society has deemed girly/sexy but its is about loving who you are and realizing that women are complete people who have a full range of valid emotions, personalities and strengths. As a woman I have the right to choose what I want to wear instead of following the rules of the fashion industry/media. The stereotype of a feminist that I previously believed was an old stereotype that does not represent the people who are fighting for women's rights today. Fortunately I have learned to challenge popular culture. I can stand here and say yes I am a feminist and yes I am wearing a skirt, the two are not mutually exclusive.
So wear what you want, because you want to and if someone tells you, you cannot wear a certain piece of clothing because of your body type...do not listen. Wear what you want and own it. The idea of following the Mean Girl's rules this week started as a joke and was a fun experiment but it is also challenged the way I think about my personal style.
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