Foreward: I am currently taking a class called "Women and Theatre," and, coincidentally, we have to post blogs on our school's forum once a week. I figured I might as well share what my thoughts are with you who happen to a) be women and b) like theatre and c) appreciate both. Here was my post from this last week:
As a studier of people, I particularly enjoy observing how we dress in accordance with what we perceive to be proper for our gender. These observances bring me to one question: Do clothes really make the [wo]man?
In regards to the article by Judith Lorber and her discussion on “doing gender,” I have to wonder if the way we dress falls into this action. Are women subtly re-doing their gender if they should dress more masculine? Are women more “manly” if we wear big tee-shirts and cargo shorts, or do we still hold onto our femininity by fixing our hair just so? When I see women wearing clothes that would typically be considered to be “men’s clothes,” I just happen to think that the woman in question must be awfully comfortable. There doesn’t appear to be anything masculine about her from first glance, and perhaps what she is wearing was the first outfit that happened to be clean that morning.
Why are women who wear men’s (read: comfortable) clothes considered to not be doing right by their gender? I don’t think that women lose any of their femininity by not conforming to these social constraints that women should always be presentable. I think it’s too much to live up to, these norms set forth by our mothers and grandmothers before us. “Dress nicely,” “Don’t slouch,” “Always look your best,” are guidelines that I, at least, was subjected to in my early youth, and frankly, it doesn’t make any sense to me. Okay, maybe the slouching part is reasonable, but the rest of it baffles me. How do I act differently than feminine if I’m not in a skirt and a blouse? I am still doing my gender by existing as a woman. It is not the way I dress that defines who I am as a woman. What should it matter anyway? We’ve been taught since adolescence that “it’s what on the inside that counts.” Shouldn’t that be enough to help us understand and accept what is feminine? I think it’s enough.
So, no, I don’t think that clothes make the woman. We are women by how we are as people. Society should not have the audacity to dictate what classifies as “feminine” by the typical and glamourized images of a well-dressed woman. Take the following for example: I like to watch the red carpet coverage before award shows. Due to an increase in celebrity image, many of the television stations have their “red carpet fashion coverage LIVE” before the award ceremony, and a multitude of hosts interview the nominees and ask them what they’re wearing. What the interviewees are unaware of until the re-airing begins is what the show hosts are saying back at the studio regarding many of the females are wearing. They’re judging what is feminine versus what isn’t, and typically, to me, the more “feminine” and “clean-lined” ensembles look the least comfortable. The hosts use the converses “masculine,” and “frumpy,” to describe the outfits that aren’t as flattering to the feminine shape. I find this strange. There somehow seems to be an understood connection between the words “comfortable” and “masculine,” whereas “comfortable” and “feminine” don’t seem to match up often enough. Why must there be a difference? On the superficial levels of gender distinction, I say let’s start, not blurring the lines per se, but by incorporating more of the similar structures from each gender, and help us all be more comfortable with ourselves.
Some days a woman just wants to be comfortable, and if that means baggy tee-shirts, three-day-old jeans, and no make-up, so be it.
Cheers,
Patsy
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