Why do many women wear shirts that show cleavage, then move their hands to cover it up, by moving the shirt up or closing their outer garment, when a man is talking with them? Why not just don’t wear a shirt that shows cleavage in the first place rather than implicating the man of lechery with the adjustments? Also, I find that the hand movement draws attention to the area in question, so defeats any purpose of modesty. The same behaviour often occurs with older women buttoning their sweaters while speaking with male acquiantances, so anything beneath their turtleneck shirt is less exposed. This happens even when I consciously keep my eyes directed eye level or above.
That falls into the same category as wearing a mini skirt, then constantly tugging it down.
As a mere male there is no way I could understand the reasoning, so I asked a female friend, and she explained that they do it to draw attention to the fact they are wearing a mini skirt, have breasts etc.
Women don’t necessarily dress for male attention, even if they are showing cleavage or wearing a mini skirt. So perhaps, their fidgeting or attire has absolutely nothing to do with you?
Perhaps. I don’t have a clue why women do anything, but that was what a WOMAN told me.
You may not have meant to provide any kind of answer to anyone but you did teach me something. By somehow managing to use uptalk in text-only format, you have allowed me to understand it better.
Slightly off topic:
I once wore a low cut blouse to work thinking that it wasn’t too low cut. When I had a conversation with my boss and he couldn’t stop looking at my cleavage (he’s not the sort of person who would normally ogle a woman) I realized that the shirt was indeed too low cut for work and I stopped wearing it. I didn’t cover up while we were talking though.
Out to a club or a bar I expect and to some degree want my cleavage to be ogled. That’s why I wore the shirt and no, I’d never pull it up or cover with my hand unless it had slid so far my bra was hanging out.
The problem I see with mini skirts lately is they’re super short and super tight/stretchy so while walking they ride up. If this continues un-adjusted eventually your whole ass is hanging out (I’m stating this from observation, not personal experience because I’m way too old and round for a mini skirt) hence the constant tugging. I think it looks ridiculous but I see it all the time.
I’d say it’s because sometimes when you put something on, you don’t realize just how low-cut it actually is until it’s too late to change. And often you can start in the day wearing something that is appropriate, but it rides up/slips down with daily use, so you have to constantly adjust it.
I don’t wear low-cut tops that often, though. But any time I’ve gotten suddenly self-conscious about something I’m wearing, that’s why.
what she said. Sometimes when I get dressed I don’t notice that a top shows cleavage, or shows too much but as the day goes on I realize it’s too low. Some of us underthink our wardrobe choices.
a solution might be to place a hand mirror at arms length at average height of male eyeballs, you will see a reflection of what the other person sees.
another solution is to make it look purposeful and not as decoration, put some pencils in it or something.
You see, hu-mans, how many problems your ridiculous practice of allowing women to wear clothes causes. Better to keep them naked all the time, as is the custom on our homeworld.
[/Ferengi]
Buttoning and unbuttoning a sweater is just fidgeting. I’ll do it a thousand times a day without thinking. If I’ve just walked in to someone’s office or slowed down in the hallway, I probably unbuttoned it for the walk (where I’ll get a little warmer) and re-buttoned it for sitting or standing still (when I’ll get cooler.)
Sometimes, you do get situations where despite your best intentions, on second thought, what you put on in the AM isn’t really appropriate for the office. Our breasts change all the time depending on our weight, our cycles, and what bra we are wearing. So what was fine yesterday may seem a little on the edge today. Or you can have a low cut shirt that you wear all the time with conservative pants, but you suddenly realize looks inappropriate when you wear it with your new shapely skirt. Or sometimes the camisole you usually wear under a shirt is in the wash, so you put on your other camisole and don’t notice until lunch that it’s cut A LOT lower. Or a new shirt that is fine in the dressing room, but rides up after you’ve been wearing it a couple of hours. Or maybe you put on the button up that looked fine, but you suddenly notice that when you look at it from the right you see a gap where the buttons are straining a bit. There are just a lot of complexities, and we’ve all had an unfortunate day or two where we miscalculated.
We’ve got a tough line to walk. Workwear is expected to be shapely and make us look good, without revealing too much or making us look actively sexy. A lot of the clothing available to us to buy from office wear stores isn’t actually appropriate for the office, and a cut that looks perfectly fine on our friend may look obscenely sexual on us. Basically we wake up tired and disheveled in the morning, and need to put together something that fits all kinds of unstated rules, on a constantly changing playing field, with fiddling and unpredictable items, without any good way to get external feedback on what is appropriate and what isn’t. It’s not surprising that we misjudge now and then.
This is why people like Hilary Clinton do that “identical pantsuit” thing. For a time, feminists advocated that women just pick a professional uniform and stick to it, like men do. But of course, men didn’t like that, either…there is no real way to win.
Also, it depends who the woman is talking to. There are ways a man can look at a woman that make her feel more exposed than she thought she was.
Just because I want people to see my cleavage doesn’t mean I want you to see my cleavage.
Seriously…when I do this, it’s because you’re making me feel uncomfortable and self-conscious. Not because the shirt is making me feel uncomfortable and self-conscious.
Isn’t that really it? You want some guys checking you out, but not others?
Thanks for reminding me why I’m so glad I’m a man.
My tough decision every morning is:
- Black pants, with black belt and black shoes.
- Non-black pants, with brown belt and brown shoes.
Fortunately, not being Ricardo Montalban, I don’t have to worry about how best to present my man cleavage to the world.
Going for the hat trick, and attempting to get three obscure Star Trek references into this thread without going too far off topic.
Hmm… I must be out of the fashion loop. I thought that black shoes/belt went with any color pants…
Yeah. That’s often it. That guy who is leering at me uncomfortably, I’ll start tugging at my baggy sweatshirt to make sure I have enough coverage.
I also have a few things that need to drape properly to be “work comfortable” - so I spend some time adjusting how they sitting across my chest. They are fine 95% of the time and 5% of the time its just a tad too much for work.
True. They do. But if I started wearing black belt/shoes with my khaki and grey pants when would I wear my brown shoes?
Don’t mess with my system!
KHAAANNNN!
I regard my own breasts and how they appear before work in much the same way I view my hair, the length of my pants, the fit of the waist, bra straps hidden, etc. Breasts are just part of my overal look, and if I can’t see nipple in the mirror, I figure I’m good to go. I stand in front of a mirror for a sec then grab my keys. I don’t plan for dropped change, ogling strangers, the angle a tall guy can see when he walks past my desk, what might happen to the gap in my blouse if I reach for a napkin at lunch, etc. We’re not stiff die-cut paper dolls; we’re soft and round and flexible with infinite variation as to proportion and arrangement of curves.
Thankfully men I encounter are not so transfixed by cleavage that they find it a constant distraction and temptation. Though there are plenty of quick up-downs no matter the style of the garment, it’s a rare moment that a man I’m interacting with is so fixated on my breasts that I feel it necessary to retreat. So I don’t really put that much thought into my clothing. Despite what many of the men on this board seem to think: I’m dressing for comfort and style, not for the attention of men. If I want a man’s attention, it won’t be gained by some subtle and mysterious arrangement of buttons and straps. If I want him to see me as a potential partner, he’ll know.
You guys should really just steal a glance, thank your gods for push-up bras and keep your traps shut. You keep derping up this tired “I see bewbs, she wants it” routine, it’s only a matter of time before we collectively shut this shit down like Fort Knox. Give it a rest or it’s turtlenecks from coast to coast.
An example: yesterday was my son’s baptism. I don’t have a lot of dressy stuff, so I wear my go-to black dress, with a nice cardigan on top since it’s cold and sleeveless isn’t appropriate for the occasion. All is well, and my little atheist butt is proud of how churchy I look.
Then we get to the church, and it turns out my FIL has saved us seats in the very first pew. Now I’m constantly standing up and sitting down while holding a squirmy six-month-old grabbing at my neckline, with nothing but 20 feet of open air between my cleavage and the golden-gowned priest. Suddenly a dress that was conservative at home felt very revealing, and I spent much of the service surreptitiously tugging at my clothes.