OK, I ripped this topic off from last night’s Tough Crowd with Colin Quinn, but it’s an interesting topic nonetheless. What do you think about current women fashions? More specifically, what do you think about all these skimpier, Christina Aguilera-esque, “show more and more skin” fashions that have become quite common?
Are you a Christian moralist who views this as the fall of Rome? Are you a feminist who thinks these fashions serve to further objectify women? Are you a social liberal feminist who thinks these fashions empower women and are all around a good thing? Is this about women having the choice to wear what they want no matter how skimpy it is, because this is the 21st century and we are no longer sexually repressed, like we used to be 100 years ago and like the Taliban used to be just 2 years ago?
It’s women’s freedom and they should wear what they want. Then there’s the safety issue. There are a lot of sleazebags who go too far and rape women. It clearly doesn’t make sense to wear skimpy clothing while walking down a dimly-lit street at midnight. But that should be obvious to all women. And sometimes, I do feel fashions go too far sometimes. We’ve all been desensitized to this kinda stuff. With the way things are going, it seems like in ten years, we’ll have many women walking around in just a thong and bikini…and NOT on the beach, but while working or going to school or doing regular, everyday errands.
One thing that bugs me is, I DON’T want to see prepubescent 12 year old and 10 year old girls dressed like Britney or Christina. Jeez, what kind of parents actually let their children dress this way? Cut that shit out and have your children dress decently for their age. Don’t they know there are sleazy pedophiles out there?
It takes total fucking sense to wear what I feel like where I feel like going. Just like it makes sense to be an Israli in Israel. Just like it makes sense to be a Catholic in Northern Ireland. Just like it makes sense to be a non-Muslim anywhere. I refuse to be scared away from making choices just because I am a woman. I refuse to change my actions under the threat of violence.
I’m sorry, I like my tiny skirts, fishnets and heavily padded bras. I don’t see rape as a proper response to how I choose to dress. And I don’t see changing how I dress or where I go as a proper response to rape.
If only more women had that attitude. There is so much that we fear in American society – the ghetto, dark alleys, things like that – where the threat is overblown.
I think more people should own full-length mirrors and look at themselves with objectivity before they leave the house.
One of my customers is a 40-ish woman, tall and average weight. No make-up, no hairstyle, quite unremarkable in appearance – except for one thing. She wears tight pants (never jeans) that rest below her navel, and t-shirts that stop just below her bra. I find it unsettling, at 10 AM, to find myself looking at 6 inches or more of bare stomach.
She’s responsible for what she wears, and the mothers of little girls should be responsible for what they wear.
Eve – my grandmother was a fashionable woman who told me, “If you wore a fashion when it was first in style [mini-skirts, etc.], you’ll be too old to wear it when it comes back.”
Oh, I also wanted to comment on dress codes. The store where I work is an up-scale gift and home shop in a nice mall. Our dress code is much more relaxed than that of similar stores, largely because our manager is young. Basically, the rule is no jeans, no flipflops, no tank tops or wife-beaters, no short-shorts. With a bunch of t-shirts and khakis (long pants, shorts and capris) from Target and a couple of pairs of sneakers, it’s no problem to dress for work without giving it much thought.
Last summer, six young women were hired and soon fired because they refused to follow the code. All were nice people, college students, competant at work, needed the job. It was beyond me why they persisted in coming to work dressed as if they were headed for the beach when they knew they couldn’t get by with it. If they were going somewhere after work, they could have changed clothes in our bathroom.
Over the winter our staff stabilized and now we have a group of young women who seem to find it a no-brainer to dress according to code. I liked all of the women who were fired, enjoyed working with them, and I worry that they’ll have a difficult time in the workplace, in spite of being intelligent and capable, if they can’t follow simple, non-oppressive guidelines.
I’m actually quite thin, but I kind of feel self-conscious in short skirts and shorts. Some women must not have any sense of reality when they walk out of the door. Butts hanging out, cellulite squeezed through a tight mini-skirt, etc. drives me nuts. I can’t imagine what goes through people’s heads when they wear this stuff.
Indygrrl, I have convinced myself these people do not have full-length mirrors. Honestly, if they do, I don’t want to know. It’s the only way I can sleep at night.
Women should be able to dress however they WANT. Some like it skimpy, some like frumpy, trendy, you get the picture… That’s what makes the world go round, everyone has their own style, their own sense of what makes them feel unique.
How other people perceive them is out of their control. They have to expect this. If you go out in a skimpy, trashy outfit, be prepared to be treated a little differently. That’s part of it.
A little common sense should also tell you not to wear a mini skirt and fishnet stockings to a job interview. It’s the people that dress trampy and bitch about not having respect that piss me off. We are human - and it is in out nature to size someone up to how they dress. That’s a fact.
Rape has nothing do do with a woman/girl simply dressing sexy, Sinful, you should know that by now. If not, please do some more reading up on it. That is the most pathetic excuse I’ve ever heard. A man, using that as his defense for sexually abusing a woman, because of the way she dresses… Jesus… Any man who commits rape should be hung by their penis in the town square and stoned to death IMHO. Also, I believe if that was the case, every woman at Hooters would be in a Rape Advocacy Program, No?
Oh I wholeheartedly agree with this. I’m constantly appalled by how many women seem to be dressing to accentuate their worst features. Lordy, you can be fashionable without making us all have to look at your copious amounts of back fat.
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I love this! I’d like to add that you probably won’t WANT to wear it when it comes back. I had my fill of thin-wale corduroy flared trousers in the 1970s, thank you. It is NOT a look that improves with age.
I think if more women would realize that not all clothing types flatter all figures we would be a lot better off.
I’m 28. I won’t wear clothes I wear now when I’m 40. I also dress extremely professional for my job and anytime I visit my children’s school. I can’t tell you the number of mothers I see and think to myself how their poor kids must feel sometimes.
Ack!..sorry. I gotta remember the “don’t post while drunk” rule. The basic point is that I have a right to exist, and I have no obligation to change my existance under a terroristic threat of violence. Please ignore all the somewhat inflammitory political statements…
:smack:
When I see kids today (how is that for a statement that makes me feel ancient) I’m just so happy I was a teenager in the oversized, shoulder padded, knee length sweatered, layered, baggy era.
It didn’t look good (but it did look like everyone else) and I had/have enough body image issues with that - I can’t imagine the wreck I would have been if “normal dress” was designed to really show off a body that I didn’t come close to having.
but to repeat what summerbreeze said:
is true - once you’re past 20. But I do feel sorry for those under a certain age who (from what I remember) get the the choice of either being targetted for wearing clothes that do not flatter them or targetted for failing to wear the clothes that are currently considered fashionable.
This is an interesting case. A lot of guys like to wear khakis and T-shirts; that’s their preferred attire. In the same settings a lot of women seem to like to wear much skimpier attire, and in most casual settings they can get away with it. So perhaps they figured, well if the guys can wear their favorite clothes on this job, then why can’t we wear our favorite clothes in the same context? Usually I think of dress codes being more restrictive to men, but I think in this case the reverse was true.
I’ve never worked in a store but I would imagine that firing six people left quite a hole in the staff. The manager must have had the replacements all lined up and ready to take over.
I don’t understand the jeans that are so lowcut that someone’s crack is showing. I don’t care how thin or young a woman is, that is not attractive. And then skimpy tops–OK, I guess they don’t always look too bad, but all that flesh showing must give the wearer a draft sometimes.
I also am of two minds about women’s fashions, especially regarding fat chicks (since I am a fat chick). Part of me thinks that the more well-endowed amongst us should wear whatever we want, because we are women, dammit, and who cares what we wear as long as we don’t break any laws? But another side of me sees a voluptuous woman wearing something far too skimpy and I think, “My dear, you would look so fabulous if you could wear that just a little bit longer, or a little bit looser.” Simply put, some clothes are just not suited for all body types. But most body types have a style which will be flattering and fashionable, so why do some women deliberately decide to wear the unflattering styles? It is a puzzle.
As for myself, I have my own fashion future all planned out already. I have sewn a lot of my own clothes, and I consider them to be “classic” in style–meaning classic shell tops (I made myself a ton of these), classic trousers and jeans, classic skirts, and simple loosely-fitted dresses. As long as trends don’t get so far off that the “classics” are no longer considered acceptable, I’ll be all set for years to come. I don’t want to dress like a kid when I’m 60, but I don’t want to be one of those ladies with the polyester slacks (oh, how I hate the word slacks for some reason!) and appliqued and sequined t-shirt top with an airbrushed cat on it. Shoot me if I am ever caught wearing that shit.