robot-heart-politics:

dancingsagittarius:

I would agree that what you wear is not who you are, exactly…problem is that many people judge you based on what you wear.  In fact, first impressions rely almost solely on your appearance.  Now you can tell me that you don’t care if other people judge you, and that’s perfectly fine, but it still happens.  What you are wearing will be linked to you as a person - whether you care or not is up to you.

I’m not arguing that people don’t judge. Obviously they do. My argument is that judging a woman’s sexuality, character, intentions, etc. by her Halloween costume, or anything else she wears, is wrong. You (the general you) are welcome to judge. That doesn’t make your behavior correct, though, especially when you are drawing upon negative stereotypes about women when you’re passing those judgments. A lot of the other people who have previously commented on this issue generally speaking know better than passing those sorts of judgment on women, but apparently think on Halloween, suspending their opinions about the wrongness of stereotyping and pigeonholing women is a-okay.

Further, I do and will continue to dress (and speak and act) exactly as I please. I have never been the kind of person who thought that other people’s negative judgment of the things I do or say was ever an excuse to change my behavior, especially when I find their judgment and the rationale behind their judgment to be so wholly wrong.

Granted, I had a very poor experience with a rather low self-esteem individual on a particular Halloween who decided to dress and act like a slut (and yes, I will use that word for her).  Her aim for the evening was to have sex (to each his own) and then she gloated the next day about taking some dude’s virginity (not so great, in my book…pretty low class on her part).  The question is why are people dressing provocatively?

I know who you’re talking about, and I was thinking about her as I was writing some of my other commentary. The thing is, you knew other girls at that exact same party who were dressed provocatively (myself included), who didn’t have the same intentions that that particular girl did, and who did not end their night in the same way. Are we to be judged by that other girl’s actions, just because we are dressed in a similar fashion?

More importantly, while I am completely okay with anyone who says that one night stands aren’t their thing and I respect their decision to not have them (and I certainly have no negative comments to make regarding that decision—I respect that you are a grown-up with sexual autonomy), I think judging women negatively solely on the basis of their sexual experience or the fact that they actively pursue sex is wrong, and I don’t see a woman wanting or having sex, however well she knows her partner, as a bad thing. “Slut” is an ugly term used to treat women who have sex (and who enjoy having sex) as lesser persons who lack value in our society, purely on the basis of what they choose to do with their private parts. The word itself is part of larger social mechanisms to control women’s bodies and sexuality, and I am not okay with any behavior that facilitates the patriarchal regulation of women’s bodies.

I don’t care whether you’re using the term “slut” to question a woman’s sexual behavior on behalf of the patriarchy (e.g. “No self-respecting woman would act like that. How does she ever expect to find a husband?”) or on behalf of what some apparently think passes for feminism (e.g. “No self-respecting woman would act like that. How can she call herself a feminist when she’s putting her body out there purely for the pleasure of men?”—the pleasure of the woman obviously not being important or even possible.) Women should be able to make their own sexual decisions, and as long as they are doing so with consenting partners of legal age, it’s really none of our business…much less our place to make judgments.

Accentuate what you’ve got.  Wear what you are comfortable in.  If it’s low cut, it’s low cut, but you are smart enough to know what your clothes are saying to others.

I know what some people think my clothes are saying. I can’t control what people think, obviously, but my advice to any person who doesn’t want to be the kind of personal who makes baseless assumptions about other people—assumptions based entirely on reductive patriarchal stereotypes of women—would be: next time you see a girl in one of those costumes that you seem so willing to pass judgment on, remember that you have a lot of people that you call friends, that the other 364 days of the year you respect, who wear those costumes too…and think about how you’d feel knowing that some people thought that what they wore justified thinking those girls were stupid, easy, only interested in one thing, or “asking for it.”

And keep in mind that warnings like “know what your clothes are saying to others” has been used as both justification and excuse for far worse things than girls making catty comments behind other women’s backs.

2:49 am  •  22 October 2009

women's bodies