Clothes do not make the woman
It seems that a woman could cure cancer or discover methods to utilize fusion power and many people would weigh in on what she was wearing at the press conference.
It is inevitable, no matter what a woman does, she is judged on her wardrobe. This week at President Donald Trump’s first address to a joint session of Congress, there was a lot of talk about clothes, from the First Lady’s bedazzled $10,000 black suit to the colour coded messages of blazers. Women were either making statements with their wardrobe choices or they were being assigned meaning.
One statement was intentional. Democratic women wore white in honour of suffragettes and Hilary Clinton. During the suffragette movement women showed up to marches and rallies wearing white. It was a powerful message of unity.
Women have always, more so than men, had their wardrobe choices constrained by social norms and have been harshly judged on those choices. It wasn’t that long ago that women were jailed for wearing pants and it wasn’t until 1969 that a woman first wore pants in the US Congress.
It’s hard to believe, given that history, that women would wear anything but pantsuits ever – but more to the point, that we still spend more time talking about what someone was wearing than their ideologies.
The Trumps are easy targets for ridicule but it is just petty to pick apart the fashion choices of the Trump women when they are accompanying the President to a joint session of Congress.
It is disheartening to see that women are often the harshest critics of other women’s clothing.
A shift in the conversation would not only quell the judgment of women based on their appearance but would raise the expectation that their ideas would be heard and judged on their substance.
Melania Trump for instance has yet to say much on what she plans to do in her role as First Lady and we all seem fine with admiring her beauty and picking apart her wardrobe.
The focus needs to shift, starting with girls at a young age. They get early messages about the importance of their appearance from the time we dress them in frilly frocks and tell them over and over how pretty they are. Families members and strangers reinforce the message constantly. Some girls will care about their clothes and their appearance no matter what tone is set around them, and some won’t. Inevitably we are who we are, but certain behavior is rewarded and positive reinforcement does seem to have a lasting impression on the way we are.
Social media has made it more blatant than ever but doesn’t it seem twisted that a century after women wore white in protest to not being able to vote at a time when it was illegal in some places to wear pants and yet here we are, still nitpicking what people are wearing at the Oscars and in political settings?
Keep in mind, Melania’s sequined suit could be more of a cage than cocktail attire (as it was deemed by critics).
