By Jillian Hewitt
This article, which we recently linked from Jezebel, got me thinking a lot about how we dress, and what that does—or doesn’t—say about us as people, or women, or feminists, or whatever. Anna North tackles the issue of dressing “immodestly,” and whether sporting skimpy attire is empowering or not. I especially liked this section:
“We’re often told that dressing in such a way is “tantalizing”—that if we want to show our bodies, we’d better be prepared to give them up to the first man who wants them. But telling women that if they look a certain way they’d better behave a certain way—that if they don’t want to have sex with any dude they meet, they’d better cover up—puts women and men in an extremely restrictive box. And dressing however the fuck you want while behaving however the fuck you want is one way of breaking out of it.”
I don’t think it’s fair to say that dressing in short shorts or low cut shirts is necessarily empowering or not. Empowerment is about feeling agency and strength, and by virtue of that is an individual experience. To say that one way of dressing is inherently feminist and that another way is inherently not is a bit ridiculous if you ask me, especially given our constant emphasis on choice as a fundamental tenet of feminism. North also quotes another feminist, Jessica Valenti, who writes:
“Wear high heels, mascara, and whatever else you want. I sure do. But let’s not forget that by doing this, we’re adhering to a narrow, male-created vision of hotness. Again, this isn’t to say it’s wrong to want to look “hot,” and to go along with the status quo from time to time, but let’s not call it empowered.”
I have to say, I think this is pretty extreme and pretty much bullshit. Do high heels and mascara attract attention from men with a narrow vision of hotness? Yeah, probably. But would I wear mascara and high heels if I knew I would not see one single man the entire night? Yeah, I would. Valenti also seems to assume that the only way to look “hot” is to wear heels and mascara. I don’t know many guys who don’t find the idea of an attractive girl working out, playing sports, etc. to be “hot.” Let’s say, though, that Valenti is right about us adhering to a male-created vision of hotness when we get dressed up this way. My question, then, is this—what would a broad, female-created vision of hotness look like? Is it possible that it too would include (but not be limited to) wearing high heels and make up? How can we actually know whether the vision of attractiveness we’re adhering to is the one put forth by society, or whether it’s the one we have in our own heads that’s unaffected by cultural norms? (Side note: I’m going to go ahead and say that the latter doesn’t exist.) I guess my point in all of this that it frustrates me to see people say “wearing a, b, and c is good and fine, as long as you realize you’re not really empowering yourself.” If you ask me, when we feel free to conform to or stray from the status quo as we see fit—and welcome others to do the same—that’s empowerment.
Image from Kate Tegtmeyer’s flickr.
1. I don’t know where North gets the idea that women who dress a certain way are supposed to act a certain way. The point is that women who dress tantalizingly should be aware that this will attract a lot of male attention, and not necessarily the kind of attention they want. How they deal with that attention is, of course, up to them.
2. There are elements of male perception of female attractiveness that are unaffected by cultural norms. In general these are cues to youth and health, which themselves are cues to the main thing, fertility. Symmetry is preferred over asymmetry (a cue to health). Clear, smooth skin preferred to rough (youth/health). Sagging is bad (youth). Big eyes, rounded faces, pointy chins, thick lips indicate female hormones (high testosterone produces square jaws, etc.–see pro athletes). Waist-hip ratio of ~0.7 shows that a woman is not already pregnant and that she is able to deliver a baby, among other things. Some argue that blond hair/blue eyes are desirable because they indicate youth but I am not entirely convinced.
Regarding the influence of cultural conditioning on one of these universals, WHR, see http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/18/magazine/18fob-Bergner-t.html or for a less partisan take, https://roissy.wordpress.com/2010/04/19/even-blind-men-prefer-the-optimal-0-7-waist-to-hip-ratio/)
This is not to say that there is no cultural or individual variation in what is viewed as attractive. There is. For example, in a culture where nutrition is scarce, chubbiness might be more attractive than it is in the modern US. Skin color I think is also something that varies in attractiveness by context, like in some places paler skin seems to be more attractive but this may be because of elites being white. Also very important are features that are signals of some quality or other (e.g. tramp stamps) and obviously these vary by culture. But there are several universals, and if your notions of male-created or female-created conceptions of attractiveness are going to make sense they need to take these into account.
I don’t think Jillian was referring to that kind of attractiveness. In fact, the examples you provided of biologically “determined” features influencing human mate choice are necessarily irrelevant (or nearly so) to a discussion of how what we PUT ON our bodies affects others’ perceptions and expectations of us. Unless putting on a shirt makes me look more pregnant and thus like a less desirable ape with which to form a pair bond.
The cosmetics and clothing industries exist to allow women to enhance these physical attributes. With makeup skin looks smoother, faces more symmetrical, eyes bigger. Corsets and bras improve figure. High heels, belts…the list goes on. Not to mention the stuff individual women wear to accentuate what they think their most attractive aspects are. So on the contrary, these universals are quite important in any account of “visions of attractiveness”.
I’m a little confused here…cosmetics and clothing industries exist to allow women to enhance physical attributes in order to adhere to certain universals (i.e. wide hips, symmetrical faces, big eyes, etc.), except in all the instances where they exist to allow women to enhance whatever they think their most attractive aspects are? You’re undermining your own argument here by admitting that individual/cultural preferences vary as much as they do.
All the most basic “universals” you refer to certainly exist, but unless all–or a majority–of wardrobe/makeup choices are made (consciously or subconsciously) in order to adhere to such standards, I don’t see why they should play a particularly significant part in this kind of discussion.
Yes, the question is about how much universals influence wardrobe/make up choices. I have a hard time coming up with things women wear that don’t trace back to universals. Jewelry and tattoos, I guess. It’s pretty clear to me that universals are the primary influence in how women dress. I can imagine variations in the weighting of how important certain universals are, but ultimately I think they explain most of people’s “visions of attractiveness”. It’s important that universals are a part of the conversation because they constrains what cultural influence can do.
But actually I’m starting to think I got off on the wrong foot. It’s true that men’s “visions of attractiveness” for women center on universals, but the same may not be true for women’s estimation of other women. You may be right that this is somewhat open to change, but mostly because it’s not important enough for women to have a considered opinion on it.
re: “I don’t know many guys who don’t find the idea of an attractive girl working out, playing sports, etc. to be “hot.”” Yeah… because she’s stipulated to be hot in the first place. The better question is how much more or less hot a girl becomes when she’s working out or playing sports. And the answer is less.
so let’s get this straight: you want us to believe that men are attracted to women with smooth skin and symmetrical features because they’re a cue to youth and health…but there is no positive relationship–indeed, you’re arguing for a negative one–between attraction and actually PROVING one’s youth/health. interesting.
Equivocation. You’re comparing a behavioral cue (exercise) with a physical one (smooth skin). A behavioral i.e. non-physical cue does not make someone more physically attractive, so of course exercise does not make a girl more physically attractive, whatever correlation with youth and health it may have. Moreover, exercising detracts from some of a girl’s physical attributes (sweaty skin, for example). So yes, a girl is less physically attractive while she is exercising than she is the minute she walks in the gym.
Now maybe your notion of hotness includes more than looks, if so it is not a notion shared by many males.
high-heels enhance the appearance of a woman’s breasts and butt… many men like breasts and butts… many women would like to be liked by men… so they cram their feet into narrow triangles and attempt to live life on 6in sticks. Valenti is right. a pair of Choo’s may make one feel ‘hot’, but that ‘hot’ is a concept initiated and imposed on women by men.