Dressing Like A Feminist?

N.B. *This is in response to the Feminist Fashion Blogger event call that asked, How do you express your feminism in the way you dress?*

The IFC series Portlandia recently depicted the conflict between second-wave radical feminists, who were represented as frumpy flakes, and a young post-feminist or budding third-wave feminist, who wore short denim cut-offs and took pole-dancing classes.  The joke, of course, was about what a feminist was supposed to look like or at least how you know you're looking at a feminist.  You know, in an "indigenous pantsuit."

 I think this dialogue about fashion and feminism that Franca and other FFB members have started is great, especially because there's such a history of gate-keeping about what a feminist does and does not look like.  Must I defend my regular, earnest, and non-ironic wearing of makeup, a miraculous medal, and Anthropologie/Urban Outfitters to be a feminist? What about looking attractive in anything that might be considered target practice for the heterosexual male gaze? Recall, for example, the flack Liz Phair got for wearing only a slip on the cover of Rolling Stone. Her response?  She had self-fashioned with her own slip, something she wore on stage and something that she wore out to dinner.  There is nothing wrong with questioning how we navigate fashion and feminism.  Pointed questions can, in fact, be very good, but the condemnation of fashion choices without productive dialogue assumes that the wearer is just too dumb to understand how she (or he, but it's usually a she) has violated some singular universal code of feminist fashion(ing) ethics.

sweater - Limited via Marshalls (remixed)

arrow skirt - Fei/Anthro via Ebay 

leggings - Fylo (MIL-hand me down & remixed)

Fleur de Lys earrings - gifted (remixed)

scarf - street vendor in Santiago, Spain (remixed)

shades - H&M (remixed)

shoes - J-41 (remixed)

I really do think it is necessary to be acquainted with the wearer to know how exactly she expresses feminism through fashion, because there's no way you can tell I'm a feminist by looking at me. One of the major emphases of this blog is that fashion is a verb and not a noun dictated by someone else; fashion is to self-fashion and part of that is rejecting bizarre expectations about what the female body, especially, should look like.  I chose to photograph this outfit because I know that a women's fashion magazine stylist would never do this:  this skirt, leggings, and shoes on my body type make my legs look stubby and do not lengthen me.  And while I know that rejecting all the ways I could "lengthen" my 5'0" curvy frame is a fucking cardinal sin in their book, it is part of a pathology that I find ridiculous.

Polka Dots and International Women's Day

I was hoping to be able to put together all the excellent submissions we had to our CFP to celebrate International Women's Day today, but, alas, I'm behind.  Due to a pressing deadline and piles of grading I won't be able to get to it until next week.  I'll instead celebrate International Women's Day by spending most of it trying to advance my own career by working on a publication project and by writing part of a lecture about Suffragettes and women's struggle for the right to vote and for other political rights in nineteenth-century Europe.

In the meantime, I'll suggest you read the round up of excellent posts on feminist style icons if you haven't done so yet and leave you with a teaching outfit that I wore a couple weeks back (pre-haircut) just full of polka dot action for today's Everybody Everywear.

(Blouse - Sandra Angelozzi (Femme de Carriere and remixed), Cardigan - Willi Smith (remixed), Skirt - H&M (remixed), Boots - John Fluevog (via Ebay and remixed), Tights - Target (remixed)Watch - New York & Co. (remixed)

(Reasons I'm not already done grading: Wine - Apothic Red, Bailey - Adopted from local shelter in August 2009, Blanket - Target (gift from M.))

What are you doing for International Women's Day?  How will you celebrate and honor the achievements of women?

Feminist Style Icon: Frida Kahlo

In the past I have channeled other style icons (Audrey Hepburn, Katherine Hepburn, Hello Kitty), so I was very excited when the Feminist Fashion Bloggers group decided to kick off women's history month with a series of posts on feminist fashion icons.

I picked twentieth century Mexican artist Frida Kahlo (1907-1954).  I have admired Frida Kahlo for many years, and visited her hours (La Casa Azul) when I was in Mexico City for a research trip back in 2006.  Her works are full of vibrant and intense colors, dramatic symbolism, emotion, and autobiographic elements.  They fetch higher prices than any other female artist and have been admired for their depictions of the female body and for the experience of women.  For me, as for many feminists, it's Frida's open depiction of the pain of women that makes her a feminist icon.

Growing up during the Mexican Revolution, stricken by polio as a child, and then injured in a bus accident as a teenager, Kahlo was no stranger to pain and struggle.  The accident left her with numerous injuries and unable to have children.  Although she was eventually able to walk again, she had to have numerous operations and spent weeks at a time in hospitals or in bed due to intense pain.  This was also a turning point for Frida, who had planned to go into medicine.  She began painting while still in a full body cast and painted a number of self-portraits.  

During her lifetime, Frida was mostly overshadowed on the international art scene by her husband the muralist Diego Rivera.  Both were impetuous and had fiery tempers.  They both engaged in multiple extramarital affairs.  Frida was openly bisexual and had affairs with both men, including Leon Trotksy, and women, such as Josephine Baker.  She smoked and drank tequila.  She loved to cook and entertain.  She associated herself with Mexico, with the Revolution, and with communism.  She continued to paint in spite of her lack of reputation and in spite of the fact that it was much harder for women to get solo exhibits.

I even tried to channel a little Frida yesterday with bright colors and a flower in my hair.

Who are your feminist fashion and style icons?

Feminism is for Everybody, Especially the Bearded Ones

LHDM's post on feminist origins got me thinking. What were mine? What was the story of how I became a feminist? As I thought back, I realized that this year marks the tenth anniversary of my conversion. And, yes, it was a conversion experience. I was never an anti-feminist. Growing up in small-town West Texas, I simply didn't know that much about real feminism. There was the general sense of disapproval from my family, church, and friends, as well as media caricatures, but to be perfectly honest I never really thought about the subject. What I did think and agonize about growing up were deeply personal feelings of manly inadequacy. I was a computer geek and book worm; I was never good at (nor had any desire to become good at) sports; I cried when I got upset; I preferred the easy-going play and gossip with girls on the playground to kicking balls around and fighting with the boys. Then there were the secrect boy crushes. Of course none of these things endeared me to my schoolmates; I often felt ostracized.


Ten years ago I read a little book by bell hooks, Feminism is for Everybody, in a college sociology class. I remember coming to a passage in her introduction and reading it over and over again: "Again and again men tell me they have no idea what it is feminists want. I believe them. I believe in their capacity to change and grow. And I believe that if they knew more about feminism they would no longer fear it, for they would find in feminist movement the hope of their own release from the bondage of patriarchy" (ix). Their own release from the bondage of patriarchy. For the first time it became perfectly clear to me why I, as a man, should be a feminist. The feelings of ostracism and unvalued difference that I had felt as long as I could remember were residues left by the gilded chains that patriarchal societies place on men. As hooks argued, we bearded ones certainly benefit from patriarcal domination, but the cost is simply too high.


After devoting my graduate career to the study of manhood and sexuality, I now know to call what hooks was talking about "hegemonic masculinity." The set of manly ideals that a patriarchal society holds us bearded ones to doesn't only ensure the continuity of male domination of women (although it definitelty does that); it also classifies and subordinates some men to others along lines of difference.


So, in honor of my ten years as a feminist and in protest against the recent wave of right-wing attacks on women's rights across this country, I offer my beard to the cause. It isn't much, but perhaps, as a potent symbol of masculine status, it can point us toward a new kind of manhood--one that recognizes patriarchy for what it is, binding men as well as women within a vicious cycle of domination and injustice. Feminism has many faces. For me, it looks like a dude with a beard.