Who, me? Reading feminist literature?

[highlyeccentric]

So I decided to tidy up the Women's Collection and the Fiction Collection while I was in the library tonight. And I discovered that, holy St Catherine¹, we have an absolutely brilliant collection of feminist literature. Now, this wouldn't normally be my idea of fun, but given the patchiness of our collection on all other matters, this is impressive. We have a book on women in science fiction (both characters and authors)! We have an extremely battered old copy of Our Bodies, Ourselves, a book I've heard about but never seen. I'd always assumed it was something in the generic line of Everywoman or Everygirl, the latter of which I grew up with and the former of which I considered to contain entirely too much about pregnancy and menopause and other icky grown up things. From looking at the contents, though, it's not just an early production in the same mould as those two, it's a really really good example of the genre and more people should have copies.³

Anyway, on a whim (feminist literature being as far removed from Wulfstanian law codes as you can possibly get), I borrowed out Naomi Wolf's The Beaty Myth. It's shitting me off- what's with theorists and not footnoting anything? She's telling me a fascinating story, but the only paper trails I could concievably chase up are the court cases! This annoyed me about Germaine Greer, the one time I tried to read her, and it annoys me about Geraldine Brooks too, and (to a certain extent) Richard Dawkins, when I tried reading him. These people like to weave stories about how shocking or fantastic something is and just never back up their historical content! For all I know, they could be interpreting their sources entirely wrong, but how am I supposed to trace it? How am I supposed to know if she's right that until the industrial revolution, women's work was complementary to men's in the family unit, and valued equally? How am I supposed to know if she's right that images of beauty only flooded the market in the nineteenth century? Why am I supposed to believe a theory based on history if the history is apparently unsourced? As far as I can tell, she's just *decided* that's the way the distant past was, although she seems to be better informed about the recent past. (Or perhaps I'm more poorly informed about my own century, and so more gullible?)^!

Ahem. That wasn't supposed to be a rant. That was SUPPOSED to be a rave, along the lines of: this book is really, really interesting. It may not be all 'true', whatever true is in these matters, but it's certainly interesting.

Did you know that in 1977 a fellow called John Molloy, considering the problems which faced women in the workplace when it comes to dress (this segment follows a large passage on the problem of being expected to look 'feminine' without being sexually attractive or inviting sexual attraction), conducted some experiments. He got a cohort of women, and had them dress in a uniform fashion (as do men)- a skirt suit, with a pallete of colours, high heel shoes, makeup, some jewellery, but overall a sober appearance- and all wear them to work for a year. The control group, meanwhile, continued dressing fashionably for work. After a year, the women dressed in 'uniform' reported that their bosses attitudes toward them had improved, they were afforded more respect, and were twice as likely to be recommended for promotion.
Nevertheless, no one took up this recommendation. The New York Times Magazine decried him for requiring women to 'look like men' (what, exactly, about skirts, high heels and makeup looks like men?), and the findings- apparently based on extensive testing, which is rare enough in this sort of field- never really affected the way women thought about proffessional dress. Of course, it doesn't have much effect if one woman adopts a sober, relatively timeless outfit. That's not a uniform, it's a personal fashion choice. Wolf quotes Molloy: Without a uniform, there is no equality of image.
Think about it. For women, 'presentation' requires an entirely separate skill set to the one which qualifies you for the job, as well as the money that goes into maintaining hair, makeup, clothes, and so on. For men, presentation requires only the money to buy a good quality suit.

Amusingly, Molloy's 'uniform' suit is just what I asked my mother to buy me for my twenty-first- something sober, unlikely to go out of fashion, consisting of a skirt and jacket or skirt, pants and jacket, in a design which she (or someone else) can easily take in and out as my weight goes up and down and my shape changes every few months, as it does, and sensible, low-heeled shoes to wear with it. The shoes will have to be replaced every few years, but the rest of it ought to do me for interviews and work and conferences for at least five years. Ten'd be good.⁴

~

1. Patron saint of archivists, librarians, libraries, scholars, schoolchildren, philosophers, students and spinsters², sadly struck from the canon in 1969. I am now swearing by St Catherine on all matters academic and book related.
2. All of which categories I have, am, or would like to belong to.
3. Somehow, in googling for those links, I discovered these two highlarious sites: Iron Hymen (for girls) and Sex Is For Fags (for boys). They afforded me some minutes of sarcastic amusement. And yet it all seems eerily familiar.
4. These things do last forever. I was wearing last year the suit jacket my mother wore to work before I was born. I'd be wearing it still if it hadn't gone mouldy in my wardrobe over summer. Must get it dry-cleaned. She offered to hunt me out the skirt that went with it, having given up hope of fitting back into it (and if she ever does, she damn well deserves a new skirt!). Maybe I should adopt that as my uniform, eighties shoulder pads and all.
! Oh, and goblinpaladin: she uses 'Byzantine' as some sort of insult to laws. Can't quite make out what she means. (Draconian? Impossibly complex? Sexist? Who knows?)

Comments

[niamh-sage.livejournal.com]

It makes me feel very old, knowing that your Mum wore something 80s before you were born :$

My gran swore by good quality clothes. She once showed me a skirt she'd bought in Paris 30 years earlier and was still wearing - it looked just about brand new! (Mind you, she was also the last word in looking after her clothes - she was very careful with them).

In case you're interested in looking further: Mr John T. Molloy has been a busy boy. Some of those titles are positively hair-raising.

I am not sure what to think about the apparent double-standards re: dressing for work. Men do appear to have it easier - one well-made suit can serve for an enormous range of different events, for example: work, wedding, funeral, church, cocktail party, film launch, appearing in court, visiting the Queen, etc. Women would be hard-pressed to use one garment for all of those things since it's generally expected that they will wear a dress to some kind of festive occasion (e.g. a cocktail party), and the same dress could not be used for each of the occasions listed (although on the other hand, much is made of the Little Black Dress, which could be about as flexible as a man's suit given the right accessories). If there's any sort of expectation that a woman dresses fashionably for things, then I'm not sure whether society's to blame or we are.

[highlyeccentric.livejournal.com]

I can't imagine Naomi Wolf would be happy about some of those publications!

Yeah, I'm speaking as a giant fashion whore here... but I resent 'dressing up' for employment. If I want to dress up, I want to dress up for the hell of it, not because i *have* to. Same with makeup. I refuse to wear more than mascara, and, at most, very neutral eyeshadow, when looking for jobs, because I don't want to end up expected to wear it every day.

[niamh-sage.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I agree - I'd enjoy dressing up only when it was on my terms, and not part of some stipulation by my employer. Within reason of course - I don't object to having to wear nice, neat clothes to work, just ridiculous things like high heels and make-up. Neither of those does anything to improve my appearance, IMO, they just make me feel like a circus pony :P Besides, if make-up has a long and honoured history as a means of attracting the opposite sex, then there's something deeply wrong and disturbing about being expected to wear it to work.

[daiskmeliadorn.livejournal.com]

interesting! i sooooo want to wear suits in the way guys do. *sigh* i need to find some shirts that fit properly though. the girls' ones are all tight and stretchy and annoying, and the (grown up) guys' ones are all too big in the shoulders, and the (ungrown up) boys' ones are all fugly.

i was SHOCKED in year 10 when our careers advisor said we had to wear skirts to work experience! (yet i was more than happy to wear a skirt to school every day. weird.) and i am NEVER EVER going to wear makeup to an interview. I DON'T CARE IF I NEVER GET A JOB. (sort of)

[daiskmeliadorn.livejournal.com]

p.s. love the iron hymen page... i may have to get a t-shirt

[highlyeccentric.livejournal.com]

I would love a manly-suit, for decorative purposes. The suit I wore to my best mate's wedding was the most awesome item of clothing I've ever worn, without a doubt. And that's including the formal dress my mother custom-made for me in high school. By comparison, suits are so easy. Formal dresses need to be measured and tailored and cut to flatter and fussed with and made fashionable and god knows what; a suit, you just walk into the shop, the dapper little gay man takes your measurements and whacks something on you, and lo and behold, you look fantastic. Everyone looks better in a suit. Possibly because suits are designed to *hide* your particular physical features, whereas dresses are designed to show them off?

That being said, I instinctively want a skirt suit for interviews/conference-wear. If only because skirts seem to be more forviving of yo-yo weight and changing shapes than ladies' pants usually are.

[daiskmeliadorn.livejournal.com]

Possibly because suits are designed to *hide* your particular physical features, whereas dresses are designed to show them off?

so true.

[highlyeccentric.livejournal.com]

Mind, I like showing off my physical features, most of the time. But it's fantastic when you can step into a suit and know you'd look fantastic even if you put on four kilos before the wedding, or whatever.

[daiskmeliadorn.livejournal.com]

hmm. i'm largely convinced that clothes do not work in a 'showing off physical features' way for me :)

[goblinpaladin.livejournal.com]

Suits are designed to make all men look the same, pretty much.

Also, as a straight man who is all about destroying arbitrary gender boundaries, ladies look hot as hotness in suits. So I'm not sure about how 'desexualised' it is. Just sayin'.

[highlyeccentric.livejournal.com]

snot desexualised, but it does de-emphasise your body. we look hot as hotness in suits because LESS body is visible, therefore the bits that ARE perceptible are more interesting. Put any ten women in men's suits and we'd all look equally hot. Put any ten women in matching dresses and five of us would look hideous because the cut was all wrong for our shape.

[goblinpaladin.livejournal.com]

Truuue. But that presumes the suits are all tailored- get those same ten women in tailored/fitted/properly shaped dresses and they'd all look hot. Suits have cuts as well.

[daiskmeliadorn.livejournal.com]

speaking of which, the only flaw in my brilliant plan to wear suits is that all the bloody lesbians are wearing pseudo-suits these days. or at least they're wearing britney-spears ties (i.e. very loosely done up, like the cool kids at school), tight vests, and hats. ARGH so annoying. seriously now that is a uniform. last time i went to a 'girls night' literally every single person was wearing at least one of those items. except for the girls who were pole dancing. but that is another story...

I will wear Proper Suits, fitted appropriately and modestly, as befits a true gentleman.

[goblinpaladin.livejournal.com]

You ARE a lesbian. But I can see the fear about looking like everyone else. Bler to that. Although, ties on a girl is pretty awesome. All my bisexual and lesbian friends agree, too.

[daiskmeliadorn.livejournal.com]

haha yes (well, actually no (http://highlyeccentric.livejournal.com/275586.html), but we'll let that slide for now), but i'm not going to wear the lesbian uniform, damnit!

ties = awesome;
ties worn a la britney spears = lame.

[goblinpaladin.livejournal.com]

Haha, true. Stupid damn Greeks! *shakes fist* :P

Also, yes;super yes.

[goblinpaladin.livejournal.com]

Pop-history books always lack footnoting. Pop-science is almost as bad, but they always include a bibliography (Dawkins has one in The God Delusion) for their points. I'm a little astonished that she doesn't include either, if she is a theorist and not a pop-historian, but a pop-historian should at least include a limited bibliography.

The perjorative "Byzantine" usually means 'draconian' and 'impossibly complex'. Byzantine law codes are usually sexist, but no more so than any other medieval or pre-post/modern set of law. Byzantine has long been a perjorative used in Western Europe for anything complicated, alien or 'mean,' so I'm utterly unsurprised she uses it.

Those links are uproariously hilarious. :D

[highlyeccentric.livejournal.com]

but that's just it- it's not pop history, it's THEORY. *hisses*

well, she lost lots of respect points. Byzantine, my foot.

they ARE.

[goblinpaladin.livejournal.com]

Well, then she loses points. Like, a million. You need to back up THEORY with EVIDENCE or else it is entirely valueless.

[daiskmeliadorn.livejournal.com]

well, it's also designed for mass consumption, not to be an academic work per se, no? i mean, i wholeheartedly agree, footnotes would be great. but ze publishers, zey do not like them. they believe they freak people out.

[goblinpaladin.livejournal.com]

Then a Bibliography. Plenty of things designed for mass consumption have those- most pop-histories, for example.

[daiskmeliadorn.livejournal.com]

i think it's more polemic than theory? a lot of polemics are lacking in footnote action.

these days _anything_ without footnotes drives me nutty too. i don't care if it's a crossword! WHERE'S MY FOOTNOTE?

[goblinpaladin.livejournal.com]

Still. If she she wants to make her point with facts, she needs to allow those facts to be verified.