Pride or Prejudice?

Susan J Douglas, author of ‘Enlightened Sexism, the Seductive Message that Feminism’s Work is Done’ (2010) wants us to think again about what we buy and wear and consider whether wearing that ‘Bitch’ T-shirt or mesh and spandex body suits is really about girl power, or just self-delusion playing straight into the hands of a world where a woman’s place is often still in the control of men.

‘Hipster Sexism’ was a phrase coined in 2006 and, according to our friend Wikipedia, is ‘also known liberal sexism and ironic sexism’.  Apparently it’s increasingly in use to describe the growth in fashion images which depict women as sexual objects.  Douglas attributes this to the success of the media in convincing women that the way to gain and enjoy true power is through the ‘calculated deployment of their faces, bodies, attire and sexuality’ (on the Issues Magazine, Winter 2011), but warns that it’s all a big con – and the ‘clever’ bit is that women think that we are so far beyond discrimination that these clothes are witty, or clever, or ironic.  Admitting that feminism over the last fifteen years has become a ‘dirty word’ conjuring up images of unattractive man haters, Douglas warns us all, in the same article, that we are being sold a fantasy that ‘any woman can become a CEO (or president) and that women have achieved economic, professional and political parity with men’ and again that ‘purchasing and sexual power are much more gratifying than political or economic bower.  Buying stuff – the right stuff, a lot of stuff, has emerged as the dominant way to enact being an empowered female’.

Wow.  This is hard.  Because I do want to look sexy sometimes, I do want to shop and no, I don’t particularly want to spend a lot of time at this juncture to learn about politics and feminism.  But I have always said that what we wear is an expression of who we are, so I can see that it’s important we think a bit more about what we are saying in what we wear.  It’s not that long ago that a welcome offer of a shopping trip to boost my wardrobe had a hideously embarrassing moment when parents wandered into American Apparel looking for jeans and cotton Ts then started discussing whether they were in some kind of sex/fetish shop!  So how far is too far?  I don’t know.  But I’m going to think about it a bit more carefully.