I was in a really uncomfortable position on Saturday night for a variety of reasons, all of which hinged on gender dynamics. I figured I’d put my musing down on paper and share them; I’ve heard similar concerns voiced between friends so I don’t think the topics I’m going to address – the idea of “going out” clothes, relations with guys at parties, and the idea of what each gender takes and gives in social courting situations- are particularly unique to me.
To provide a contextual background for this story: I went to a costume party that got busted up for noise complaints. Not dramatic in the slightest. However, the process of getting ready for the party, interacting with guys, and watching my fellow women interact with men on the way back to campus reopened my consciousness to college’s “what-the-actual-f*ck” gender relations and each parties’ proclivity to purport outdated stereotypes. Even more frustratingly, I realized that all those vocal beliefs I shout at my friends when debating such topics are not always reinforced by my own actions.
So my first topic is gender expression. By this, I mean clothing. Think about it, your clothes are a personal billboard of sorts and this is most certainly true with clothing selected for night festivities. This particularly party required its attendees to sport an animal costume; I chose a pink Lilly Pulitzer dress with a pink owl pattern because it’s the only garment I own with animals on it. For those of you unfamiliar with Lilly Pulitzer, they specialize in sun dresses that effectively render anyone a Southern Belle. It was an inch above my knee and immediately I felt like I made a mistake for wearing it out because it was not short enough.
Oh my God. I can’t believe I’m actually admitting that on a public domain. But as I watched my friends wear form-flattering, tighter clothing as I waltzed around like a cupcake, I worried that I was probably not going to attract a lot of male attention. Because I wasn’t showing enough skin. As if the inches of thigh and cleavage revealed is proportionally related to the amount of flirtation I receive. Hey, it might be. There are certainly a ton of cases that show this is true: first, people are visual creatures that are first attracted to the physical; second, it was a party and thus scenarios in which one one can fall in lust with a person’s well-delineated argument on epistemology are unlikely to transpire.
But the fact remaining is that I felt un-cute and under-confident because I was wearing a perfectly normal dress. What the hell. I’ve told myself and my friends that it is of paramount importance to feel like your greatest asset is your intelligence; we worked damn hard to get into and stay at Notre Dame and thus any future partners should enjoy and respect that quality above all else. Why was I letting the fact that I was wearing something different undermine that? Because it’s really easy to fall into that cycle of girl looks hot, guy talks to girl, whatever ensues than realizing that you, yourself are a personal capable of initiating conversation (be it suggestive or friendly) and that you have agency over your socializing. I mean, come on.
But let’s move on to the more troubling aspect of the night – the walk back to campus with a score of drunk seniors clinging to each other for emotional and physical support. While I can rage all I want about how my level of attractiveness is related to my garb and how that’s a cornerstone of female repression by the male patriarchy et cetera et cetera, there’s also the flip side. The side that shows that women also pressure men into artificial roles.
The whole way back to the Dome, this girl in a toga was holding onto a guy in a t-shirt. She kept saying she was cold and that she was mad at this dude because he didn’t have a jacket to give to her. That by not offering his clothing to her, he was depriving her of her right as a women to be provided for by a man. She told him, verbatim, that she would “teach him how to be a gentleman next time.” So is a gentleman a person who will always anticipate your wants and sacrifice a jacket in the cold for you, a rude inebriate girl he has never met before?
That does not seem logically sound.
If we want to relate to each other as equal people, things like this have to stop. How can we be empowered and independent when we can automatically turn on the princess-in-distress role and force the surrounding men to be knights in shining armor? That’s both undermining self-agency and responsibility for our actions and is objectively manipulative. How can I state that I’m an equal opportunity friend-maker when I don’t want to talk to guys at parties unless I’m dressed to attract?
Social change begins with conversations. These conversations lead to realizations. These realizations impact our actions. That’s how progression works.