“Fashionable Feminists: Can It Be?!”
by Tiffany Rozelle
Washington State University, Spring 2011
It is rare to find the words “feminist” and “fashionable” residing comfortably together. The image of a feminist is often conceived to be an angry woman with unshaven legs and armpits, clothing and shoes that are sensible and not frilly or revealing, and perhaps the absence of a bra. “Fashion” conjures visions of eye-catching and maybe outlandish clothing and accessories worn for the purpose of being attractive and stylish. Second wave feminists have historically been linked with hostility to fashion because they denounce it as oppressive. Their third wave counterparts, at least many of them, have taken a more relaxed stance towards fashion, claiming that a “girl” can be a feminist and look good. A skirmish has erupted between the two sides that begs the question: should feminists condemn fashion as oppressive or embrace it as an expression of self? This paper will argue that fashion can be both oppressive and expressive, because it can be defined as both a system and a choice.
The Second Wave: You Support What You Wear
An understanding of each side must be cultivated before fully engaging in the debate. At the heart of feminism is the question of power. Who has it, who does not, and what are the consequences? Feminists’ goal is not to change the power balance from favoring men to favoring women, but to change it from being “power to rather than power over” (Kolmar & Bartowski, 2011, p. 45).
Second wave feminists saw fashion as something that exerts power over women. Fawcett (2006) describes the genesis of second wave fashion views as rooted in the rigid fashion constraints of the 1950’s and early 1960’s. Fashion at this time was a taskmaster that required women to spend never-ending amounts of money and time. A number of women who came of age during this era “found the strictures of fashion and the investment of time and self in its endless requirements increasingly difficult to sustain” (Fawcett, 2006, p. 104). Feminist activism offered a relief from the pressure to be thin, in style, and appealing to men (Fawcett, 2006).
Feminists who took a negative view of fashion also did so because they found it to be an arm of patriarchy. Fashion exerts power to define what and who is attractive, and reinforces distinctions between women of different classes and statuses (Groeneveld, 2010). Only women in certain classes can attain the ideal. Indulging in fashion, then, reinforces the message that women’s goal should be attractiveness to men, and that attractiveness is defined by the men in power. Fashion serves as a distraction from who is making money and defining acceptable identities in society. It lulls its subscribers into thinking that “whatever happens, young women must not take themselves seriously,” (Fawcett, 2006, p. 110).
The Third Wave: Girls Just Wanna Look Good
The backlash of a contingent of the next generation of feminists asserted that the early feminist approaches were puritanical and did not acknowledge that fashion is a vehicle for creativity or pleasure (Groeneveld, 2010). These feminists reclaimed feminism’s stance toward fashion and said that women can be stylish and sexy and politically active. The feminist magazine BUST became the poster child for this view, and defined feminism as a lifestyle choice (Groeneveld, 2010).
The forerunner of this view was Helen Gurley Brown, long time editor of Cosmopolitan. More third wave feminists identified with her assertion that she did not wear clothes for others; she wore them for herself (Scanlon, 2009). The idea of dressing for yourself became an indication of power. Feminists did not have to be either fashionable or feminist anymore, because fashion bestows the power to decide for oneself.
Fashion, The Industry
At this point in the discussion, it becomes apparent that “fashion” is taking on different meanings, depending on how it is being discussed. Fashion is both an industry which carries out the meanings of those at its helm, and it is also a choice which takes on meaning from the one who chooses. There are different kinds of power in both of fashion’s identities, with different implications for feminists.
Fashion, as it is most typically thought of, is an industry. Styles are imagined, put to paper, made out of cloth in factories, sold in stores, and marketed in magazine ads and television commercials. According to Hale & Willis (2005), the fashion garment industry is worth 350 billion U.S. dollars. This industry exerts power over an estimated 42 million workers in poor countries in the global south, 90% of them being women (Hale & Willis, 2005). Multinational corporations bid contracts to the lowest bidders on the supply chain, and in order to be able to bid low, the supply chains pay workers very low wages (Hale & Willis, 2005). Prevented from unionizing, often these workers labor in unsafe and unhealthy conditions, subject to harassment and made to work long hours (Hale & Willis, 2005). The elite marketers and buyers make the profits. They are the powerful, and the workers are the powerless.
Besides the power of shaping the employment of the many individuals working in the industry in some capacity, the fashion industry also has power to shape consumption patterns. Fashion is an industry that intentionally outdates itself every season in order to create demand (Parkins, 2008). Consumers are conditioned to buy new clothing every season, regardless of any change in their bodies or the functionality of the garments. Advertisers in the industry create a middle class consumer base that wants to emulate the upper class and distinguish itself from the lower class (di Casanova, 2003). Western fashion advertises in other parts of the world creating a demand in global markets (di Casanova, 2003).
Fashion has the power to shape identity as well. This aspect of the industry seems similar to the idea that fashion is an expression of identity: however, the industry’s power is a power over women, not empowerment of women. Fawcett (2006) describes that “for young women without professional aspirations who live in poorer areas, the identity gained through consumption can be read as more significant” (p. 110). di Casanova (2003) explains that fashion advertising in Ecuador highlights the legacy of colonialism which extols the European identity and positions the Indian identity as “other.” Fashion as an industry, in its constant cycling of clothing lines, defines what identity should be, making the identity of the wearer dependent on the garment (Parkins, 2008).
Fashion as an industry has the power to shape ideas about women’s bodies. Women’s bodies are defined as a certain “normal” standard by advertisements and even garments. The way garments are designed to fit create a certain realm of accessibility. Able-bodied women of certain build are the models of the fashion industry. “Fashion imagery is the visual distillation of the normative, gilded with the chic and the luxurious to render it desirable” (Garland-Thomson, 2010, p. 538). It would seem that Fashion, the Industry, is an unstoppably powerful behemoth. It has a master that is the bottom line, however, over which women have a measure of control.
Fashion, The Choice
Fashion, the Choice, theoretically, has the power to tame Fashion, the Industry. People use fashion as a medium of identity expression. Clothing can be used to make the self intelligible to others (Parkins, 2008). “It is only by investigating subjective interpretive negotiations of fashion, whether of wearing it or looking at it, that we can understand the implications of the possibility that dress opens up” (Parkins, 2008, p. 509). A wearer’s choices imbue the fashions they select with their own meaning. When a woman wears a dress, for instance, she writes a bit of herself into that dress and changes its meaning forever. A dress on a hanger means different to things to different women as they view it and try to imagine what they will look like in it, if they can afford it, and how they would accessorize it. In this way, women have power in fashion.
The contingent of third wave feminists that embrace fashion do so for the way it allows them to express creativity and explore possibilities (Groeneveld, 2010). What is chosen to be worn is art, it is performance, and it is a source of pleasure. Through fashion a woman can convey a limitless number of messages about herself. She uses the power of her imagination and her pocketbook to shape the impression she sends to the world. Without this power, she is at the mercy of other forces, and a part of her is stifled and limited. Fashion, the Choice, is the power of self-expression.
Is Choice Free and For All?
Several questions arise about choice. Is choice something available all women? Are people responsible for the outcomes of their choices? In a corresponded discussion between Katha Pollit and Jennifer Baumgardner (2003), second and third wave feminists, respectively, Baumgardner expresses the spirit of the third wave embrace of fashion when she writes, “the feminism that younger women are afraid of, it seems to me, is the feminism that assumes there is one pure way to be and it is anti-capitalist, super-serious, and hostile to bikini waxes and Madonna” (p. 310). She captures the sentiment that if feminism is to continue to be relevant, it must relax some of its puritanical ideas around fashion. Younger feminists, Baumgardner (2003) argues, live in a different world and have different agendas. She chafes at the idea that there is only one way to be a feminist. “I believe in a feminism that strengthens my connections to my own desires” (Baumgartner, 2003, p. 316).
Pollitt (2003) acknowledges that raising difficult questions can be alienating and admits “God knows there is a mile-wide streak of puritanism in second wave feminism” (p. 319). She makes the important point, though, that “a feminism that doesn’t raise issues isn’t worth much” (Pollitt, 2003). p. 317). Feminists cannot ignore the consequences of individual choices. In making feminism appealing to a broad group of women, there must still be room for analysis of injustice and discrimination (Groeneveld, 2010). A feminism that only sees fashion as being about personal style is dangerous because it ignores some broader issues that are at stake.
Those broader issues have to do with who has choices, and who does not. Not all women have the economic power to decide how to express themselves. A woman who is not able-bodied or who has a body type that does not fit certain proportions may find themselves with far less choices. Women who do not find themselves represented by the thin, able-bodied, white models have less access to power.
bell hooks (2000) asserts that feminism must address the intersection of class, gender, and race. Feminism must speak to all kinds of women, or it will die. All kinds of women means the women that fall outside the ideals of the fashion industry as well. If women of color, poor women, and women whose bodies are not sanctioned “normal” are not given the same choices and therefore the same power, then certain aspects of fashion must be examined. hooks (2000) suggests that women can use the power of fashion choices, especially in terms of purchasing, to make statements about women’s status and bring about change.
The consequences of choice may not be pleasant to consider. What kind of responsibility falls upon a woman who purchases a garment for the inhumane conditions and paltry pay the woman who made the garment was subjected to? Is a woman contributing to unbridled capitalism by constantly updating her wardrobe to reflect the latest fashions? What about her fashion choices are upholding a patriarchal system? Koyama (2003) talks about the importance of “fostering an environment in which women’s individual choices are honored, and in scrutinizing and challenging institutions that limit the range of choices available to them” (p. 247). Fashion as a choice is powerful, and the freedom of expression and the exciting possibilities of playing with identity are important, but must not be pursued to the neglect of questioning the oppressive effects of the fashion industry. Pollit (2003) believes the balance lies in distinction. “Some choices may be sexist in origin, but basically harmless - but others have serious implications for the course of one’s life and the lives of others” (Pollit, 2003. p. 319).
Fashion’s different characteristics make it both oppressive in some ways, and liberating in others. The second wave feminists insistence upon calling out injustices can be paired with third wave ideas about expression and pleasure. Some fashion choices are fun and harmless, and others carry serious implications. A feminist can engage in fashion, but she should also engage in discussions and investigations of the tough issues.
References
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di Casanova, E. (2003). Women’s magazines in Ecuador: Re-reading “la Chica Cosmo.” Studies in Latin American Popular Culture, 22, 89-102.
Fawcett, H. (2006). Fashioning the second wave: Issues across generations. Studies in the Literary Imagination, 39, 95-113.
Garland-Thomson, R. (2010).Integrating disability, transforming feminist theory. In W. Kolmar & F. Bartowski’s Feminist theory: A reader. (3rd ed). (pp. 529-541). New York: Mc Graw-Hill.
Groeneveld, E. (2010). Be a feminist or just dress like one: BUST, fashion, and feminism as lifestyle. Journal of Gender Studies, 31, 179-190.
Hale, A. & Wills, J. (2005). Threads of labour: Garment industry supply chains from the workers’ perspective. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing.
hooks, b. (2000). Feminist theory: From margin to center. (2nd ed). Brooklyn: South End Press.
Kolmar, W. & Bartowski, F. (2010). Feminist theory: A reader. (3rd ed). (pp. 529-541). New York: Mc Graw-Hill.
Koyama, E. (2003). The transfeminist manifesto. In R. Dicker & A. Piepmeier’s Catching a wave: Reclaiming feminism for the 21st century. (pp. 244-259). Boston: Northeastern University Press.
Parkins, I. (2008). Building a feminist theory of fashion: Karen Barad’s agential realism. Australian Feminist Studies, 23, 501-515.
Scanlon, J. (2009). Sexy from the start: Anticipatory elements of second wave feminism. Women’s Studies, 38, 127-150.
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