Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!apple!usc!orion.cf.uci.edu!uci-ics!williamt@athena1.Sun.COM
From: williamt@athena1.Sun.COM (William A. Turnbow)
Newsgroups: soc.feminism
Subject: Re: The issue of physical appearance
Message-ID: <18464@paris.ics.uci.edu>
Date: 22 Jun 89 06:43:36 GMT
Sender: news@paris.ics.uci.edu
Reply-To: "William A. Turnbow" <williamt@Sun.COM>
Lines: 33
Approved: tittle@ics.uci.edu


In article <18423@paris.ics.uci.edu> ames!claris!apple!netcom!onymouse@ncar.UCAR.EDU (John DeBert) writes:
> By dressing the same as all the other men, you show
>that you are reliable, dependable and predictable. You show that you
>are like all the other men, thatyou are what society expects a man to
>be, i.e., mature, responsible, "masculine," entirely predictable and
>therefore dependable...
-----------

	Question.  If that is truely the way men judge others, then
wouldn't the obvious trait -- dressing non-standardly have the
opposite effect?  Wouldn't this even, perhaps on an unconscious level,
even be more of a problem for women?  Women generally take pride in
not wearing the same as another.  And they are obviously going to be
attired differently than a man.  Isn't this a built-in problem then if
women want acceptance in the work place?

	It seems that men's perceptions of what is important relating
to attire must be changed.  The measure of this, truely, then it would
seem, would be when men can dress anyway they choose without censure
by other men.

	In a side discussion I had with someone else, I mentioned that
for true equality of the sexes, areas in which women have freedom and
men don't must be addressed at the same time as the other side of the
coin.  My reasoning there was that progress must be made in both
'camps'.  But using the reasoning on dress matters, it seems that
men's strictures in areas of emotion and dress, at least are a covert
sign of men's superiority.  So either women will have to change and
start dressing in dull drab blue's and black's, or they will have to
convince men that it is 'ok' to dress non-drab.

-wat-