Question 1

1. What motivates individuals to choose their particular styles of dress? In what ways does clothing play a role in shaping a person’s identity as male, female, or belonging to different gender identities? Can you give some examples that are not from the reading?

To be human seems to  be internally trapped. The only thing separating us from nature is we have created structures that seek to enforce and entrap us whether for better or for worse. Many of these behaviors fall into a socially accepted mundane cycle. As we have limited agency our intuition looks for it in crevices. Getting dressed in the morning is setting the dialogue and setting the trajectory about who we are, who we want to be, what we align with and sometimes who we refuse to be. It becomes a subtle social language that can reveal, hide, or destabilize identity. The nuance of fashion becomes both a defense mechanism and medium for performance.

On one level, our choices can be quite practical. Human skin isn’t too useful in every climate. As a result we may look for features surrounding warmth, movement, convenience. Yet very quickly, clothing extends beyond utility into the social sphere. We dress to signal belonging, to impress, to resist, to hide, to be seen, to rebel.

One of those statements is gender identity. Dresses, high heels, lace, and soft fabrics historically coded femininity; suits, uniforms, and durable textiles coded masculinity. It differs throughout culture but  as a result of western influence, globalization, and or colonialism there begins to grow a binary. These items begin to have significance and expectations. The woman is delicate, the man is utilitarian and strong. As nothing is linear, we can also rewrite to change the narrative. Oversized hoodies or shapeless garments allow people to cloak their gender, while androgynous tailoring or mixing traditionally gendered items plays with  ambiguity. Gender, then, is not only something we are told to “be,” but something we can perform, exaggerate, or subvert through our clothes. I think this is a factor that makes drags culturally and historically significant.

Even tiny details carry philosophical weight.  Like pockets on womens clothes aka the absence of it. For the life of me I need to carry anything by hand or purse. Sigh clearly a ploy to make us buy purses and bags