Because, really, who deserves it more than Ryan Haecker, writing for the Daily Texan?
Ryan certainly starts with a bang:
Dresses epitomize womanhood in the Western world.
Grab the popcorn, kids! There’s gonna be a show!
Such has been the case since the western man adopted pants to replace the tunic in the sixth century (an aspect of the West’s Germanic barbarian heritage). Dresses allow us to differentiate between the silhouettes of men and women on restroom signs. Dresses are the indelible image of womanhood because of the symbolic nature of pants and dresses. If all fashions are symbolic, dresses in particular symbolize womanhood by more fully embodying the ideal of a true lady, the objective understanding of what men find attractive in the fairer sex: passivity, domesticity, childrearing, coital love, piety and fertility. These defining aspects of womanhood are immutable. We all tacitly reaffirm these attributes in our attempts to find a partner. Flirtation and courtship are reaffirmations of what it means to be masculine and feminine because it is only by fulfilling the obligation of our form that we can attract the opposite sex.
Wow. Just…wow.
Dresses are the epitome of womanhood because they allow us to differentiate between the silhouettes of men and women on restroom signs. That’s deep, man.
Really, you have to love a guy who switches from immutability to change back to immutability all within a couple of sentences. Dresses have been the epitome of womanhood, but only since the sixth century. Yet they’re an immutable sign of femininity, because pants — which have only been around since the sixth century — are an immutable sign of masculinity. Dresses symbolize fucking and piety all at the same time — maybe nun’s habits get this guy hot.
But that last sentence really amuses me. Let’s see it again:
Flirtation and courtship are reaffirmations of what it means to be masculine and feminine because it is only by fulfilling the obligation of our form that we can attract the opposite sex.
I dunno about you, but I can flirt just fine in pants. But this whole “obligations of our form” business makes me chuckle — because I can’t help thinking of that scene in The King and I where the children of the court keep trying to look up Anna’s dress because they think English women must be shaped like their dresses since they don’t wear pants like other women.
You might say these things were once true but times have changed. Not so. The nature of sexual attractiveness in women is objective, immutable and incontrovertible because it is directly related to the constant and unchanging physiology of men and women. What men find attractive in women is fixed because the physiology of humanity has been relatively unchanged. In this way, the ideal form of femininity is also unchangeable and without regard for cultural context or time period. What men find attractive in women – the form of a true lady – is objectively identifiable, just as it was in the time of Nebuchadnezzar. In short, femininity is sexy, and sexy is timeless and universal.
Um, Ryan? Women’s bodies may very well be the same as they’ve ever been, but it doesn’t follow that a) what men find attractive in women is immutable and unchanging; or b) that therefore dresses are the only thing that’s feminine and/or sexy. Because, as you’ve stated in paragraph 1, in the West, there’s only been a pants/dresses distinction since the sixth century, and even if you’re a Young Earth Creationist, that’s just a drop in the bucket, history-wise.
Like all opinion pieces, there must be someone whose opinion Ryan is implicitly if not outright refuting — the villain of the story, so to speak. And this is where he busts out the villain. Who could it be?
Wait for it…. wait for it….
What’s not sexy is feminism (not to be confused with femininity), which is directly responsible for the disappearance of our beloved dresses and the adoption of pants by the “new woman.”
That’s right! You can blame ANYTHING on feminism!
Actually, if I’m not mistaken, pants for women didn’t really come into wide use until around WWII, when all the Rosie the Riveter types and the WAAFs and WACs and WAVEs wore them and discovered how damn practical they were, particularly what with nylon stockings being in short supply due to the war. Then there was Katherine Hepburn, who was one of the first women in Hollywood to wear pants on a regular basis.
But they were nasty feminists, I suppose, pushing their pants on unsuspecting women and taking away “our” beloved dresses. Even though, um, dresses are still made. And women — feminists and non-feminists alike — still wear them.
And I wonder about that “our,” really. Sign of a control freak, if you ask me.
Speaking of which:
Like all fashions, pants are symbolic of something – in this case masculinity – through their allowance of physical activity. Dresses, the antithesis of pants, symbolize femininity through grace and elegance. Men find elegance in women to be attractive, and dresses are a physical manifestation of femininity. The wearing of pants by women represents the masculinization of the fairer sex, which is not at all attractive.
The easy thing to do would be just to say, “Speak for yourself” wrt the comments about what “men” find attractive, and leave it at that. But that first sentence really gets at the issue with young Ryan: he likes his women hobbled. Freedom of movement is unsexy to him — and we already know he likes piety and passivity and fertility, so his ideal woman is clearly pregnant, praying and wearing some kind of restrictive dress that she’ll trip over if she ever tries to run away.
And with that, Ryan places himself in a long line of men who use clothing — and rules about clothing and femininity — to control women. Part of this, a large part, is to keep changing the rules so that the women are off-balance and never have a clear set of rules to follow. We’ve certainly seen this before with those “modesty” surveys by the Rebelution crowd — no matter what the women wore, there was always something wrong with it, because the problem was that the men responding to the surveys quite simply had issues with their own response to the female body and were putting the burden on the women to anticipate and prevent their own reaction to a glimpse of stocking.
And lo and behold, Ryan’s got some rules that he hasn’t yet shared with us:
In advocating the wearing of dresses, I must distinguish between the flowing elegant dresses of tradition and the more degenerate and immodest dresses of our present culture. The miniskirt, a dress of sorts that doesn’t extend below the knees, is both lacking in modesty and elegance. Elegance is essential to femininity, and the lack thereof implies a sort of masculinization. Modesty is essential to feminine virtue, and the lack thereof implies a state of whorification. Immodest, inelegant dresses constitute a degeneration and androgynization of true dresses.
Dresses are the epitome of womanhood, but only certain kinds of dresses. Even though they’re part of immutable womanhood, if they don’t provide elegance, they masculinize you and then you’re a degenerate who’s not wearing a true dress, and therefore not a woman.
Ryan, incidentally, has a myspace page (warning: sound) and a myspace blog, in which he expounds upon femininity and women’s clothing and women’s modesty quite frequently (in fact, the Daily Texan piece is an adaptation of a blog post about veils and modesty: surprise! He’s all for them). He also seems to have a problem with social equality and democracy.
He also appears to be somewhat of a hypocrite; check out his blog entry on “Lady” Katelyn and Miss Lauren. Ignore the awful artwork for a moment (no, really, just stop laughing already), and note that those two women, by the standards he has set forth above, are a couple of masculine/androgynous not-women. Why, they’re showing their knees! What’s ladylike about that! And look at those uncovered shoulders and hair:
The androgynous masculinization of the modern woman, through the donning of pants, suits, uncovered shoulders and unveiled hair, has in a sense led to the slow whorification of ladyhood. In discarding feminine dress, women seem to have symbolically discarded femininity and modesty (the virtues of women) in favor of sexual virility, promiscuity and immodesty (the vices of men). The ideal form of a true lady is a constant, immutable aspect of humanity, and this strange new development can only represent a bizarre aberration of a perverse and ignoble culture. Dresses are an essential part of any true lady’s attire, and they should be worn.
They’ve just tossed away femininity and modesty, dammit! Whores! Uncovered cat meat! How dare Ryan use the word “lady” to describe one?
Oh, but it gets better, folks: Ryan shows up in the comments at the Daily Texan and gives us an additional glimpse into his psyche:
While I agree with your symbolic analysis, I must disagree that my intent is “sexual domination over women” at least in a malicious and harmful sense. Again, inferring intent doesn’t address the argument.
I’m in favor of benevolent sexual domination over women!
I’ve liberated myself from the silly ideas of feminism that I held in my youth. I remember reading and critiquing John Stuart Mill my freshman year.. but we shouldn’t get into that. Take my word on it, he’s wrong on everything.
Yes, I can say with all certainty, from the vantage of my full 20 years, that John Stuart Mill was wrong about everything. Thank God I’m not the callow youth I once was, believing in all that silly feminism. That just gets in the way of benevolent sexual domination.
There are no “changing roles of the sexes”. I hope to have I made that clear in the article.
Gender roles are immutable, like women’s fashions.
I hope I didn’t come across as “sexist”. I hope to differentiate between the sexes, while preserving the dignity that each enjoyed while in there proper societal role. Equality of dignity does not equal equality of status.
Oh, no, I’m not sexist. I just expend a lot of thought and energy on ways to limit women’s choices and movement. That’s all.
Via Autumn at Pam’s House Blend, who knows her Bible better than I do:
What? No obligatory reference of Deuteronomy 22:5? I’m disappointed. 😉
(Cross-posted from here)