Not modern fashion, for the most part. I detest this new “romantic bohemian” style that’s come around as of late, all frills and ruffles and floral prints and femmy necklaces with antiquing. To be frank, it’s all quite uncomfortable to wear, all thin chilly fabrics and low-cut everything. Even jeans are cut as low as possible, therein to display what could possibly be the least attractive feature of the human body, the derriere. My butt’s big enough already that I want to avoid drawing attention to it, for pity’s sake. (And yes, I’m skinny...I just have proportionately short legs and a rather prominent backside, probably from sitting down all the time, typing essays like this. Great friends, me and irony.)
I don’t dress feminine, for the most part. I own a few long skirts, and I have a big yen for choker necklaces, but that’s about it. I wear a lot of black, tee-shirts with Star Wars and Harry Potter symbols on them (and of course, my prized Labyrinth shirt), Asian-print stuff, and black shoes with chunky heels. I actually dress younger than my age. Couple this with my short stature, overall skinniness, and rather youthful features, I am frequently confused for a person in her mid- or even early teens.
I’m quite fond of high heels, although not the new “pointy” styles that make it look like just walking a block would make you want to keel over from pain. No, chunky shoes are the way to go. I don’t give a shit about high heels being feminine, a symbol of a sexist, male-dominated society who want to weaken women and box them into various castles and kitchens. I wear them for a pure and simple reason: They make me taller. I’m five feet, two inches tall. While this has various advantages (for example, I never have to worry about my height being a factor with guys, since EVERYONE is taller than me), it also has certain drawbacks, like never being able to open cupboard doors without employing a fusbank, constantly seeing nothing in crowds but a sea of backs, and forever having people encroach on my personal space (it’s a documented fact that people stand closer to short people than to tall people). High heels make me taller. I can reach things, I can see over people in crowds, and I don’t back away as often while engaged in conversations with strangers. Granted, there’s not THAT much of a height gain with heels, but often two or three inches makes quite the difference.
You’re probably wondering what this has to do with the title. Well, my mom has this highly crazy theory. She is of the opinion that most feminists (and she includes herself in that label, so this isn’t discrimination) don’t really give a shit about how they look, and pride themselves in looking as bad as possible, to show about how they’re all rebelling against male-dictated principles. She bases this on a couple of women she met at a writer’s conference back in the 1970s (when the women’s movement was at its most extreme peak) who chastized her for wearing makeup and making some attempt at her appearance.
I consider myself a feminist. Not a radical, militant, hard-core male-bashing pro-castration feminist, or even a tough-chick grrl-power lesbian separatist feminist (that would be interesting, since I’m straight!) but more of an equal-pay-for-equal work, pro-gay-rights, women’s liberation feminist. I’m not the most politically active feminist, and when I do get passionate about an issue, it usually has to do, ironically, with lesbian rights.
I was watching Chasing Amy the other day (not unusual, as I’m a Kevin Smith fan), and throughout the entire movie, I thought Alyssa (the main female character, and a lesbian) dressed very nicely. Then about the end of the movie, it hit me: She dressed like me. Cute little tee-shirts, metal chokers, same style of jeans. Aside from the multiple earrings (I have nothing pierced) and the slightly lessened use of black, I could easily have switched wardrobes with her. This was at first merely an interesting bit of trivia, then an alarming insight. I dressed like a lesbian! I fretted over this for--I kid you not--an hour. No wonder I’m never invited on dates! Everyone thinks I’m gay! Such petty thoughts that clouded my brain.
The next day, I had another insight over breakfast with my grandfather. See, every Saturday he picks me up and we go out to breakfast before heading into work. This is nice bonding time, and it gives me two incentives to get up for work at an ungodly hour: 1) Not wanting to disappoint Grampa, which in some ways is worse than my mother’s wrath, and 2) free food! It also gives me time to look over my Labyrinth analysis (I have it all written in a little notebook) and think up ideas for my writings. So that morning I was doing what I usually did, contemplating the nature of reality and my existence over a nice hot bowl of oatmeal, and it hit me that I’m comfortable in my strangeness.
As I’ve mentioned before in my essay Twisted Sister, I’m a fairly strange person, and this personality difference has gotten me into deep social shit for pretty much most of my life, especially in public school. As such, I’ve always been worried about what people think about me, whether I’m screwing up, my fear of certain rejection and consequent rejection of others before they can reject me first, etc etc etc. Probably has to do with my father--but hey, I’m not a Freudian; I’m a Jungian. It hit me that cold and bitter November morn that I’m comfortable with my own personal eccentricities. I dress strangely, I walk like a guy, I slip into British slang (and occasionally accent) when the mood strikes me, and my dialogue is peppered with such colorful metaphors as “Son of a bacchae” (or another appropriate noun--I like to use pheasant, wood-elf, or gerbil), “For crikey out loud”, and “What the Christ?” My vocabulary has become noticeably more colorful since the advent of my discovering a) Missy Good and b) Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
I also have atrocious social skills. I know you, the reader who has never met me, will refuse to believe this, because I express myself so eloquently on keyboard, but I’m clueless around people. I cannot stress enough how emphatically poor my social skills are. I regularly walk away during conversations, interrupt others, act insensitive and even show unprovoked irritation and hostility to strangers. My mood swings are so sudden and unstable, Mom has told me she never knows how I will react, and she’s of course lived with me for my entire life. Heck, sometimes I don’t know how I’m going to react to stuff, and I deal with me on a twenty-four hour basis!
However, on that particular Saturday, I was doing my usual routine--stalking to the ladies’ restroom, heavy black peacoat and grey golf hat in place, using my best bad posture (I have this unfortunate gift of being able to easily mimic others, and since DC has a bit of a slouch and I hang around her so much, bad habits will crop up) and radiating as much hostility and glowery-ness as a pale, petite human female can muster--I realized that, contrary to Mom’s assurances, this IS the real me. I’m comfortable being this strange, vaguely guyish-yet-obviously-feminine girl (I don’t think I could REALLY pass for a guy if I tried, and I hope that isn’t just wishful thinking). I genuinely enjoy wearing black clothes and silver jewelry and discomfiting small children and the elderly. I relish getting rather odd looks from the general populace as I stalk around in black. I’m not attention-seeking--if I was, I could think of a hell of a lot better ways to get attention than just wearing black and slouching. I’m not an especially outgoing person, and I’m certainly no cheerleader--to me, that’s attention-seeking behaviour, being all bouncy and loud. Oy, I’m getting off-track.
The point is, I’m comfortable with an appreciation of my twisted idea of fashion. I’m comfortable with my strangeness and odd mannerisms. I’m comfortable with being a feminist and wearing heels at the same time. I’m comfortable with appropriating British slang for my own uses. And I don’t care what Mom says--I’m going to keep wearing black, and dog collars, and funny hats, because that’s me.