Female Fashion

The female form seems forever intended for decoration. Whereas men dress practically—in pants, shirts, and jackets specifically designed for movement and activity—females traditionally use what we call “fashion” to constrict movement and basically feel as uncomfortable as possible. Consider the following list of typically “female” clothes:

jewelry (earrings, rings, necklaces, etc.)

scarves—not the wooly, warm kind

hats

tights

skirts and dresses

All of these clothes—in some form or another—get in the wearer’s way and restrict their movement. In other words, they operate purely to “look nice.”

Jewelry: consider typically “female” jewelry—dangly, beaded earrings; loopy necklaces that dangle in front of a girl’s face when she leans over; rings that clink against metallic and ceramic objects brushed by the wearer’s hand, etc. All of these items—particularly earrings, necklaces and bracelets—have the potential to get caught around handles, on hooks, or in crevices, potentially choking the wearer to death or shredding her earlobe. They serve no practical purpose other than to ornament the wearer, and often they make her look more ridiculous than not. (Sparley rhinestones smacking you in the cheeks every time you twist your head? Neon purple beads the size of olives weighing around your neck? Silly silly silly.)

Scarves and hat: these articles can be worn by the male sex, too, and also for practical purposes. Typically, when styled to be worn acceptably by both genders, these clothing items are intended to keep the wearer warm in cold weather conditions. A wooly scarf can keep the cold wind from assaulting the wearer’s neck, and a fuzzy hat can conserve a significant amount of the 80% or body heat that ordinarily escapes from an individual’s head. However, when girls use these accessories to look fashionable, the accessories morph into restrictive, impractical styles. Take page-boy hats—one healthy gust of wind and the wearer will be chasing the hat down the street (I have seen this happen). Dinky, gauzy scarves are no better—they typically go the way of dangly necklaces, endangering the wearer’s health every time she leans over any sort of moving gears and promising to slop sauce or soup onto her lap at the dinner table if she isn’t careful.

Tights: I have always had a personal vendetta against these. The ordinary argument in favor of tights is that they are meant to keep girls’ legs warm. How are they supposed to keep anyone’s legs warm when they are made of nothing more than fine-grained netting? Leggings perhaps could serve this purpose, but tights do nothing more than keep the legs numb to changes in wind direction, make a girl’s legs itch, and create a hole in her pocketbook every time they develop a runner. And think of the varieties available: black opaque, black sheer, footed, footless, control-top, neon pink, and my personal favorite—fish net. Can anyone argue for practicality now?

Skirts and dresses: this is the easiest category to argue against. What girl can move, unrestricted, in a skirt or dress when she has to worry all the time about it getting hiked up and revealing her knickers (assuming she is wearing any)? Even sitting becomes laborious; depending how short the skirt is, she must be conscious of any potential gap between her legs at all times. Talk about making someone self-conscious!

I don’t entirely understand how this focus on decoration came about, when it so blatantly opposes the order of things in nature. In the animal kingdom, males are the ones who must attract females with their appealing appearances, not the other way around. Birds provide the best example of this phenomenon: the male cardinals, peacocks, and mallard ducks are all the ones displaying vibrant colors and patterns with their feathers. Females are ordinarily dull and unimpressive. What happened to reverse this order in humans?