Writing to Solve a Problem
Lessons Learned from Stacy and Clinton
Stacy and Clinton would be proud.
Fashion has never been my strong suit. Most of my life, I have been content to throw on a decently clean pair of jeans and a t-shirt. It was only a few years ago that I began to appreciate the thrill of finding a shoe that actually makes me want to look at my feet, or a shirt that emphasizes all the right curves and none of the wrong ones. It was also about this time that I discovered a new love on television: "What Not to Wear," hosted by fashions gurus Stacy London and Clinton Kelly.
The concept of the show is simple: fashion dweebs are given $5,000 and tutorials from Stacy and Clinton for use in making over their wardrobe. But the underlying message is deeper: our clothes reflect our personality. In fact, Stacy and Clinton are fond of pointing out on the show that whether we like it or not, people judge us by our appearance. It might not be fair, and sometimes it gets us into trouble, but it's a simple fact of human nature. People judge us by our appearance. That being the case, say Stacy and Clinton, why not work to make our appearance one that we want to be judged by? In fact, that is exactly what we do, whether consciously or not.
One of the fascinating things about the show is watching those people who claim they do not think that appearance is important inadvertently prove just how important they really do think it is. You can always spot them; they're usually the hippies, artists, and musicians wearing baggy sweat pants, old hand-me-downs, and clothing from the local second-hand store. Even while declaring the unimportance of appearance, they all arrange their appearance in such a way as to portray that very message. Interesting that you never see women in coordinated pant-suits and high heels claiming that appearance doesn't matter.
Now don't get me wrong, here. I'm not a style snob; fashion still isn't a strong suit, I frequently shop for clothes at Wal-Mart, and most days a pair of pants and a t-shirt still satisfy me. But I'm willing to admit the impact that my appearance has on others and the messages I send with the clothing I wear.
For instance, I recently had a job interview with a woman I had never met before. That day I chose nice slacks and a dressy shirt, and I was almost meticulous with my make-up. I wanted my prospective employer to know that I understood professionalism, and my appearance was intended to be an outward reflection of that internal knowledge.
Apparently it worked: I got the job offer. Every Sunday I attend church, and there I am always careful to wear a skirt or dress with ... well, dressy shoes. My appearance at these times is an expression of respect for the reasons I am at church, for the sacred nature of the activities and discussions that take place there. On the other hand, my outfit of choice when attending university classes is the above-mentioned jeans and t-shirt ensemble, with little make-up, if any. Here, I mostly just want people to know that I am an intelligent person who cares enough about personal hygiene to wash my clothes and face. While I don't dress to impress at these times, I do aim to avoid offensive odors.
On the flip side of this argument is another fascinating observation from "What Not to Wear." By the time these folks get done re-vamping their wardrobes, they project a very different self-image. It isn't that their personalities have changed, but it is apparent that they feel more confident about who they are and their ability to make a mark in the world.
Just as appearance tells others something about us, it also tells us something about ourselves. How often have you had a bad hair day that turned in to a good old-fashioned bad day? Thinking (or knowing?) that you don't look your best makes you feel less than confident about everything you do; conversely, knowing that you look great makes you feel that you can conquer anything the world has to throw at you. Perhaps that's why I got the job offer - not so much because I impressed the interviewer, but because I impressed myself.
The point is simply this: our appearance has much farther-reaching effects than we often realize. Is this the sign of a disproportionately image-driven society? Should we as a society work to ignore the outer appearances of things, both people and objects, in an effort to understand what lies beneath it? Perhaps so, but I think it is largely a part of human nature to want to explain things by their surface features. While I would certainly advocate learning to look beyond what is immediately visible, I don't know that it is possible or even desirable to entirely ignore appearance. Indeed, the very fact that we are able to look beyond the surface is one of the defining characteristics of human beings, one of the features that distinguishes us from lower animal forms. Nonetheless, the fact remains that we are animals, and as such it is inevitable that we attempt to understand what is around us based largely on its appearance.
Thanks, Stacy and Clinton. Who knew you could learn so much from a fashion show?
A Discrete Judgment
Christian D Worlow
A woman sits at a nearby table with long dark red hair braided into a ponytail reading a paperback novel. She wears a black t-shirt with dark red letters spelling "Force" on the front, blue jeans, and black leather boots. At her side on the table is a backpack bulging from its contents, while across the street is a university. Sitting nearby, a vague pressure and heat rises in my chest as I discretely watch her, feeling the first signs of physical attraction. I examine the visual signs - dress, color, stylings, and context - trying to understand who she is. I try to interpret and judge her based upon her appearance. What kind of woman is she based upon only the most cursory of evidence? How should I approach her?
I assume she is a college student based upon the visual context: a restaurant across from a university campus. I take her backpack as a further sign that she is a student there, and most likely she is taking a break between classes. Her clothing is casual enough to imply that she is certainly not in the neighborhood for business, as well.
I glance at the book she reads: a fantasy novel I do not immediately recognize, Anasi Boys by Neil Gaiman. I am more familiar with the author than with the title, and her choice of genre in this scene suggests to me that she at least casually reads fantasy. The cover art - a fusion of a lightning bolt and a spider web on a night sky - leads me to interpret the book as having a serious, dramatic, and certainly mythic style. I use these judgments to form more of an interpretation of her personality.
I look at her t-shirt now, unsure of the significance of the word "Force." The phrase is certainly not "The Force" (which would instantly associate it with Star Wars in my mind). The shirt's style, however, reminds me of a souvenir concert t-shirt, the kind one would buy at a concert where the band Force had played. I don't know if such a band exists, however, but I assume it is something similar. The dark red sans serif lettering on a black background is the only sign I have to guess at her musical tastes. "Maybe she listens to hard rock or something similar," I think.
Considering the bright summer days that have persisted the last several weeks, her lack of a tan suggests she prefers to stay indoors. I interpret her choice of jeans and boots as implying that she avoided shorts and tennis shoes purposefully, even considering the sun and heat. "Maybe she doesn't like to show off her legs," I wonder. This thought, of course, leads me to imagine what her legs might look like. The only signs I have to work with are their shape in her jeans, as well as the skin tone and texture I can see on her face and bare forearms.
I like red hair, but her hair is darker than normal. I steal quick glances at it. Most people associate red hair with a lively personality, and I suppose that her dark red hair signifies a more earthy and grounded version of that lively personality. The ponytail is practical - the ponytail keeps her hair out of her eyes - but the fact that she has braided it into a ponytail leads me to think that this is an aesthetic choice for her: she braids her hair as a way of expressing herself even while being pragmatic.
I find myself wanting to interpret her complexion, cheekbones, and hair color as demonstrating that she is of Irish or similar ancestry. This idea is one that appeals to me, even if I assume she is American, because I have my own Romantic idealizations of Ireland. At the very least, I assume she has some Irish blood, and this prospect influences my other interpretations of who she is.
I think that her clothing signifies that she's not from an affluent family, so I hope and reason that she's probably roughly on par with my own economic background. I hope that if I do talk to her class shouldn't be an issue at some point.
By now I've formed an idea of who she is: an attractive American college student probably from a lower middle class background, perhaps of Irish or Western European ancestry, with an interest in fantasy. She seems to be fairly down to earth while also willing to express herself artistically in a manner that doesn't invite spectacle, considering her braid. Our musical tastes are probably compatible. Having interpreted the signs of her appearance, hoping that these signs are not anomalous and that they point to who she really is, I conclude that she's probably someone with whom I could speak and not feel foolish.
Now all I have to do is talk to her and interrupt her reading. All I have to do is convince myself to actually interact with her instead of reading her. How do I judge when the moment is right to speak?
Body Problems
Jess Hobbs
In the summer of 2002, shortly after I graduated college, I applied
for employment at a medical office. At the interview, I discovered the clinic dealt exclusively in cosmetic surgery. A woman with short, black hair led me to a dim room. I sat in a leather chair, my posture artificially erect. She read over my resume' quickly.
"I'm pleased to see you have experience working in medical reception," she said, "but this practice demands a bit more in terms of client interaction." I nodded even though I wasn't sure what she meant.
"You job's to be the face clients first see when they come in," she said, and looked me over, "You'll need to wear appealing clothes." I dropped my eyes to my flat dress shoes, knee-length khaki skirt, and oxford button-up shirt.
"Alright," I replied.
My prospective employer raised her eyebrows at me, and looked away. I knew my appearance influenced the interview when nobody called about the job. My interviewer stressed, in detail, that to gain employment at her clinic I needed to be more "appealing" than I was. Clearly, I was to comply with some standard of "appealing" if I wanted to advance my career. This interview was my first experience with appearance discrimination in employment, though I've had others since. Unfortunately, my experience is not uncommon; in fact, it is common among American women.
In 21st century America, women seem to have greater independence than at any point in the history of the United States. Women occupy key positions in government, business, education, and the sciences; however, as Naomi Wolf claims in The Beauty Myth, women's increased independence economically and socially is curtailed by the perpetuation of unrealistic standards of beauty, which restrict every part of the female body. Though dress, hair, and adornment with make-up involve some level of artistic expression, social norms severely limit the ways in which women can attain beauty, and, thus, value in a visual economy. As a result, women starve, over-work, and mutilate their bodies in an effort to succeed economically. If the new millennium is to usher in freedom, as president George W. Bush so often claims, a new generation of women must undertake to liberate themselves from standards of beauty and make their bodies their own.
Perhaps the foremost text of the 1990s regarding beauty, Naomi Wolf's The Beauty Myth addresses the problematic relationship between feminism and beauty. Wolf regards the struggle between the two as unnecessary because, she claims, women "deserve the choice to do whatever [they] want with [their] faces and bodies," whether or not they identify themselves as feminists (1). For Wolf, standards, or myths, of beauty emerged in conjunction with women's gradual liberation as a means for male-dominated society to maintain control over the female body (16). Since the Industrial Revolution, women in Western societies experienced small gains in economic and political freedom; in reaction to this, male-dominated institutions conflated myths of domesticity, motherhood, and virginity into an encompassing myth of "beauty" (Wolf 16). Thus, though women in the West appeared to be more independent, it was through standards of appearance that their subjugation endured.
Furthermore, the "beauty myth" Wolf describes does not merely establish codes of appropriate dress and behavior. It also describes feminists as masculine and ugly, and so without value (Wolf 19). Because beauty functions like "a currency system [such as] the gold standard," the description of feminists as ugly destroys their value, and encourages women to shum feminism lest they too become "ugly" (19). Such practices divide women politically and diminish their collective power (18). In this way, the "beauty myth" ensures the power of male-dominated institutions by thwarting activism among women.
The "beauty myth" owes its pervasiveness to the rise of technology and mass media (Wolf 15). After all, the "beauty myth" is not singularly produced, but arises cumulatively through "a dissemination of millions of images of the current ideal" (16). Moreover, contemporary culture uses the "beauty myth" to control men by dictating what they ought, and ought not, to find attractive. Recent years have proven women are not the sole sufferers of eating disorders, and such cases demonstrate the application of the "beauty myth" to male and female members of society.
Although the "beauty myth" poses a myriad of problems for Western society, contemporary literature may foster a movement to move beyond unrealistic standards. In her novels, Toni Morrison demonstrates the disastrous consequences of "white" standards of beauty on the African- American community, and suggests a new beauty based on utility and racial identity (Walther 776). For example, Song of Solomon follows Milkman Dead from birth to a full realization of his identity as an African-American. Key to Milkman's development is his choice between two female characters, Hagar and Pilate (Ashe 589). Morrison employs hair to describe the reactions of African-American women to "white" standards of beauty. Specifically, Morrison describes Hagar's hair as wild, out of control, and in need (or so Hagar thinks) of chemical treatment (587). In contrast, Pilate keeps her hair cut short, like a man's, and retains control of her life (587). Milkman's decision to side with Pilate resounds because, as Bertram Ashe notes, Milkman "opts for a woman who lives outside of the expectations of the white cultural norm" (589). Here, Morrison suggests women who do not comply with the "beauty myth" lead independent, fulfilling lives, and men who choose them as mates are similarly rewarded. Such a suggestion enables African-American women to transcend "white" standards and rediscover a beauty grounded in the world of racial experience.
Morrison's definition of beauty appeals most directly to the African- American community, but her use of art to liberate her audience from unrealistic standards of beauty ought to be adopted by all of Western society. The West could remedy the catastrophic wake left by the "beauty myth" through localized, grass-roots resistance. Modes of artistic expression could foster an era in which women and men control their own notions of beauty. Perhaps, artistic expression could bridge the gaps between people of different races, classes, and religions, and so promote dialogue, empathy, and mutual respect.
Ashe, Bertram D. "'Why Don't he Like My Hair?': Constructing African-
American Standards of Beauty in Toni Morrison's Song of Solomon and Zora Neale
Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God." African- American Review, 29(4), Winter
1995, 579-592.
Walther, Malin LaVon. "Out of Sight: Toni Morrison's Revision of Beauty."
Black American Literature Form, 24(4), Women Writers Issue, Winter 1990, 775- 789.
Wolf, Naomi. The Beauty Myth: How Images of Beauty Are Used Against
Women. New York: Anchor Books/Doubleday, 1991.
