Sometimes I feel like I was dropped here from another planet, or I'm lacking in some ultra female gene. At 10, I had a dream of being a fashion designer, fired by a vision of launching a counter-trend that would give women permission to be comfortable in their clothes. Then I discovered boys and peer pressure, and submitted to all the insanity that brought on: waist-cinchers, high heels, petticoats, big hair... the full catastrophe. I was over it (pretty much) by the time I reached 20.
A recent WikiHow tutorial about "How to Make Your Jeans Fit Tighter," made my skin crawl. But in my hormone-addled youth, before Spandex, I might have been all for it. I remember once taking up the seams in a pair of jeans I deemed too baggy, and when I was done I tried them on, and was pleased with the results until I sat down(!)
On my Avoid Like Dengue List is ultra-high heels — in fact, if they were socially required like bras are (and don't get me started on that), I'd just stay home the rest of my life or move to the hinterlands. I confess I bought a few pairs, but they always ended up with the dust bunnies in the back of the closet. Haven't women gotten the memo about what those five-to-seven-inch stilettos do to the body? Like tight jeans, they might look attractive on a standing model. But tell her to hurry down a cobblestone street and watch something truly comical. Here in Sonora they go more for sparkly flipflops. Without a backstrap they may not stay on that well, but at least a girl doesn't have so far to fall.
A style that seems to keep coming back like a plague of locusts is the outfit I call the "sausage dress" because it looks like the subject was stuffed into it. Every bump, lump and roll is mercilessly outlined, especially when the wearer sits. It's short enough to make bending over a risky option, and cut low enough in front that what wasn't stuffed inside appears to be spilling out over the top. This style might be a good look for a tiny fraction of women who adopt it, if they don't mind being confused with streetwalkers, but somehow it has be exalted to "must-have" status for young (and sadly, not-so-young) women. Don't forget decorated acrylic fingernails that appear to render hands virtually useless, lamentably a style that has burgeoned here in Mexico where acrylic nail salons charge under $20 for a full set. I don't know how a woman could even cook with these, much less play a musical instrument, change a diaper or take a photo.
Combine all of the above and there you have it: the opposite of the burka and yet just as slavish, uncomfortable and detrimental to freedom of movement.
All this ruminating over the ways women enslave themselves or are physically oppressed by society began when I saw "The Canvas Prison," a long video about the imposition of the burka, particularly in Afghanistan. Fashion's not the ruler there, but male-mandated laws rooted in deep hatred and fear of women's power of attraction. Mohammed wasn't the one who came up with this ultimate fashion disaster; it's been imposed throughout the ages, most recently in the early 20th century by a ruler who fretted over men staring at his 200 wives. His solution: throw tents over them! And they're still doing it, almost 100 years later!
