The Enigma of Clothing Sizes

One of my most liberating moments of epiphany (so far) in development as a feminist was realizing how meaningless clothing sizes are.

They seriously are some of the most meaningless numbers in human history.  For the most part once you move past XS, M/L, and XL, all those numbers 00, 2, 4, 8, 10, 28, 14 etc. can almost mean anything.  Numeric clothing sizes fluctuate hugely, like roller coasters, by store, designer, country, clothing range, prince range, and age (of target customer).  To see if something truly fits, flatters, and/or is comfortable you need to do a cursory and educated guess (do you normally wear M's or L's, then you probably know not to try the 00), and then either get out the old tape measure or you need to try it on.

To brag a little, I think I always knew that clothing sizes were a meaningless measurement.  As a teenager I remember fitting into and wearing a lot of different sizes, but being confused and anxious about why I couldn't find the One True Number that I was supposed to fit into.  Little did I know that there is no such One True Number.

Also, growing up with two sisters and a large extended family, I was used to wearing 'hand-me-downs' so perhaps on some level I understood that bodies naturally change and fit into different sizes; and also being one for caring about aesthetics more than status symbols, Child Me usually cared more about whether the clothing item was fun, flashy, colorful etc. than the number stamped on a tag on the inside that no one ever saw.  But again, as I got older, I noticed a lot more of my friends and peers worrying over their 'dress size' and worried that someone would ask me about mine and I wouldn't be able to provide an accurate or definitive answer.

However, in college, I was reading the AMAZING book, The Body Project, (which all American women should read and) which chronicles the evolution of American girls through diaries and in conjunction with the history of American consumerism and body-related technologies.  (Want to know the history of feminine hygiene products?  I did.  And this book covers it.  It's a pretty great book.)

Bossy, Bitchy, Pushy

The research shows it and everyone has an anecdote: our society doesn’t like women who are assertive, aggressive, direct, or strong willed, even though these characteristics are accepted, even prized, in male leaders.  Instead, women are supposed to smile and emphasize communal harmony.  Women who don’t fit this “narrow band of acceptable female behavior” are labeled bossy, bitchy, “pushy, brusque, stubborn, and condescending.”

Some recent authors have tried to raise consciousness about this problem, including Tina Fey in Bossypants and Sheryl Sandberg in Lean In.  But the replacement of Jill Abramson as executive editor of the New York Times produced a flurry of discussion.  While we may never know the precise details, one feature stood out: she was pushy, competitive, aggressive.

Having read both Bossypants and Lean In I was generally aware of the issue, but hadn't experienced it myself . . . until about the time the Jill Abramson story broke.  I recently had an opportunity to volunteer extensively in an industry I hadn't worked in before.  The project was great and for a while everything went smoothly.  But as deadlines loomed, important things weren't getting done.  With practically no other staff to speak of, I eventually made a well reasoned plan and said, we need to do x, y, and z, otherwise we're in trouble.  The project got done on time and to specifications and I was proud of the work.

Then I found out that two significant people on the project thought my day-saving efforts were "bitchy" and, while ultimately appropriate, unacceptable on any future projects.  At first I thought I'd done something terrible, but after some soul searching I realized these people would not have responded this way if a man had acted as I had.  I remembered how often I'd been told to smile (not something you'd say to a man) and how they had loved me when I was nothing but a servile bucket of sunshine.  Having never experienced such behavior in any previous work environment, I've become bitter about the whole experience.

But what to do about it?  Despite all the recent attention to the bossy/bitchy/pushy problem, I haven’t seen anyone propose a good solution.  Raising consciousness is a good start, but will that prevent another experience like mine?  I don't believe the people asking me to smile were consciously being condescending.  Would it have helped to point out the behavior?  Probably not.  And the people telling me I was "bitchy" were doing so in a sincere attempt to help me.  They were basically saying: you're fantastically competent but to work in this industry you need to be a bundle of sunshine at all times.  While that's incredibly sexist, are they wrong in a practical sense?

Time to be depressed . . .

Untitled Musings

This was my first time being late on a post!  When I finally realized I had passed my due date, I settled down to write my post.  I usually have so many things on my mind or have read an interesting article I want to share, so I usually have no trouble putting together a post!

But this time I really struggled (so be prepared for a bit of a ramble).

A large part of this is because I feel like right now there is SO MUCH feminist stuff happening!  Celebrities are talking about feminism (Shailene Woodley, Pharrell) and feminists, I think, are having less self-consciousness in responding to those celebrities who (intentionally or not) are using their global media platforms to open discussions about feminism and defining feminism.  These 'outcries' sneak these issues and the discussions around them into more mainstream media platforms.

Also, more people are talking about women in film and the general representation of women, especially in regards to Belle, the Cannes Film Festival (go Jane Campion!), and of course, Maleficent.  Then there are the negative things, like the silly discussion around Hilary Clinton and her daughter's pregnancy, or the misogyny-fueled violence in Santa Barbara, the YesAllWomen hashtag and the varied responses to that . . .  I have so many tabs open in my web browser marking the many many articles I want to read about all of these things and more!

A big part of me is just really pleased that so much discussion is taking place, faster, and with less inhibition and apology from the feminist and feminist-ally communities and individuals.

But another part of me is really discouraged because as great and insightful and well-rounded and well-written and well-executed all these articles are,