By R.M Alexis
Women, it seems, these days are their own worst enemies. If it’s not the duck faces they shove in your faces, it’s the glorified images of scantily clad rear ends. Enough already. It seems that these days sex trumps intelligence and has surpassed commonsense. So what is driving this?
‘Socialite’, whatever that means, is now a career choice. Girls nowadays want to spend hours taking pictures and documenting a so-called social life. Complete with the wardrobe malfunction, and apparently don’t care how silly they look. Did the brain go out of fashion? Do we blame the likes of Rihanna or Miley Cyrus and her newfound twerking notoriety? That soon such words will be found in the dictionary as acceptable words that define everyday living?
I don’t know which is worse; the portrayal of women in the 1970s as wanting the ‘perfect married life’ complete with kitchen appliances and a queue of well-behaved children or the current image of pouty and potty-mouthed under-dressed dragons. Where did we go wrong? It certainly makes you wonder what the future will be.
I am no prude but I struggle to understand. The mode of dressing is an inalienable right of every human being and granted, women get to decide how they look. The paradox is whether they can get fair judgment on other aspects of themselves aside from just their clothes if indeed this fashion — if I can call it that — is here to stay. Is it possible that this act of self-aggression is actually educated? That if a woman decides they will define themselves as they want, however provocative or disparaging, and not what society imposes as social norms that they have evolved. Everybody interprets independence differently.
Emancipation of women commonly included the right to bodily integrity and autonomy, to vote, to hold public office, to work, to equal pay, to education, and to have marital or parental rights. It is a long time from the past where to have a bank account as a woman you needed a male to co-sign before the bank would engage you. Instead of fully taking advantage of this, a number want to portray themselves as the sex objects that women of the past went to such great lengths not to be defined as. Yes we get it, you are attractive but you got to layer it a little less thick.
Has society dropped to such a low level that few will listen to you unless you push the attractive envelope? That the current debate on a recently talked about blog on a woman’s frustration with her husband is that well, at least she is attractive. Human nature. Driving consumerism everywhere.
Ladies, you can put in the effort but don’t go over the top. Your image is your PR. Sometimes all you have is the only one time to make an impression. Make it a good one. Because how you look says far more about you than what you say. You can wear whatever you want, but you cannot then get upset about what society thinks. That the scales that judge men and women are not the same is obvious. Remember; dress like... and you will be treated like...The answer is the same for both blanks.
Alexis is a healthcare professional.
