We had our ideas cafe meeting last night on provocative dressing, freedom or responsibility.
It was a stimulating discussion and the ideas went far beyond the traditional understanding of provocative dressing which usually denote a sexual overtone.
The prominent issue is whether women are being blamed for acts by man. However, through the discussion I had the realization that this is not so much a gender issue but an issue of what social groups we should consider in our everyday actions.
In a theoretical civil society, where individual freedoms and rights are respected by everyone, women can dress however they wish regardless of the sexual interest they arouse in men. This is no different than the rich flaunting their riches in front of the poor masses or the glutton enjoying their meal in front of a hungry audience. We are individually free to do what we want and the rest of society have to deal with their reaction from what we do.
However, the real society we live in includes people who do not assume their responsibility to respect individual freedom of others. That is why we have the courts and prison system to deal with the outcomes, police and plain cloth detectives to deal with enforcement.
It is pointless to debate with the rest of responsible society on the theoretical basis for freedom of dressing when it is the irresponsible members that needs to be dealt with and they are not participating in the discussion.
So, women can dress as provocatively as they want in a crowd of civilized responsible scene but they are endangering themselves doing so in a dark street in a less desirable part of town.
The parallel here is the police warning people not to leave valuables in plain sight in their cars as this can lead to break-ins. It is definitely the right of the car owner to leave whatever he wants in plain sight in his car. Some towns even pride themselves in the ability to not lock their doors with no fear of losing anything.
Among the responsible members of society where this discussion is going on, this is not an issue. It is the people who do not respect others that is the problem.
The discussion went far beyond sexually provocative dressing. In answer to Shula's complain of why is it always women that have to bear the responsibility for dressing properly, Rafi answered that he can be just as provocative if he wears a Nazi uniform and walk down main street. Or he can be just as provocative in the jersey of a visiting sports team while at the game of a home team.
The dressing issue extends further as part of our personal identity. We choose our clothing for many reasons: warmth, covering what we want to conceal, projecting our idea of beauty, and creating a certain image of our identity.
Beyond that, there is dressing for protest and also to alter our true identity.
Beyond dress, our house, car, the company we keep, are all part of the overall picture of our identity and we can be provocative with any of these components.
Provocativeness is also relative to the expected social norm. Showing an ankle in some countries where women are all covered up can create a scandal while nudity in a nudist colony is unremarkable but wearing something is.
Upon the remark that woman choose their cloths for man, Shula's answer was that it is easy for women to dress for man but it is other women that is more difficult to dress for as other women are more discerning than men and they are also looking to dressing as a way of competing and figuring their social order.
Something I have been wondering and good to have agreement with!
It seems like the discussion went well.
ReplyDeleteI have been attempting to replace your discussion group, but haven't had any luck. So I really appreciate the blog. As you may have noticed!
Freedom of expression is a legal right and while there are some copy right restraints in Canada it's still an important part of our Rights, (constitutional, civic?). Siks wearing turbins to work, Muslim women with veils, our right to religious dress shows multiculturalism and is important to Canadians. But, when a person dresses offensible it isn't often brought up in court. While religious groups have freedom of expression I wounder if corperate groups could be held accountable for forcing people to wear suits? To offend seems to be an individual matter, not something for a corperate entity; and to wear suites becomes a necessity for many everyday. Women have a far greater selection for dress attire at the office, but that doesn't stop men and women from competing while working for the Bank,(pick your Entity.) And what goes on in the lunch room is anyones guess. If I was a fly on the wall perhaps I would see that people tend to flock towards people they identify with, and dress is the first thing people tend to notice. I would hope that every bank or corperate place has at least one token "punk" person with fushia hair and funky clothing. But its probably a woman who's prepair to dual her right to free expression, 'cause conformity will do that to some of us, and, well, its everyones RIGHT to dress as they will....
VTS