So my little sister comes home yesterday fresh from the school uniform shop with a crisp, nice, new pair of shorts and the first words she says to me are:
‘Do you think I’ll look like a lesbian in these shorts?’
I answer back, ‘I didn’t know you could confirm a person’s sexual orientation by the kind of clothing they wear; but no little darling, I don’t think anyone is going to think you’re a lesbian.’
‘It’s just that, you’re seen as a dyke if you don’t wear the school dress and so-and-so says only lesbians wear shorts,’ she moans.
‘Fuck so-and-so,’ I answer. ‘Wear the shorts if you want to.’
This is just one example which really makes me want to wage a deadly warfare on the stereotypical beliefs associated with the clothing choices of women. And ladies, if you’re out there, wearing school shorts doesn’t make you look like, (or become for that matter!) a lesbian. You just look like a girl in school shorts. End. Of. Story.
Well, not really. I’m just getting started actually. And my line of fire today is directed at summer.
That’s right summer, watch your arse because I’m about to open a can of hard whoop.
When I was a kid, summer used to be bike-riding, swimming, late-night street cricket, eating so much ice-cream you literally thought you were going to die of a brain-freeze and sleeping on the back veranda until mosquitoes sucked you dry like high school kids in a malt shop.
Those years were my best and I loved them. Then I grew tits and my mother told me, ‘You’re a young lady now, and it’s high time you started dressing like one.’ And it was goodbye to bare feet, street cricket, and wearing Bonds singlets without a bra, and hello to shaven legs, tight mini dresses, and fashionable and moderately priced high-heels. Yeah, I loved summer. Now I despise it.
At this point you’re probably thinking, ‘Hey lady, no-one’s stopping you from going barefoot and braless now, you’re a grown woman, do whatever you like!’
Fair enough kind reader, but I wasn’t a grown woman then. I was young-ish girl. And I had no clue that I could dress however the hell I liked. My mother, girls in the street, girls on the TV, girls in the magazines all dressed in dresses. And I thought I had to do the same. Because God-forbid I put on some skater shorts and a cool t-shirt and a cap and sneakers. Oh no! Cause then I’d totally look like some kind of tom-boy and what group of nice girls in dresses (or handsome looking boys, as my mother liked to point out) would accept me then?
I despise summer, because summer to me brings nothing but a long hot list of bull-hockey stereotypes. Like you ‘have’ to wear a dress and you ‘have’ to shave your legs and if you don’t wear a bikini or a body-suit to the beach, then you ‘obviously’ have body issues. But some of you probably like dressing in tight mini dresses and fake tan and barely-there bikinis. And you know what, that’s cool. But I want you to want to dress like that; meaning, I want your choice of dress to be your choice. I don’t want you to feel like you have to dress a certain way just because your mother, the TV, magazines, women’s clothing groups or anybody else for that matter is telling you to do so.
My mother and I had a fight recently over my attire (one of our many, many continuing bouts) and she told me that if I didn’t look ‘hot’ for my boyfriend, then he would go looking at other women. Considering that my mother is a smart, educated woman, I was completely shocked and frankly, quite hurt, that she said this.
So I responded, ‘If I’m dating a guy that suddenly stops looking at me cause I don’t dress like some other well-dressed girl, then I’d rather be single. If it matters more to him that I spend my hard-earned money on clothing and accessories so he can show me off in front of passersby, than on things I may actually want, then he’s a douche. And if he’s so concerned with what’s on the outside, instead of trying to get to know the inside of me, then why the hell did he start dating me in the first place? And if I ever have the unfortunate experience of dating someone who leaves me because he sees something shinier or taller or thinner and thinks he’ll be better off with that girl instead of me, well, I’m so much better off alone.’
That’s who I am, and you are who you are. Dress HOW you are.
By Dominiek Neall
(Image credit: 1.)
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