Lilly’s First Rant: What I Wear Is None of Your Business
Yesterday I was humiliated in a way I’m sure many girls have experienced. It was the first time I have ever blushed so hard I could feel my cheeks burning. It was the first time I have felt truly singled out. It was the first time I have ever been shamed for my sexuality. And I am not amused.
This summer, I am working at an ice cream store in a large city. It’s a very busy store, with tons of customers passing through each day. The store shares storage and freezer space with a popular restaurant in the same building.
Over the course of the day, when I am not cleaning the store or working at the cash register, I spend a fair amount of time working in the back of the restaurant preparing the ice cream, refilling toppings and engaging in other scintillating tasks. (Bear with me, I promise the background information is relevant. Or perhaps I should say “bare” with me…that’s called foreshadowing, folks.)
Anyway, lately it has been absurdly hot where I live and ironically the soft serve machines that keep the ice cream cold make the store just a tad toastier than hell. I have taken to wearing shorts to work with my sneakers and uniform t-shirt. In short, it is a stunning combination.
Yesterday, at the end of my shift, my manager, a young guy with whom I get along very well, said he needed to talk to me. Apparently a customer, thinking the restaurant owns the store, told the restaurant manager I was dressed too provocatively and asked why (and I quote), he “lets his girls run around like that.” And then he got into his time machine and returned to the 50s. No but seriously, whaaaaaaat?
To be fair, because my legs are pretty long they make most shorts look like they were previously owned by Thumbelina. But these were not booty shorts. In fact, they would have passed my middle school’s dress code (with my arms at my sides the shorts passed the tip of my thumbs). My manager was clearly uncomfortable and kept saying he didn’t mind my shorts (uhhh…thanks? I like your legs too?) but didn’t want to cause trouble with the restaurant manager. I apologized and said I would wear longer shorts next time.
I don’t think that it is ever appropriate to ask a stranger to dress differently in order to make you more comfortable. If someone is wearing a t-shirt emblazoned with something truly offensive, I am more sympathetic to the possibility of speaking up. But I subscribe to the school of thought that clothing is a valid form of self-expression. And my bare legs convey no offensive message and express nothing other than the desire to be cool and comfortable.
Yet it seems as though the customer believed my shorts were evidence of my intention to be provocative. Why do you let your girls run around like that, he asked. Girls, really? Someone seems to think the restaurant, beloved for its sandwiches and revered for its bagel and schmear, doubles as a brothel. It was as if he believed my shorts were evidence of my insidious intentions to woo customers. Would you like a scoop of vanilla with that?
Seems as though, when it comes to the way young women dress, there is a constant confusion of intent versus outcome. And we’re never given the benefit of the doubt. A well-endowed friend of mine struggles to find shirts that do not expose her cleavage for fear of being considered slutty or a showoff.
I am constantly questioned by my peers about the length of shorts (yesterday was the first time an adult has ever commented). Another friend was asked by a female teacher to consider what male teachers may think about her clothing choices. Miley Cyrus’ outfit choices, and the nefarious motives behind them, are constantly criticized. When people hear that a young woman was assaulted they often wonder what she was wearing.
So let’s clear this confusion up once and for all. Young women choose clothing based on what makes them feel good. We wear what we do because it matches our mood. The clothes that are supposedly meant to seduce, are worn because we are comfortable in our skin. I won’t have long, lean legs forever.
Girls are urged to celebrate their bodies but when I wear shorts that highlight what I am proud of, I am accused of trying to sneak attack customers with my sexuality. What I experienced yesterday was a classic mistranslation of intent and outcome. I intended to wear shorts because I like the way I look in them and I wanted to stay cool. Yet a conversation about my sexuality was the outcome.
Sometimes I feel as though young women are so often portrayed as needing relationships that people have come to believe that everything we do has some relation to them. Nothing we do can be “just because” or “just for ourselves” because young women are judged by the relationships they maintain and the interactions they have. Teenage girls are expected to always include the needs and wants of others as they form their intentions. The outcome of a teenage girl’s actions should benefit others first and her second.
It is as if young women exist solely to be touchstones for other people. Our actions are not for us. Our actions are for those around us. Regardless of the intention behind them, our actions are the colors others use to paint simplified pictures of who we are. Mean girl, popular girl, slutty girl, geeky girl, sad girl; we come to be defined by one-dimensional summaries of how we supposedly interact with people.
It’s no wonder the customer automatically assumed that my clothing choice involved thinking about how said selection would affect male customers. I’m a teenage girl so that’s what I do. I think about others above myself because at the end of the day what counts is who I’ve made happy. He thought that in deciding to wear shorts I was making a statement of wanting to be an object of sexual attention. He believed that my foremost concern is the comfort of some nutty customer and not myself. But here’s the thing, sir, I like my shorts. I’m keeping them. And as Eve Ensler writes in her monologue “My Short Skirt,” my clothing, “believe it or not, has nothing to do with you.”
**This blog was first published July 12, 2010**
Lilly graduated from high school in June 2010 and was a weekly guest blogger for RachelSimmons.com. Read more about her here.
A comment from Shanna Sweet:
Tony just because we live in a word where women are represented as sexual objects, does not mean it’s okay to continue to objectify women. It doesn’t mean that women should determine how we dress based on some abstract notion of what you or anyone else finds sexy because of the sexual objectification of our gender. That’s the point of this article.
If we continue in this fashion, when does it stop? Every part of a woman’s body in objectified in mainstream media. Her toes, for example. If someone who found toes sexy made that comment about a woman wearing flip flops, would you say the same thing?
Or would you consider that absurd? What disappoints me the most is that you seem more than aware that women are treated and viewed as objects, and yet you’re content to let us continue to be treated that way by advising us to “get used to other people’s reaction”.
Those are the seeds of classic misogyny and victim blaming. What if instead we all started to remind ourselves in the moment, that women have legs because of 100′s of thousands of years of evolutionary progress, as opposed to having legs strictly for the sexual titillation and stimulation of men? ~Shanna Sweet
In a perfect world, I agree. BUT unfortunately, we live in a world where women are often sex objects.
And for men, it is hard not to notice a woman dressed revealing areas which are sexy. Men notice long shapely legs, cleavage, etc.
So maybe it shouldn’t be an issue and is not your intention but you are drawing unwanted attention by exposing areas which cause sexual arousal,
So you can choose to wear revealing clothes if you wish but get used to other people’s reaction. Choose your comfort over theirs I guess.
And women who dress more modestly still manage to stay cool if they choose the right clothing.
I disagree vehemently with the poster who said conservative clothes need to be worn in strange situations for your own safety. That is simply a case of blaming the victim for assaults perpetrated on her. You can be in full hijab and be assaulted. the problem is as you asserted… That women are considered simply for male appeasement. That problem does not go away by women dressing more conservatively. It only goes away by challenging that notion, not giving into it.
Thanks for sharing! I am a mother of two teenager girls. I have long, thin legs which make my shorts look shorter s well. I dress appropriate for my age but not like an old lady. Both of my girls have their own style and dress trendy. I have a “friend” who is so critical of her own body that she makes remarks about teenage girls all the time (ex – “what are they selling?” meaning they look like prostitutes). She and I have gotten into heated discussions many times over her critical nature based on her own insecurities. It is so frustrating that girls are criticized by society and immediately thought of as sluts because of their so-called inappropriate dress.
Thank you for sharing and keep up the good work.
its not a bad thing to look slutty, what are you so mad about
Lilly,
I completely agree that you were right and your employer was wrong in the instance you describe. And I completely agree that women, young and old, should be free to wear what they want without being judged. As usual, you and Eve Ensler have said it well!
I don’t agree, though — and this will be unpopular — that this is all about freedom of expression and individuality. It is also about the safety of women and girls — way about safety. And so I firmly believe that when we are going to unfamiliar public places, frequented by strangers who more likely than not will misread what we wear, we owe it to ourselves to be reasonably conservative. I simply have seen too many victims of the bad judgment of others.
LOVE your writing,
Lucy
I immediately thought of boys wearing their pants so low that their boxers show. I never thought about their sexuality, only their sloppiness.
Lilly,
I love your blogs. You are truly a talented writer! I must admit it takes me back to my early adulthood as I am now in my mid 30′s.
I wanted to let you know that it isn’t only young females that are constantly being judged on how they dressed. The intent versus outcome applies to all women. It is something in our society that has to change or it is going to have more detrimental effects than it already has thus far.
Unfortunately women are objectified in the media everyday and this tells the world that sex sells. So when females want to wear something that actually is like you said for us and no one else, well we get spoken to like we are dressing sleazy or judged on how we dress. I can’t remember the last time I heard someone say I can’t believe “he is dressed like that,” implying sexual connotation.
This is because women are objectified. This rant goes well beyond just how women dress or should dress according to others. We are being passive as a society by not addressing that how a woman dresses doesn’t mean she is asking or wanting anything. It means she is comfortable. Just like if she has a big chest and wears a tank top. Well we don’t say anything to a heavyset male that has half his belly hanging out of his shirt because that would be rude. Why isn’t it rude when others say these things to women?
Thanks for your insight! Keep writing!!
[...] and free to be commented on: slut-shaming. Recent high-school graduate Lilly blogged about her own experience with this at her summer job, and her conclusions were echoed throughout [...]
I understand how you feel. I am also, *ahem* well endowed in my upper area and I struggle to find shirts that will pass as not “slutty” or “provocative.” I’ve often had my mom ask me to change my shirt before I go to school because she can see too much cleavage! But, if I didn’t wear shirts that showed a little then I would only be able to where t-shirts and turtlenecks!
****I want to first disclaimeratize this by saying that I understand it is difficult to act against society every waking moment and that it can hurt a lot and that I often don’t live by what I’m about to say. That doesn’t make me a hypocrite, I truly believe that what I’m saying is true, I am simply not strong enough to stand by my words all of the time.****
When you allow the way you think others will falsely perceive you by your appearance to effect your actions and make you change the way you look, what you are doing is strengthening their false notions that your appearance does indeed symbolize something “bad” about you. Every time you cover up your legs, or your cleavage, or don’t cut your hair too short, or do or don’t do anything else to the way you look that you wouldn’t have done if you weren’t afraid of someone thinking ill of you, you are only serving to strengthen their convictions that the way you look isn’t bad, and that, therefor the way you *don’t* look *is* bad. On the other hand, with every challenge to their notions of what is “bad” and what is “good” you act as a force of change, you *force* them to reexamine their false ideas and so *force* them to change their false ideas to something more true.
Don’t let society change you into something you aren’t, change society to be a more hospitable place for you.
Don’t live a lie, change the truth.
Wow. That was just me saying, “You must be the change you wish to see in the world.” Thanks Ghandi, I love you.
When I first entered college I finally started wearing tank tops. I didn’t wear them ever in high school because I was so big chested and I didn’t want all the attention and assumptions about what I was trying to “say” with my clothes. But finally when I got to college I decided I was sick of always being hot in the summer and people could just deal with my skin and my big boobs. I didn’t ask for them or buy them, it is just my body. I think all of us go through this at some time. Sad, but true.
i wear skirts nearly every day. in school i was reprimanded for looking like a slut. the reason dress codes are imposed on girls (and boys) is that certain clothes (shirts, shorts, muscle t-shirts if youre a boy) will “distract” members of the opposite sex. i dont know about the rest of you but when im in class, even if taylor lautner was in there shirtless, i would still pay attention. teenagers should be given some credit. we arent as hormone driven as everything thinks
I understand how you feel!
I work at a place where we sometimes have to run in the back of the store for a customer. My boss nicely told me one day that for my safety I shouldn’t wear flip flops and sneakers might work better. A situation like that, I understand changing your outfit. However this seems a little silly.
Recently I went on a mission trip to give service to the homeless. I was with a group of girls who were told could not wear short shorts. They had to be down to your knees. I have shorts that are APPROPRIATE, not “slutty”, and would have worked perfectly fine. However we were reprimanded and all of the girls were forced to buy shorts that boys would wear (that we would never wear again). What were our intentions there? Not to find cute boys! We were helping the homeless for Christ’s sake!
Keep writing Lilly, everyone is entitled to your opinion and if others disagree with you they should call up Rachel and ask if they can blog!