“We’re all born naked and the rest is drag.”
– RuPaul
Our world’s history with clothing, fashion, and modesty is quite an interesting one. Clothing and body adornment (piercings, tattoos, head dresses, etc) convey so much meaning, not only about our individual selves but also about our collective culture. Which clothing a society deems appropriate signals that society’s values and power structure. Due to the symbolic weight fashion carries, it has often been used throughout history as both a tool of liberation and of oppression.
For a very long time, clothing has been used as a way of controlling people. We are constantly bombarded with ideas from institutions, family, and friends, about what’s “appropriate”, what’s “trendy”, what’s “classy”, what’s “classless”, and on and on and on. Clothing as a tool of control is especially relevant for marginalized and oppressed groups in society as a way to keep them being seen as different, wrong, or simply an “other”. Later we’ll touch on the queer community but for now we’re focusing on gender.
There is a deep ideology in Western societies that we are “above” and not apart of nature. We are supposed to rule over it, not live in harmony with it. What we think makes us above it all is our consciousness and ability to reason, essentially our mental and spiritual capacities. Our bodies and the natural tendencies our bodies carry are viewed more as part of “nature” rather than what we include in the special divineness of humans category. Also did I mention that embedded in this ideology is the idea that women people of color, people with disabilites are included in the nature category. So when in this case “I”, meant white able-bodied, straight, men.