When I first started to express my gender I tended to wear more “modest” clothes because I didn’t want to bring more attention to myself. This is something I learned early on— that what I wear has a direct correlation between how much I’m harassed. The more skin I show, the more that I fear for my life.
I began to use social media as a way to re-learn my autonomy, to wear the things that I couldn’t wear outside because of the ambient and pervasive fear of being assaulted. When I got this outfit I kept it at the back of the closet until I finally felt comfortable to wear it. I took a photo as an act of self-reclamation: the reason you don’t see bodies like mine is not because we aren’t here, but because you make it impossible for us to be in public.
At first when I read this comment I felt deflated: this is one of the only spaces where I have some semblance of control and you’re going to take that, too? Then I remembered the power of being an artist: I can reclaim everything that seeks to erase me.
Patriarchy makes our appearance the problem, never their criteria and policing of it. It redirects responsibility on us to make ourselves palatable and not on them to stop consuming us like we are food. It foregrounds our appearances as a deliberate strategy to disappear the systems of discrimination. Patriarchal beauty is not just about what we look like, it’s about how we are supposed to act.
This man professes to be concerned about my appearance, but really he is telling me what I am allowed to do. Patriarchal beauty instructs us: how we should allocate our time, what and where we are allowed to go, work, say, do. It’s so insidious because it disguises itself as aesthetic, when it’s actually about action. What we look like is MADE to determine our actions. not today! I am totally uninterested in sacrificing my mobility, my integrity, my expression (let alone my fashion darling!) for cis male validation. If that means I am insulted for it, so be it. I would rather have my dignity than your approval. (👁 by @corinneelyseo )
