Bitchy January prompt: Anti-Feminist

I Like to Get Dressed Up. Am I Still a Feminist?

Wanting to look good doesn’t make you an anti-feminist, but judging others does.

I love dressing up. When I was a young child, dress-up was one of my favorite activities. I had a collection of my mom’s old clothes — dresses, skirts, blouses, high heels, jewelry. It provided me with hours of entertainment.

While I’m most comfortable in yoga pants and a hoodie today, I still love dressing up. I have a collection of dresses in my closet and love any opportunity to wear them. Summer is my favorite season, partly because it gives me an excuse to wear a sundress on a daily basis.

Here’s the problem: I’m also a feminist. And that’s my conundrum. Can I be a feminist and look pretty?

Who decided what a “feminist” should look like?

Why is it bad to be both a feminine and a feminist? Some of this mentality goes back to second wave feminism, when the term “bra burner” was used to label women’s rights activists.

Where did that term come from? In 1968, female activists protested the unrealistic standard of beauty placed on women at the Miss America pageant. They marched on the Atlantic City boardwalk, right outside the convention center where the pageant was held.

They had a “freedom trash can,” where they ceremoniously threw in objects representing women’s oppression, such as bras, girdles, and fake eyelashes. Roxane Gay details the event in Smithsonian:

The freedom trash can was a prominent feature, and the commentary about its role in the protest gave rise to one of the great misrepresentations of women’s liberation — the myth of ceremonial bra-burning. It was a compelling image: angry, unshaven feminists, their breasts free from constraint, setting fire to their bras as they dared to demand their own liberation.

Yet there was no fire. Somehow this moment in history got spun into women setting fire to their bras. Hence, the term “bra burner.”

All they were doing was protesting the objectification of women as merely objects of beauty.

And here we are, thanks to a misinterpretation of a second wave feminist protest, expected to be either feminine or feminist. But not both.

How am I allowed to dress as a feminist?

I’ve been a feminist since the 1990s, when I was in high school and third wave feminism was rising.

Those were the years of Anita Hill, The Vagina Monologues, and the Riot Grrrl movement. I loved the unapologetic force of these women behind third-wave feminism. These were my formative years and shaped who I am today.

But I still liked wearing dresses. It was the 90s, after all, and I wasn’t giving up my babydoll dresses.

I remember shopping for college clothes before going off to my freshman year of college. I had bought a trendy skirt and was excited to wear my new fall outfit at the beginning of the school year. I was going off to an East Coast liberal arts school and wanted to look like a mature college student.

I remember the first day I wore my hip new skirt. I saw my friend at the college center, and she took one look at me and, with an eye roll, said, “Why are you wearing a skirt?”

I was suddenly self-conscious. I had to explain myself. Why was I wearing a skirt?

Because I liked the way it made me feel. The same way I liked putting on my mom’s long, flowy dresses and beaded necklaces, I liked wearing a skirt to class. It made me feel good about myself like I was a real college student.

And that confidence was dashed immediately with that one comment.

Was I a bad feminist because I wore a skirt at my female-empowering college?

Then, I started to question my other actions. Was it okay that I shaved my legs? Could I wear makeup? And what about my other skirts — were they allowed?

As I progressed through my years in college, I became more comfortable with myself. I had formed a close group of friends and felt like I could be myself, whether that self was wearing a dress or sweats.

In fact, some of my favorite nights in college were the semi-formals, where I got to get out that fancy dress sitting in my closet, waiting for an occasion. My girlfriends and I all got dressed up and put on makeup. And guess what? We were all feminists. Because you can enjoy looking pretty and still be a feminist.

Eventually, I graduated and moved to New York City. There, I fully embraced dressing up. I was in a big city where everyone was more glammed up. I wore makeup. I wore form-fitting dresses. I liked looking good.

But I was still a feminist.

Dressing up doesn’t make you anti-feminist

Feminism doesn’t fit into perfectly designed packages. There’s no one mold for all of us.

Maybe we don’t shave our armpits and legs and get buzz cuts and wear loose-fitting jeans. Or maybe we groom ourselves and do our hair and wear dresses. Either style and everything in between can fit all of us.

It’s not what’s on the exterior that makes us feminist. It’s us choosing to look however we want that makes us feminist.

If I wear a dress because that’s what women are supposed to do, that’s anti-feminist. If I wear a certain outfit because my husband likes it, even though I don’t, that’s anti-feminist. If my employer makes me wear a skirt, suit and heels because I’m a woman…well, I’d quit. But that’s also anti-feminist.

If I wear a dress or a skirt or a blouse because I like the way it makes me feel, that’s not anti-feminist. That’s me making a choice. That’s feminist.

Back to the question, “Why are you wearing a skirt?” My answer should have been, “Why are you judging what I wear?” Because I realized that her response to my outfit was more anti-feminist than my choice to wear it.

It’s not anti-feminist to wear a skirt if you want to. In fact, it’s quite the opposite.

If I dress in a way that makes me feel confident, that’s feminism.