Althouse: What's not "classy" about fashion and the human body?

June 27, 2008

What's not "classy" about fashion and the human body?

And since when is feminism about staying "classy"? And are those mudflap silhouettes you've got there classy?

30 comments:

Irene said...: Uh-oh!; 6/27/08, 4:13 PM
Roman said...: Class comes in varing degrees. Many people have a lot of class, trouble is; most of it is third...; 6/27/08, 4:16 PM
Ryan said...: Feministing's huge banner ad for the new Ford Flex is really classy. It fits right in with the Feministing-branded "boob" shirts, posters, mugs, and totes.

Stay classy, Feministing!; 6/27/08, 4:17 PM
blake said...: Rule #1: It's different (and better!) when we do it.

Rule #2: Attack them for being non-serious. If they get serious, attack them for being off-topic.

(etc.); 6/27/08, 4:28 PM
Bissage said...: (1) [T]here is something simultaneously hilarious and disgusting about . . .

I read her post and think Ms. Marcotte did a good job of expressing her disgust but a rather poor job of expressing her mirthfulness. Letting other people know you’re happy is pretty easy so perhaps she simply misperceived her own emotions in the first place.

(2) That Feministing website would have probably given me a boner but my Windows Internet Explorer blocked the pop-up.

(3) It’s a funny insult to say two people have the right stuff for corporate television. It makes me wonder if Ms. Marcotte ever tried to launch a boycott against her college radio station because one of the shows played “commercial” music.

(4) She’s just jealous!; 6/27/08, 4:54 PM
rhhardin said...: It fits in with the right to bare arms.; 6/27/08, 4:54 PM
Ann Althouse said...: Bissage, that was hilarious (and disgusting!), but it's not Marcotte.; 6/27/08, 5:17 PM
dbp said...: Feministing has that earnest vibe you often get from lesser school newspapers. So it isn't a big surprise for them to be critical of anyone who is interested in fashion--YOU SHOULD BE DOING SOMETHING IMPORTANT! Serious people don't think about fashion.

Their excesive seriousness blinds them to two points:
1) Life is plenty long to spend time thinking and talking about any subject which interests you.
2)Besides, in this case fashion is pretty important. Does anybody think BHO would have the Democratic nomination in hand if Michelle weighed 300 lbs, had an unfortunate skin condition and dressed poorly? Maybe it shouldn't be so, but she matters and how she looks matters.; 6/27/08, 5:47 PM
Ann Althouse said...: As Robin and I agree: fashion is exactly as important (and sex-typed) as sports. Men can talk about sports without anyone spewing contempt. Why can't women talk about fashion? Think about it! And by the way, Virginia Woolf said exactly that in a "A Room of One's Own." But really politicized feminists don't even want to try to get their mind around that.; 6/27/08, 6:13 PM
Revenant said...: And are those mudflap silhouettes you've got there classy?

That obviously depends on whether or not you have any fantasy and/or heavy metal artwork on the side of your van.

An art major ought to know this stuff!; 6/27/08, 6:17 PM
ricpic said...: Is there a human being alive, male or female, who isn't concerned with self-presentation? The fact that many fail at it doesn't mean they're not concerned with it. Many have just given up. So I'd say that fashion is more important than sports.; 6/27/08, 6:28 PM
rhhardin said...: Is there a human being alive, male or female, who isn't concerned with self-presentation?

Telecommuters.; 6/27/08, 6:49 PM
Automatic_Wing said...: Althouse, how dare you demean the sacred dignity of Blogginheads?

You! A law professor!; 6/27/08, 7:30 PM
Chip Ahoy said...: Ha ha ha ha ha.

Wut? Men don't talk about fashion? Oh yes they do.; 6/27/08, 8:36 PM
Ron said...: I love how they call you "boob-shaming"! It sounds like a name you'd be given by Al Capp! Embrace the Suck!; 6/27/08, 8:41 PM
Ron said...: Fashion will become as important as sports when people wager millions (more? Oh, yeah!) on the outcome of events...And if it does, I'll pick shorter hemlines to cover the spread!(but just barely!); 6/27/08, 8:43 PM
Bissage said...: (1) Bissage, that was hilarious (and disgusting!), but it's not Marcotte.

(1)(a) Well, tan me hide when I die, Clyde!

(1)(b) You mean to tell me they don’t all look the same upside down?

(1)(b)(i) Was that sexist? Honestly! It’s getting hard for me to tell, anymore.

(1)(b)(ii) No. It probably wasn't because I stole that joke from the National Lampoon 1964 High School Yearbook parody, and they’d never do anything sexist!

(2) Jessica?!?!?!? Oh, my . . .

(3) OMIGOD! I am so embarrassed! Her last name is VOLERI?

(4) Oh, I am such a silly goose! So very, very silly . . . It's as if I were getting all excited about touching Rich Corinthian Leather.

(5) ®

(6) Was that sexist?

(7) God, I hope not.; 6/27/08, 9:33 PM
Ann Althouse said...: "Wut? Men don't talk about fashion? Oh yes they do."

I didn't say men don't talk about fashion any more than I said women don't talk about sports. I only said the subjects are equally sex-typed. The proportion of interest is the same.; 6/27/08, 10:55 PM
veni vidi vici said...: "feministing" sounds too much like "fisting" to carry much appeal beyond its base. not my cuppa, thanks.; 6/27/08, 11:01 PM
Freeman Hunt said...: Classy, you know, like this.; 6/28/08, 1:42 AM
Meade said...: "Ah my roommates... wearing my shirts"

not pictured: "I have a sexually transmitted disease"; 6/28/08, 7:51 AM
An Edjamikated Redneck said...: Freeman- About that picture;

i guess tat attitude explains why she is a bitter, unsatiated witch, doesn't it?

Yeah, I meant that other word, but really don't use it much.; 6/28/08, 7:57 AM
George M. Spencer said...: It's "klassy," not "classy."

Just because it's summer does not mean that we forget the formal rules of spelling, nor diction neither.; 6/28/08, 7:59 AM
knox said...: Those girls over there at feministing are nothing if not image-conscious.; 6/28/08, 8:01 AM
Bissage said...: You know, I don’t care much for politics.

The only reason I registered as a Republican was for the chicks.

But I’ve learned something today.

That tee-shirt goes a long way to explain why I never get invited to any of those happening Feministing sex parties.

Talk about irony!; 6/28/08, 8:29 AM
KCFleming said...: Ann Friedman, Editor at Feministing, who "survived her thoroughly Midwestern, devoutly Catholic upbringing and lived to call herself a committed feminist" -(gosh! must have been rough)-,came to my daughter's journalism class, ostensibly to talk about having a Real Job in journalism.

Instead, she talked about how much she was bored by and hated working for these corporate soulless old people.

She whined how much better it was to work on fun stuff like the blog, but she never made enough money doing that.

Funny, but no one seems to want to pay to read the kind of stuff that they slop on the plate over there. No one in my daughter's class had ever heard of the web site. One girl did ask how to spell the web address. Most were put off by the anti-job rant, especially the teacher. Hilarious.; 6/28/08, 8:58 AM
KCFleming said...: In Funky Chic, author Tom Wolfe wrote that many insights about a society are available chiefly through the study of its current fashion.

He noted, however, that there is a "fashion taboo" (an agreement to deny one follows a fashion at all) "common to people at every level of income and status today", and few have the courage to address the subject. Writers and academics who deign to study this are dismissed as 'trivial'

"...fashion is a code, a symbolic vocabulary that offers a subrational but instant and very brilliant illumination of the characters of individuals and even entire periods, especially periods of great turmoil."

Wolfe claims that fashion is not, as is conventionally claimed, "some storefront that one chooses, honestly or deceptively, to place between the outside world and his "real self", but rather that "every person's "real self', psyche, his soul is largely the product of fashion and other outside influences on his status"; 6/28/08, 9:42 AM
Junior Dynamite said...: I think it's ironic that the females of Feminiswhatever are talking about class. But hey. What ever makes you think you're relevant, I suppose.; 6/28/08, 12:18 PM
Sir Archy said...: To Professor Althouse.

Madam,

As the Ghost of a Gentleman, dead these 250 Years and more, you may imagine the changes of Fashion & Dress to which I have been witness. It should not surprise the attentive Reader that two Paths, well-trod by Scribblers of either Sex during these Centuries, have been the latest Fashions of Dress & Ornament; and Complaints about those who would sink their Dignity with Reflections upon such things.

If done in the proper Spirit, for an Author to enter into Red-heels, Top-knots, bushy Head-dresses, full-bottom'd Periwigs, or, even the Length of Ladies' Sleeves, would be a trivial yet harmless Occupation. The Dress of a famous Person seldom goes unremark'd, for the Publick would constantly have such News. The Writer of these petty Fripperies should not, however, overlook such depraved Sentiments amongst the Famous that give Birth to all those little Extravagancies which appear in their outward Dress & Behaviour. Foppish and fantastick Ornaments are only Indications of Vice, not criminal in themselves. Extinguish Vanity in the Mind, and you naturally retrench the little Superfiuities of Garniture and Equipage. The Blossoms will fall of themselves, when the Root that nourishes them is destroy'd. I confess, Madam, that this Age seems too far gone in Debauchery to have any Hope of Correction; and that the Publick must await new & better Examples of the Famous for their Improvement.

In the Case of Kings, Queens, their powerful Ministers & their Families, the Habits they wear are worthy of Notice, for they may give us an Inkling of Misrule. The Vice & Vanity of those who would be our Masters were a thousand times worse than the Fopperies of an Actor, or the Scandal of the afternoon deshabille of an Opera Singer. Should Sir Robert Walpole have come to Parliament as a Fop in a Bag, instead of his habitual full-bottom'd Wig, 'twould have sent the Town into a Tizzy, more than his being seen kissing Mrs. Skerritt in the Theatre. That the King's First Minister should change his Habit, and so his Mind, were more a Worry than he continue his Vice. Men desire nothing so much in a Ruler as Constancy & Steadfastness; and they begin to tremble at the first Signs of unaccount'd Vanity, shewing perhaps a weakening Mind.

By way of closing, Madam, I would only say that those who criticize you for noticing how Mrs. Obama were drest, should look to themselves first. They would appear in the Habits of Red Indians & Witches, for aught I see, fitter for a Masquerade than as Women of Taste & Discernment, or for any honest Employment as Authors.

Knowing that your Audience should never be disappoint'd in either your Habit or your Honesty,

I remain,

Madam,

Your humble & obt. Servant,

Sir Archy; 6/28/08, 7:05 PM
Moose said...: *sigh*

I dunno who Sir Archy is,but he lends a sense of class far above and beyond what this blog normally hosts.

Me included...; 6/28/08, 9:59 PM