WEAPONIZED FASHION:

the ways clothes oppress

Clothing has often been used as a tool to reinforce gender roles: it is used to make assumptions about a person’s behavior, their intelligence, or their love for their husband though the clothes they’re wearing. Catherine Bliss asks, in her journal article What is she wearing? Gender division and the dilemmas of female agency in television news, “ [Do] women have to play down their femininity to be taken seriously?”. Under the guise of professionalism, patriarchal businesses often expect women to dress in skirt suits and blouses that mimic traditionally masculine work attire while simultaneously keeping their sexuality apparent. Similarly and conversely, women are expected to dress more effeminate when in roles where they are taken less seriously; such as the position of First Lady as seen by the treatment of Hillary Clinton’s wardrobe in the 1980s.