All over the world, there are so many
magazine articles and books telling women what to do, how to be and not to be,
in order to attract or please men. There are far fewer guides for men about
pleasing women” (Adichie, p. 10).
The clothes that are being designed for
women shopping in the downtown urban spaces these days are extremely generic
hip hop/ diva/ passa passa dance wear and the pricing and styles are geared
towards a particular size shape and class. There is an internal debate going on
within on how revealing women should get with their bodies. Too revealing on a
regular basis could be empowering as there is celebration of the female form
and banishing of the idea of a woman as an object for sexual conquest while
being covered can also convey that message but from the perspective that a
woman does not need to use her body to get what she wants. Black and brown
bodies are hypersexualised and fetishized by persons with power attributed to
gender, race and/or class and this understood sexualisation of the black and
brown female form is further compounded by the styles of the clothing provided
for those of lower income brackets. In terms of the urban as a reflection of society
it would seem that the lower class women’s fashion is being directed by the
proponents of gender based oppression to encourage a damning perception of the
lower class women so as to continue the status quo.
References
Adichie, C. 2012.
TEDxEuston (transcript) ‘We should all be Feminists’. Vialouge.
Why Adichie again?
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