" want to know how many of you who shun pink Princess images also
- Shave your legs
- Wear make up
- Wear perfume marketed to women
- Sniff at women who don't wear make up, don't shave or otherwise "Let themselves go"
- Choose a title on forms such as Ms or Miss or anything other than "Other"
- Partake in S&B threads about the appearance of women-specific clothing"
it's not about the clothes.
well, actually, in some respects it is - women have fought quite hard over the years to have freedom of dressing, too.
only a century ago, women who wore trousers were looked on very harshly.
you know what, even Amelia Bloomer and her cycling trousers were criticized because it meant that women would ride bicycles astride instead of a bike being developed to take her side saddle.
ie: they're not ladylike.
corsets were also a bind - even flappers wore corsets to maintain their "boyish" shape - it wasn't "oh, waistlines have dropped let's get rid of the corset.
no, a woman who didn't wear a corset was seen as a floozy and a hussy, if not a slut
and even better, someone invented a self-lacing corset (using elastic as the laces) and they were widely dissed because a woman could have an affair if she wore one because the OM wouldn't have to worry about lacing it the same way as her husband did in the morning! (see, under the rule of men, and if a woman didn't do what her husband wanted, the she must be doing it to have an affair or other such unladylike behaviours)
Paul Poiret designed the hobble dress in the 1910s - it was one of the first garments that went against the whole ethos of the corset and won.
his famous quote "i've freed the breast but shackled the legs!" (said with regret, for a change)
women were still wearing corsets proper throughout the first world war when they were working in the munitions factories.
women still had to fight for the right to vote after all the work they'd done in the war to keep the fighting going.
and they weren't allowed to wear trousers to work until the 2nd world war, and that was only because they fought hard to get it recognised that wearing skirts in factories and on farms was a bad idea safety wise.
shaving - armpits were first shaved in the 20s, when women wore those flapper dresses with no arms for the first time - it was seen as unladylike and uncooth to have personal hair showing, so they shaved them.
something else dictated to them by men.
- Shave your legs
- Wear make up
- Wear perfume marketed to women
- Sniff at women who don't wear make up, don't shave or otherwise "Let themselves go"
- Choose a title on forms such as Ms or Miss or anything other than "Other
I don't shave my legs
i don't wear makeup (except when I want to go out and then it's very heavy - I was a glam rocker and goth in my youth, and all the men also wore heavy makeup and looked good in it)
I don't wear perfume.
I am a Ms, not because I don't want people to know I'm a married/unmarried, but because I'm proud of the fact I am a woman, and therefore want people to address me as such.