Women and clothes have been literally tied to each other for hundreds of years. It is a vague belief that is deeply enrooted in our heads. It is something that, no matter how hard we try to shake off, is going to come back over and over again. In short, it is a product of education which is still being taught in schools despite humanity having entered the era of feminism. But where did it all began? Since the concept has been planted in our heads for so many centuries, how can we be sure what it was that started everything? Before we move on, it is important that you understand this is a subject of both controversy and great interest. There could be a dozen of interpretations as to how this all started, but what we are going to explain here has the purpose of shedding some light upon the matter. Some people might agree with these points of view while others not. The point is that it all has its roots in social and psychological factors that have been around since the dawn of man.
It All Began with Property
Property lies at the base of all human power, however you perceive it. The fact that you own something gives you power over it (and sometimes it gives you power over others as well). The first, and perhaps most important, truth about the correlation between clothes and women is not that they were supposed to wear them, but that they were supposed not to. Starting with ancient times, women have always had the difficulty of having to deal with the notion that they are the weaker sex. This perception also “empowered” men to consider women as property and property can sometimes be toyed with as you please. This is why there were many cultures in which women, slaves in particular, were not supposed to wear clothes at all so that their bodies could please and excite men during certain events. Things started to change a bit when the variable known as “status” was added to the game. Clothes have always been a status indicator and, naturally, the better a woman was dressed the higher the status. Yet status alone was not powerful enough to eliminate the notion of property. You can even witness this mentality today when you see supposedly powerful men dominating a conversation during dinner and the pretty, well-dressed women are there only to smile and not interfere with “men’s business”. But coming back to ancient times, the woman who appeared with a man was supposed to be as well-dressed as possible to indicate that that man was wealthy and that he was taking good care of her. As you can see, her clothes were still about him and not her, yet this was one of the first key concepts that related clothes and women: women needed to be dressed nicely, they needed to have good-looking clothes and they needed to be pretty. The last idea that you need to remember about this chapter is that it’s all about a social need: men needed women to be well-dressed, thus society needed women to be well-dressed. The only thing is that, back in ancient times, society was, in fact, made out of men and their “property”, not men and women.
The Slow, But Steady Emancipation of Women and the Clothes They Wore
So it was practically established that women had to be well-dressed, what then? It took centuries for women to tighten their grip and emerge from the “property” section. Just so you do not interpret this in the wrong way, we will make a brief observation about education. People are culturally educated into a series of beliefs and practices: boys wear blue clothes when they are young while girls wear pink clothes, men do things for the house while women cook and clean and the fact that men were owners of their own lives and women were just bypassers through life was also “educated” through culture. Women needed to tighten their grip in many situations in order to emerge from this cultural belief. It’s not at all easy. It was never easy for Simone de Beauvoir to be a female philosopher, Rosa Parks went through hell for not accepting to give up a seat, Elizabeth Smith Miller had a pretty hard time herself for being the first woman who wore pants and Coco Chanel emerged from an orphan who had been abandoned by her father into a timeless fashion icon. It took centuries for women to stop being property. Having this belief shattered, clothes adopted a new meaning. The social need was still there, but everything shifted from what men wanted women to wear to what women wanted themselves to wear. They did not need to be beautiful and well-dressed for men, they needed to be beautiful and attractive for themselves. This changed everything about women and clothes. Perhaps the best way in which this is noticeable is by studying how swimwear evolved between the 1800s and the 1950s, when women gradually started uncovering their bodies on the beach and exposing the beauty that they kept hidden for so many years. This is also a crucial moment in which we can observe how much power men have lost when it comes to women’s decisions about what to wear on the beach. The feeling of possession still lingers in men. This is why they look in a certain way when they see someone looking at you on the beach or when they say that “maybe you should cover yourself”. It’s an understandable feeling and, of course, couples talk about these things freely nowadays. Still, it is important that we notice how much things have changed and come to understand two very important aspects: the fact that women have gone through a lot to earn their own reasons to wear what they want and the fact that men were, in time, very understanding of our needs.
The Modern Correlation
If you are ever going to talk to anybody about clothes and women nowadays, you will notice that the mentality has shifted entirely. People do not even think about “property” anymore (but if they do we gladly recommend that you run away). Clothes the general collective’s mind have two very specific purposes: they transform the body and they are a means of communication. In women’s case, clothes do nothing more than communicate how they feel and accentuate their graceful bodies. There are still some misconceptions running around, the one that women have the best tastes when it comes to fashion, for instance (ok fine, it’s not a misconception, it’s the truth, but it’s always nice to make men feel like they know what they are doing), but the fact is that anybody can have great tastes as long as they do a little bit of research. The modern correlation exists because of how much attention women actually give to fashion. It’s only natural; we are experts in beauty (we have been… well, since the dawn of humanity) and it is always a pleasure play with and combine all sorts of materials, colors and styles. It’s also about the fact that we are secretly dominating the world. Let’s face it: when God created men and women he had a very serious talk with the man. “Look, you want to be smart? Fine. You want to be meticulous? Fine. Want to have money and rule the world? Fine. But I’ll make a woman who will be smarter, more meticulous and whom you will never be able to take your eyes off. Deal with it.” Seems accurate, doesn’t it? After all, men can rule the world all they want. If the world stops spinning because you walked past him you know exactly who is, in fact, ruling the world. In the end it all comes down to confidence. It is as though clothes give women some super confidence that we all love to witness. It’s magical! And there is nothing more beautiful in the world than a woman with a gracious, well-adorned body and an uplifting spirit.
So you see, this clothes-women association has been around for ages and it only seems natural for us to make it. The only important thing that we need to remember is that the significance that we used to give it hundreds of years ago is completely different compared to the contemporary significance. Women have come a really long way from being perceived as “nicely dressed for him” to “exquisitely elegant for themselves”. It was a matter of shifting priorities: no more property, no more being bossed around by men and no more hiding their natural selves. Women and clothes have changed history and they have done it for the better. We do not know where we will go on from here, but there is one certainty that is both beautiful and satisfying: path that has been walked until now has led to freedom and happiness. Suffice it to say that we are on the right track.