Did I tell you we planned (very last minute) for a Body Acceptance Swimming session at this year’s Wiscon? If I didn’t, we did. It was superb. A variety of bodies, all in the water, in a range of styles, with a bunch of different activity levels. There were one pieces (with and without skirts) and tankinis. There were straight-up fatty fatty bikinis. There were board shorts and tank tops. The styles of suit were as varied as the bodies in them. There was swimming, splashing, lounging, etc.
My own suit was a two piece. Bright hot pink boyshort bottoms with ruching on the side that tied with bows and a black and white polka-dotted halter top. I’d pinned my hair up to go with the dress I was wearing earlier and I had on bright red lipstick that was also a left over from my little foray into dressing up.
It’s important, for context, to note that I didn’t plan to go to the pool with my hair up and my lipstick on. It just happened that way. And when packing I grabbed the cute bathing suit instead of the practical one because, hey, I didn’t anticipate swimming in a practical sense. (I was right about that – I spent most of the session in the hot tub because omfg hot tub.)
So that sets the scene, I suppose, into which Hack Gender and gender presentation emerged as topics. I’ve been thinking about it pretty much ever since, especially the explicit statement that I was the most femme person in the pool at the moment. *laugh*
I identify as cisgendered. If you are not familiar with the term, it means that my gender identity and my biological sex are the same, that I am comfortable with the gender I was assigned at birth. It is a companion – a comparative term – to transgender that provides a descriptor for non-trans folks instead of just leaving non-trans as an alienating and assumptive default.
But issues of gender presentation are more nuanced than just “are you a girl or a boy?” even among the cisgendered. It’s when we’re forced into one of two arbitrary expressions, after all, that we’re the most limited. So I tend to think of orientation and presentation as two entirely different (though related) categories for discussion. Even so, I’ve not ever been particularly articulate when discussing my own gender presentation.
I genuinely like pretty things. “Pretty” has a pretty wide definition (and certainly no one owes it to anyone else) but I like hot pink and I like ruffles and I like sparkly rhinestones. I like makeup and shoes and fashion that is more excessive and decadent than the occasion calls for. I didn’t think twice about going down to the pool with my hair up and my lipstick on because I wasn’t going with the intention of swimming much (I didn’t want to get my hair wet) and, well, I often just forget that I have the red lipstick on. *laugh* But when I picked that swimsuit out, initially, for last year’s Convergence, I wanted the Gidget-iest swimsuit I could find and that just about did the damn trick. There were other suits, plenty of other suits I could have picked up and there were other suits I could have packed because I have a tidy little stack of swimwear at this point.
It might be time to admit that, yes, really, I am quite girly. Some might even say femme.
This shouldn’t be a hard thing to admit; it’s really kind of a no-brainer when I think about the way I pack for out-of-town trips (always viewed as opportunities to dress up) or my penchant for trying on formalwear for fun. But here’s the thing: it’s all complicated by growing up fat.
I was, it should be noted, thin when I was very young. It wasn’t until I was seven years old that I fattened up one summer and the die was cast. I don’t remember much about my preferences as a young child. I have a kindergarten school photo of me in a red Izod polo shirt (you can’t see the khakis but I know they’re there). I do not think I picked out that outfit. It’s probable, given the outfits I picked out to start other school years when I had the chance (almost always involving skirts and/or hats) that I was into frilly things even then.
But the fat girl-child is, alas, often the desexualized girl-child and I don’t mean that in a creepy way – maybe it’s the de-gendered girl-child? It’s the way you don’t get the frilly dresses, you don’t get the makeup, you don’t get the social assumptions that assume you’re going to be boy-crazy and think about clothes all the time.
There’s a freedom to that, certainly, but as with anything else that determines identity for you instead of helping you develop it on your own for yourself, it’s vastly restricting. Because I wasn’t really allowed to be a girl. Nothing explicit, really, just…. It wasn’t even an option, really, except in fits and starts. I wore a lot of jeans and I ran around with the boys in my neighborhood because the girls were mean. I was into the metal music that the boys let me listen to instead of the New Kids on the Block and I rode my bike and largely wasn’t even aware that I was being barred from femininity.
To be fair, none of it seems deliberate. I had that whole defense mechanism in place really quickly and there were those back-to-school skirt outfits. But I was teased when I actually wore them and it was made pretty clear to me that fat girls didn’t get to be pretty. Putting a dress on a fat girl was like putting a dress on a pig. That’s the crux of things, I think, when I consider my own gender presentation and my own discomfort with certain kinds of femme style (for myself, not for others).
I am not entirely certain I will ever be comfortable with myself when I try to achieve elegance, for example. I’m not a satin and pearls kind of person, I say when questioned – but that leaves open the question of what kind of person IS a satin and pearls kind of person. Why not me? I am comfortable with over-the-top performance, with costume, with theatrics. I am not comfortable with “understated.”
This isn’t a failing, you understand. It simply is the way it is, an underpinning of my style as it has evolved up until today. I don’t wear skirts every day – the realities of my life mean I am still more comfortable reaching for pants when I’m getting ready for work unless it’s something I know, something I’ve planned, something I coordinate down to my accessories. Basically, I don’t give myself enough time in the morning for performing femme, y’all. I perform, instead, awkward but mostly comfy business casual and it feels like a costume but I am mostly okay with that.
But it’s one reason why I’ve never embraced femme (much less high femme) as a label for myself. I’m not consistent and I’d rather not be accused of being a fraud. I’m still fat, you see – and I can still hear the echoes of all of that de-gendering.
The last night of Wiscon, many of my friends and I dressed up. There were so many representations of fancy – it was amazing. There was a photobooth, which was actually a professional photographer, to take pictures of anyone who wanted one and my friends and I all planned in advance to take advantage of it. There was retro 50s glam, right down to the white gloves. And a one-shouldered evening gown with a super dramatic sleeve. There was a ruffle-trimmed wrap dress and makeup. I wore a bandage dress from Torrid and fishnets and zipper boots and makeup and hair up and flower in hair and.…
And, yeah, it was very much with the performative femme and it was awesome. Also, I felt like I should be in Hawaii but I think that was the hair flower talking. It makes me think I am, perhaps, a reluctant femme – not because I have no desire to participate in the deliberateness of the identity but simply because I am not sure I am very good at it. And I wonder how much of that uncertainty rests with my fat body, how that intersection of body and culture has itself limited my options for defining and participating in my own gender presentation. We’ve talked, at some length, about how lack of clothing options for fatties, especially above a certain size, limits self-expression, denies fatties the ability to define themselves and control their presentation; this is true for issues of gender presentation as well.
At the end of the day, I’m left with knowing that I polished my nails before going to bed last night. Not out of any sense of cultural obligation or inherent feminine imperative. I did it because it’s pretty and I like it and I want to have green fingernails. Is that part of performing femme? Maybe it is for me, for my fat body, at least until I have the chance to dress up again.
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I think I know the feeling. I think it started for me in the fourth grade. I, as an eleven-year-old, had already gotten the message that pretty clothes are for prettier (i.e., thinner) girls than I am. This is a message that I still carry with me to this day, and it really doesn’t help that I went to a church that was really big on MODESTY! (Yes, I do differentiate between “modesty” and “MODESTY!”, namely, the way they’re presented. Wearing non-revealing clothing is, in and of itself, a morally neutral decision, but that’s a whole other rant), and so was encouraged to be as unsexual as possible.
So I got the dual messages that not only was I supposed to be as unsexual as possible so as to please God, I also learned that no one would want to see a fat girl in a miniskirt and heels, lest I strike oil or some such nonsense like that.
It took me years to realize that I was okay. That I could wear those cute things if I very well wanted to. That it wasn’t about deserving cute things. And as long as I could afford it, it didn’t matter what anyone thought but myself.
a miniskirt and heels, lest I strike oil or some such nonsense like that.
I have never heard that one before so when I saw your comment, I laughed and laughed and laughed because OMFG, how ridiculous is that?And yet I know it would have hurt me when I was younger. Man.
But yes: it isn’t about DESERVING to wear cute things. Everyone deserves to wear what they want, what helps them express themselves, what makes them feel good.
Oh, yes. I got made fun of for wearing heels because of the “You’re so fat, you strike oil wherever you go” nonsense.
Even if it was true, then I’d be crazy-rich and thus could afford to buy whatever I damn well pleased.
But yes: it isn’t about DESERVING to wear cute things. Everyone deserves to wear what they want, what helps them express themselves, what makes them feel good.
Yes. This. And MODESTY!! needs to go into a corner and stay there. (modesty in and of itself is fine, “MODESTY!!” is crap. Indeed, there is a difference between the two concepts….).
I’ve been thinking about this lately in terms of my personal style. I was out shopping with a good friend of mine who is thin and loves lacey-sparkly-frou-frou-CUTESTUFF!, and we were laughing about how incredibly opposite our tastes in fashion are. I tend toward solid colors, and plain-ness in clothing (but huge chunky pieces of jewelry, steampunk watch necklace ftw!). There are lots of reasons for my personal choices (and what a minefield that is), but she got all suddenly-thoughtful on me and said, “Do you think one of the reasons you don’t like fancy stuff is because you were taught to hate your body, not to celebrate it with decorative, feminine clothing?”
…YAH. I do believe so. After I graduated from high school I got rid of a mountain of navy and heather-gray t-shirts that comprised my “body shame” uniform. The idea was that y’just don’t put pretty things on an ugly body.
Screw that, obviously.
Screw that, obviously.
WORD.
I spent most of my childhood hanging out with the boys too. Part of that stemmed from being the only female student in my grade level throughout elementary school (I went to a small school). Part of it was the torture that my female cousin, one year behind me, would inflict on me for her own pleasure. But when I got to middle school and everything was about the outside appearance, I think I subconsciously knew that I wasn’t in the pretty category.
I’ve always viewed myself as a plain person. Not ugly, but just average. Plain. I’ve never been a fan of dresses or skirts, although I own a few today. I would make excuses like I dont want to be bothered or its too much of a hassle. But now that you’ve mentioned it, I think its something deeper.
Even now, as a 31 yr old adult, I dont see myself as pretty. When I go to dress up for an evening, I always reach for my black slacks. I prefer feminine things like ruffles and pink and stuff. But its like I don’t want to be too girly.
Hmm. Some things to think about today. Thanks for posting this.
“I’ve always viewed myself as a plain person. Not ugly, but just average. Plain. I’ve never been a fan of dresses or skirts, although I own a few today. I would make excuses like I dont want to be bothered or its too much of a hassle. But now that you’ve mentioned it, I think its something deeper.”
I think I’ve felt the same thing. Part of it was probably “hanging out with the boys” and not getting into that whole game of trying to make myself pretty to attract the boys. (They came anyway.
) But I used to compare myself to girls around me and not feel pretty. In the good times of my life I would wear sparkly and rainbow and form-fitting things anyway.
But maybe that’s why movies/books like Jane Eyre appealed to me. Or Beauty and the Beast.
For me, I was also in the outcast-nerd category, so even if I had tried to fit in with the cool kids, I probably wouldn’t have succeeded. (They wore such ugly clothes in 8th grade anyway.) So I didn’t try, and I’m glad I didn’t.
Oh, I’m so glad you said this! It’s something I’ve been thinking about for years but I can never fully complete the thought – growing up there was such a “don’t try to look pretty, you will fail” mindset that maybe goes along with the not-so-hidden secret of fatness – like hiding from the subject of size as if at any second people around will realize, oh hey, she’s fat! (um, they knew) And then that must go with the don’t-draw-attention-to-yourself/take-up-too-much-space feeling, ugh. So much dread and fear in growing up fat! So much shame!
My questionable femme-ishness has always been an interesting concept for me also because I am a lesbian. And I think about being nine years old and dressing in boyish clothes and I want to stand up and point out that I didn’t dress this way because of my gayness, my gayness is filled with dresses and pink ruffled purses. I dressed that way because I had to figure out how to present as “cool” (in a 1988 sense, natch) and I was de-facto barred from partaking in “girly” cool which involved things not in my size and the understanding I couldn’t pull them off, SOMEHOW. Seriously, I wore Nike Air Pumps. The boys were all jealous, which I liked, but it was an uncomfortable representation of my identity.
[...] I was de-facto barred from partaking in “girly” cool which involved things not in my size and the understanding I couldn’t pull them off, SOMEHOW.
THIS. I couldn’t do “girly” cool because I would just end up as a fat caricature of “girly” cool, and I couldn’t go totally “boy” cool because I was a GIRL, but I wanted to fit in with the boys because they had video games and I wanted to fit in with the girls because I was one, so, WHAT TO DO.
I love this! (And I loved meeting/talking with you this weekend!)
Really excited to see you talk about complexities in gender even while cis. It’s something I’m doing a lot of thinking about right now and WisCon provided me a wonderful opportunity to play with my butch and femme sides more creatively than I usually do. I was going to say a lot more here, but wait, I’ll make my own gender hack post about it!
Also love the idea of doing the girly things because you LIKE them and not out of cultural obligation. That was one thing I appreciated about the makeup makeup party party – it was nice to get to play with the stuff but not in a “omG let’s make sure we get this all perfect the way society wants us to” but also not in a “let’s just be silly about it” way. It was just fun!
This somehow reminds me of growing up and having numerous talks with my Mom about how to sit while wearing a skirt. As a kid I was fat enough that pressing my knees together could be rather uncomfortable. I could sit such that my thighs were touching but that wouldn’t necessarily mean my knees were touching. This somehow meant I was indecent. So, I tried crossing my legs to preserve my modesty and my comfort. Then I learned that according to my Mom only sluts crossed their legs. The women on Good Morning America are sluts I wondered? I wasn’t brave enough to have that conversation so
I gave up on wearing skirts.
It didn’t stop the conversations about how I sat but it did lessen them.
Now, in my mid-thirties I’m still self-conscious about how I sit down but I’m starting to wear skirts again. I like them. And not only the calf length skirts my Mom would let me wear occasionally because I’d have to try to flash someone wearing one of those but fun above the knee skirts I feel sexy in.
I’m even learning about hair and makeup because I want to. I’m turning into a girly girl and I love it. I don’t blend in as well but that’s starting to be okay. I even have some confidence that I’m getting looks for positive reasons now.
The rule I know is that good girls cross at the ankle and naughty girls cross at the knee. I do both
I’ve heard that rule too and I do cross at the ankle (and been praised for that
) but I only do it because my thighs are too fat for me to comfortably cross at the knee.
So I got the dual messages that not only was I supposed to be as unsexual as possible so as to please God, I also learned that no one would want to see a fat girl in a miniskirt and heels, lest I strike oil or some such nonsense like that.
LOL at striking oil. That took me a minute to get.
My (religious) high school had a strict dress code, but it was vague on how short too short was. The vice principal said out and out that a fat girl would be sent home to change, where a skinny girl might not, because “no one wants to see that.” Niiiice.
See also the commentary on how Ashley Graham’s Lane Bryant ad is more risque than Victoria’s Secret’s “Naked” ads because “her breasts are bigger so there’s more flesh”.
I didn’t start wearing short dresses or short shorts until I was over 30. I thought I was too fat to wear them before. I needed my husband to encourage me to show off my body. I’m now 46 and I love wearing short shorts, miniskirts and bikinis on the beach. If someone doesn’t like what they see, they don’t have to look.
I feel sexy and my man thinks I’m sexy. He says that I look great in everything. You got to love the guy.
I’m not a satin kind of person only because I am a hugely flaky and klutzy person and I ruin all my clothes unless they’re oxy-clean-able. I consider myself as claiming the best of both worlds–I lovelovelove to dress up and feel pretty and go to fancy places and drink wine, but I am also SO down with spending a week riding ponies in the woods and not showering and eating canned food and building my own fires. Cars? AWESOME. Shoes? YES PLZ. Being me kind of rocks. I’ve never recognized anything as being too boyish or too girly for me. If I like it, I’m there.
p.s. WHAT NO BATHING SUIT PICS?? I have bathing suit lust. Being tall and fat means that my suits cost XTREME lots because I need plus-size AND long-torso or I totally flash the world, and thus I own two, both black, both boring, and neither really fits as well as I’d like. Sigh.
Not to thread-jack, but as a super-tall fat girl, I haven’t been swimming in years due to lack of bathing suits which pull up high enough to cover my tits. What company makes them?
Land’s End will do Amazonian bathing suits for us, but I CANNOT SPEND over a hundred dollars on a suit. But I am also addicted to swimming, so giving that up is unthinkable.
You could try the solution we had to go with for my neice… a two piece. One of those that look like one piece, but has a bit more give.
pics, or it didn’t happen
I had a friend comment once on my dress up clothes. She said they were dowdy and not at all what she thought of as me. I agreed, but pointed out the lack of choice in my size. Her eyes grew big and then she started to cry.
That about sums up my continued feelings.
I buy what fits me, and it is often dowdy and plain and it often comes from a men’s clothing store.
I don’t derive much of my (perceived) femininity from my outward appearance. But let me think about this some more and get back to you.
Thanks, as ever, for talking about this.
I wasn’t a fat kid and I’m not all that fat now (size 14 at 5′ 5″). Yet I am terrified of performing the femme because I feel unpretty. I can’t even fix my hair (really – I literally tie it up or put a million pins in it to keep it up) and red lipstick? I love it but I put it on but it comes right off!
I don’t know what it takes to gain the confidence to begin claiming the femme, but whatever it is I don’t have it.
Thanks for this post as it’s One Hundred Times Awesome. It’s obviously hitting home for many and I’m sure it will for many more.
On a personal note, you may feel unsure about your claims on the glamorous look look but I for one admire you and find you so much more pulled-together and femme, it would be a dream if I had what you had. I am just sounding more and more pathetic so I’ll stop now.
*laughs* little did I know my little comment would spark such an essay.
Thank you for writing it. It made me cry. I totally and completely understand what you are talking about re childhood and femininity. Sometimes, I have wondered if I went down the butch road just because I wanted to be invisible so the other kids wouldn’t pick on me so much. Boys never really had that problem, even when they were fat.
oh goodness, yes. de-sexualising the fat girl. that is my life right now, right down the the actual disgusted look I got when I mentioned I thought Troy was a very “scenic” film.
Oh yes this is so exactly sad and right:
It makes me think I am, perhaps, a reluctant femme – not because I have no desire to participate in the deliberateness of the identity but simply because I am not sure I am very good at it. And I wonder how much of that uncertainty rests with my fat body, how that intersection of body and culture has itself limited my options for defining and participating in my own gender presentation.
I have this desire and wish to be, and also secret belief that I am actually, pretty or even beautiful. I worry I’m not very good at it, and like Cinderella, my dress will be ripped apart and I’ll be prevented from going to the ball. (Thank heavens for the fat fairy godmother). Also, I feel that sick sad feeling when I read with recognition Putting a dress on a fat girl was like putting a dress on a pig.
I see people cis- and trans-gendered, who I think are beautiful and handsome and pretty. I find the awareness and wink of artfully done artifice far more real than “artificial” fitting-the-mold-type drag. At this point I really am able to see women and men of all sizes — not a pendulum-swing away from the “slender norm” but beauty in the luminosity of human expression.
I love to dress up, as you said, in a way that “is more excessive and decadent than the occasion calls for.” Wearing a pink polka-dotted bikini (and even having pictures taken in it) would be the bravest thing I can imagine doing. And most thrilling.
There is nothing cooler than you being you in the fullest expression of that (the same is true for me and anyone else). Femme is no more real or fake than anything else out there.
Wow. It really struck me… the whole thing about having to plan an outfit if it’s different from what one normally wears. I have a number of dresses, but I can’t simply put them on like I can jeans or shorts, I have to think the night before, lay out my earrings, my shoes… I wish I could just put on the dress and twirl around and say “TA-FRIGGIN-DA!” but I can’t, it doesn’t feel right, even though I love wearing dresses. It just doesn’t feel right.
I’m not sure I’ve ever gotten the message that, as a fat woman, I’m not allowed to try to look pretty. I do use the word try though, because I have gotten the message that I won’t succeed. However, what I am being told, over and over again, is that fat women are, and should therefore dress, soft and romantic. Soft and romantic are not traits people who know me first think of when they think of me, and yet that is what I have been wearing for a long time. It can really mess with you, not being able to control your presentation to the world. This is why discovering online shopping has been like a personal revolution for me. Even if I regularly do have to pay ridiculous amounts on shipping, at least I now have clothes which are not flowy and soft.
I should probbly have mentioned that I live in Norway, where shopping for fatties is severely limited (Americans, I laugh at your complaints), and companies overcharge to ship to.
Good GOD Marianne, have you been reading my diaries?
This matches very closely my own experiences growing up about not being allowed to be “pretty” because I was fat, and my tastes now. I am finding as I get older, and more confident, I love all the frills and furbelows (WTF is a furbelow anyway? I know where I’ve got fur below.) and performance of dressing up. I love colour and movement and texture and bling and femme. I love that nightly planning of tomorrows outfit. It makes me grumpy if I have to have a day without gussying myself up.
It’s great fun and totally liberating to do as well.
I have NO IDEA what a furbelow is but now I really really want to know, or at least I will once I stop laughing. <3
It’s liberating when we get to do it on our own terms, for our own reasons, isn’t it?
According to Wikipedia, and you know I just HAD to look the damn thing up, a furbelow is:
In sewing and dressmaking, a ruffle, frill, or furbelow is a strip of fabric, lace or ribbon tightly gathered or pleated on one edge and applied to a garment, bedding, curtain or other textile as a form of trimming.
Bit disappointing really.
My friend Di and I were discussing this post tonight and we decided that our new favourite word is “frippery”.
I LOVE FRIPPERIES!!
I often dress in a sexy way – as a 40+ fat woman this is new. when I was fat – cover it up; when thin -sex it up.
Now that I have outed myself as a fatty, and am interested in subverting the paradigm, it’s all cleavage and skirts and black eyeliner.
I am about 20 years “too late” according to popular media, but when people look at me oddly or make mooing sounds (or worse, call me a fat whore) all I can say to myself is, I do kinda look like a fat whore – thanks for noticing I am subverting the proscribed margins of society – must be doing something right.
all I can say to myself is, I do kinda look like a fat whore – thanks for noticing I am subverting the proscribed margins of society – must be doing something right.
I really, really, really love this perspective and positive spin on what is usually an insult. Both for the sake of fatties and for the sake of sex workers who deserve some damn respect too, you know?
@joojooluv
I’m loving your attitude!
For the past year or so I’ve openly identified as femme (cisgendered, queer/questioning)not because I’ve had the ability or time to dress myself in the gender presentation that I want (although lately that’s become so much easier), but because I do the makeup thing every day and when I talk my dialogue is fuschia. Also, I’m in high school and no one who doesn’t know me knows what femme means. So I have time to get a wardrobe before the world at large notices.
But before that, even when I gravitated towards the clothes that were frilly or lacy or bright, I bought navy and beige on the annual school-shopping trip. And then never wore those clothes and instead wore my 4 colorful shirts to rags. And I was thinner then, but I conciously chose clothing that would match my school’s paint scheme. Because I was ugly, because I got teased a lot when I was small.
And then I found you and Kate Harding and looked like an Old West cancan dancer or brothel owner at prom. So, thanks, I’m happier now, but y’all have ruined my taste. Seriously.
That sounds like the kind of ruining I can get behind – and the kind of prom outfit I’d have been a million times happier in at my own prom. *grin*
I made it! Because I am amazing. And it was for my Grad Project, which was on debunking the obesity epidemic.
Basically, I don’t give myself enough time in the morning for performing femme, y’all. I perform, instead, awkward but mostly comfy business casual and it feels like a costume but I am mostly okay with that.
Are you me?
I have lived my entire life on the femme end of the performance spectrum, despite society’s best efforts to limit my options as I got fatter. I did hit a rough patch in 8th grade when I was a size 18 where I spent that winter in sweatshirts from the men’s department. It was 1993, and it was a perfect storm of things that went wrong.
1. I lived in a small town with only a Cato and Wal-Mart for local options.
2. It was 1993, so plus sized clothing was still not much more than 2-piece sets with puff paint, appliques, and cat faces.
3. It was a freakishly cold winter for Louisiana. We had an ice storm IN APRIL and lost power for 2 days.
These days, my lack of femme performativity is the result of time constraints, budget constraints, office politics, and a limited social life.
1993 is pretty indistinct in my mind. I think it was predominantly jeans and tshirts. I started my junior year so I only had a couple of classes at the high school and spent most of my time at the community college doing dual enrollment.
That may be the year I wore a green shirt with pink shoes and my mom didn’t care for it at all. I THINK it was the year my aunt took me to Lane Bryant and I got shorts (I actually don’t like shorts now but they were a big deal then) and a pair of green jeans with matching top and vest thing.
Man, the early 90s were grim.
Honestly, I had so much happen that year that it’s nearly impossible to forget it. That also wound up being the same winter that everything I owned was blue for some unknown reason. No, really. Everything.
I’ll never understand what the early 90s were such a fashion dead zone. I think the industry just got completely lost after they started making Hammer pants and didn’t recover until they came up with babydoll dresses and poet blouses.
I was tom-boyish when I was little, and mostly had guy friends [OK, I type that and think of a dozen caveats, but let's go with my overall memory-impression].
So it was weird to hit college and be on the femme-er side of the spectrum given my female friends. But I did nail polish and could walk in ridiculous heels [though I didn't do it often] and had the basics of makeup down.
And then it was weird to, a couple years later, find myself prepping for belly dance performances and learning to do MAKEUP and big jewelry and the occasional sparkle. [Not to mention the bare belly...] ;^) And to see that leak out into my normal clothes now and then [mostly the jewelry, but some of the other stuff].
And I like the flexibility that gives me. There *are* dresses that I can just throw on, and I’ve gotten very comfortable in them, but I’m also very comfy in jeans and a t-shirt. I like that I don’t wear makeup on a day to day basis, but that I have this whole array of options now when I do.
I think the whole progression is interesting, and is going to require more thought. ;^)
I wish I could have been at the Wiscon Body Acceptance Swim-In! It sounds delightful.
I have enough thin privilege as an inbetweenie to look a lot like a Rubens or a Maillol or an Ingres or whatever (and douchenuggets have always been “Oh in another age you’d be so beautiful” as if that weren’t saying “But you’re not beautiful now, Fatty McFatterson”) and so was always pushed into the medievalish/Renaissance-ish/Pre-Raphaelite-ish flowing fashions which “suited me.”
But what I love to wear are clean lines and angles, more Hepburn (both Audrey and Katharine) styles or Art Deco. That feels like glamour to me, for my own sensibility, even though those styles are generally designed for a slender, angular body. And you know, it’s a bit of a tailoring challenge, but I’m trying to make it work.
Even my wedding dress was a simple short day-dress style (but in silver silk, with black pearl beading around the neckline). Several dear friends were all “But you would look so magnificent in this Edwardian/Renaissance/whatever low cut foofy dress” and I was all “That’s not how I roll.”
(and douchenuggets have always been “Oh in another age you’d be so beautiful” as if that weren’t saying “But you’re not beautiful now, Fatty McFatterson”)
And, in some ways more infuriating, saying “And you just barely made it into the ‘beautiful’ category and all of those women larger than you that you think are gorgeous obviously aren’t, silly woman! A MAN HAS SPOKEN!”
Another douchenugget strategy was to say “In {country they do not come from nor claim as part of their heritage, usually a developing-world country}, women like you are considered the greatest beauties.” OH BARF THANKS FOR THE TRIPLE WHAMMY OF RACISM, SEXISM, AND SIZEISM!
You might want to check out the ebay store where I got the one-shouldered evening gown TR refers to above: http://stores.ebay.com/sensiblechoice
Oo, thanks!
Oh, I do so relate to this. I didn’t put on weight till I was about seven or so, either. My mother basically treated me like a little doll while I was thin – all uncomfortable pinned-up hair and Laura Ashley-ish frocks. Which I hated, because I was a tomboyish sort of kid anyway.
Then as I gradually got fatter, the clothes picked for me got dowdier, and by the time I was in my teens the messages were all about covering myself up, wearing dark colors to make me look slimmer, not drawing attention to myself, and most of all, being a ‘lady’. Perfect grooming – hours of it (which I loathed) – was expected of me; experimenting and having fun with clothes and makeup (which I was much keener on) was frowned at. I wasn’t allowed to think of myself as attractive (only potentially so, with a lot of ‘work’ which in my mother’s eyes would have included losing about 40lb), and heaven forbid I should attempt to look sexy.
These days, I veer between total scruff some of the time, and girly-punk-grunge-goth when I feel like it…which is much more often than when beauty was an obligation. And, I refuse to be too bothered about whether what I wear is ’suitable’ for either my age (41) or size (18). I spent enough of my younger years looking and acting like the traditional view of middle-aged that I feel I should be able to have some fun now.
As a confirmed girly-girl, I just have to say that the comment about striking oil while wearing pumps just about made my afternoon coffee come out of my nose. That’s the funniest thing I’ve heard in a long, long time and it’s such a great image–I can just see my fat fanny in my jeans, wearing my lime green pumps with one heel stuck in the ground and a spurt of oil splashing upwards……….that’s just hysterical! Made my whole day.
I’m surprised John Waters didn’t have Divine strike oil while wearing pumps. Can you imagine how hilarious that woul be! He’d be all like, “OH MY GOD, MY FAT ASS MADE US RICH, HAHAHAHAHA!”
I’m a genderqueer, female-bodied, American teaching English in Korea (where women are expected to be very feminine and very thin).
Female Korean teachers have expressed astonishment that I do not wear make-up. I’ve explained that I hate the way it feels on my skin. (Also, I sweat like a horse.)
Most of my clothing comes from the large-sized men’s departments in American stores. I feel more comfortable in men’s button-down oxford shirts than in women’s blouses. I do not own any skirts or dresses or hose. I do not show cleavage. Satin and polyester make me sweat , silk smells funny and lace itches. (Yeah, I’ve got sensory issues.)
Lately, I’ve started wearing nail polish now and then and experimenting with face powder. I’ve let the buzz cut grow out a little. Succombing to gender-conformity pressure? Yes. I’m tired of kids asking me what sex I am and not being able to tell them that it shouldn’t matter.
Oddly enough, I’ve become a bit more open to the idea of wearing pink (which I avoided for years). Here in Korea, men can wear pink, so if I wear it, it’s not necessarily being girly.
This really, really struck a chord with me. I’ve spent years and years trying to crawl my way free from the pile of “you don’t deserve to wear that” that I’ve been buried under. As a fat little girl and a fat teen, there was nowhere for me to go to buy anything ‘nice’ to wear. I was a jeans-and-t-shirts tomboy for lack of options… but I justified it with a strong “pink is disgusting and dresses are for idiots and heels are for stupid people and makeup is a tool of the man” defense. I quietly wished I could have it… but that would be IMPOSSIBLE. I was FAT and UGLY, after all.
After I headed off to college, one of my first roommates helped lift some of the debris I was stuck under. I don’t recall the name of the movie, but the trailers were everywhere on TV… it was some forgettable girly-movie. Anyway. There was a scene where the protagonist screams, clutching clothes and flailing, “EVERYTHING I OWN IS BEIGE!” …and my roommate kept pointing out, “Lampdevil… everything you own is beige” as a bit of gentle teasing. Because everything WAS. All my clothes were relics of high school, of trying to hide myself, of my mom doing my shopping for me, of only having effing Cotton Ginny to buy from. WELL THEN! I’d sure show HIM! I went and bought a godawful yellow shirt and WORE IT EVERYWHERE. It was SO FUN.
The reclamation of my girliness has been gradual. I’ve learned to apply makeup in a way that makes me happy, I actually own some dresses, I browse Fatshionista for ideas on how to make myself look awesome. I haven’t come all the way that I’d like to, though. My self-presentation journey has moved me from “Dresses like a teenage boy” to “casual lady-clothes inching towards punk”. I WANT to do the whole full-bore Performing Femininity thing, in pretty frilly clothes. I want to dress up in gothic lolita style, I want to cosplay, I want my LARP costumes to be elaborate and eye-popping… and I feel like I still can’t do that. I creep closer all the time, but it sort of SCARES me. If I do it, it has to be PERFECT AND FLAWLESS. I can’t screw it up, and it has to be unrelenting non-stop awesome. I’m a fat girl, and I’ll be scrutinized for even the slightest flaw as a result. I have to wonder if I’ll ever manage to leave that awful pile of woe completely behind.
I’m a genderqueer, female-bodied, American teaching English in Korea (where women are expected to be very feminine and very thin).
Female Korean teachers have expressed astonishment that I do not wear make-up. I’ve explained that I hate the way it feels on my skin. (Also, I sweat like a horse.)
Most of my clothing comes from the large-sized men’s departments in American stores. I feel more comfortable in men’s button-down oxford shirts than in women’s blouses. I do not own any skirts or dresses or hose. I do not show cleavage. Satin and polyester make me sweat , silk smells funny and lace itches. (Yeah, I’ve got sensory issues.)
Lately, I’ve started wearing nail polish now and then and experimenting with face powder. I’ve let the buzz cut grow out a little. Succombing to gender-conformity pressure? Yes. I’m tired of kids asking me what sex I am and not being able to tell them that it shouldn’t matter.
Oddly enough, I’ve become a bit more open to the idea of wearing pink (which I avoided for years). Here in Korea, men can wear pink, so if I wear it, it’s not necessarily being girly.
my thoughts about this post have been rolling around in my head for days. days!
i have a major Fancy Detector, and i love the idea of being Fancy. but the problem is actually *being* Fancy — i have no idea how to make it happen. for me, fancy generally translates to “anything but jeans,” and that isn’t very fancy at all. i certainly don’t like looking sloppy, but i don’t know how to look nice without feeling like i’m a pig in lipstick and a dress.
i’m working on changing how i feel, so i deserve to be fancy, so i deserve the self-care, so i deserve to wear more than jeans. sigh.
I’ve been lurking here for a couple of months now, in awe of how well you’re able to articulate feelings that I have yet to articulate to myself. But I had to come out of hiding with this post, for one line alone.
Putting a dress on a fat girl was like putting a dress on a pig.
Because this line completely nails it for me and my aversion to dressing up. It’s the feeling that I’ve always tried to explain to my socially acceptable pretty friends when they ask me why I don’t try to make myself look nice.
Thank you for this, for your blog, and for your insight.
YES and a thousand times YES.
I remember buying my first top from a Lane Bryant while in college; that top was a baby pink with black piping/black bow on the side deal that in hindsight wasn’t that cute. I paired it with a black skirt I made. I felt so freaking awesome in my outfit, black fishnets and shaved head. It was the first time I had worn ‘girl’ clothes since coming out as a lesbian a few years prior, and even then as a ’sexually ambiguous’ girl it was the first time I had worn pink since 4th grade.
I remember my girlfriend-at-the-time asking if I would be femme if I weren’t fat. I remember saying yes, that if I weren’t fat I would be able to fit into all the pretty clothing and would totally do that. Instead, as a fat bodied person I chose to wear male-intended clothing because it helped me ignore my body hate.
For me personally, dressing as boyish fit the culture where I lived (dyke in the midwest!) and my own body issues. As I learned to love my body, I learned to dress it up the way I wanted.
I have a hot pink bathing suit. I’m itching to wear it. I identify as femme and genderqueer but am cis-female. I recognize it makes no sense, but it suits me. I like glitter and pink and boas and feel like there’s a drag queen itching to jump out. And I am sad for the me of 7 years ago that thought ze couldn’t like those things for fatness.
THANK YOU for writing this.
okay i’m like a month late but YES. (i’m working my way backwards through your archive. i fell like going clothes shopping RIGHTNOW.)
i spent highschool in too-big metal tshirts and black jeans. i was super jealous of my girly-punk-fishnets-and-lace friends, who were all much much skinnier than i. (and much less booby, but that’s only partially related to my fat issues and more related to my sexuality issues but anyway)
now? i live in short skirts, 1950’s glam dresses for fancytimes, and Doc Martens. Pink ones. for all times. especially fancytimes.
and i am the happiest and most comfortable freaking person i know.
so i just want to thank you for this awesome blog of awesomeness. (AWESOME)
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[...] The point is, while some women are fighting for the right to not have to do girl-drag, some of us are working hard to have our right to do that very thing accepted. [...]