Fuck I hate Mike Huckabee.

Gee, I feel so much better now that Huckabee has set me straight. [/sarcasm]

Too bad there aren't similar fashions for men that either show too much skin or "just enough".

I dunno. I'm wearing pants. Is Huckabee okay with that?

Attention all aspiring fundamentalist Mr. Blackwells: name a few things wrong with this outfit in both the biblical and fashion senses.

Wait. I'm confused. A miniskirt is not OK, but legs are an appropriate display of why a person is? Anyone else think he contradicted himself a little there? Also, really, I had no idea that my hair, arms, shoulders, and legs (sounds like he thinks everyone should wear a minidress with spaghetti straps so the shoulders and arms are also out for all to see, doesn't it?) were a display of who I am as a person. Gee. Huckabee teaches me something new everyday, huh?

Mike Huckabee already taught me a long time ago about how women who have abortions are the moral equivalent of suicide bombers. So obviously I ALWAYS take his opinion very seriously.

I actually do have a fashion question for the feminist sisters i love. here's the scenario. Weekend in boston for our company's national sales meeting. i wear pants suit to all of our meetings. we have a formal dinner one night, i wear a nice black dress. V-neck, not incredibly low, and skirt goes to my knees. I get treated like a sex object the entire night. What is the best way to look at this? Is it my fault in the sense that I should no longer wear dresses, but instead turtle necks and pants? I mean, in all seriousness, i really want to know. my mom is a feminist and seems to feel that i wore the wrong thing, but i feel very angry that i should have to wear something different that i feel less myself in for the likes of men. Is it inappropriate for a woman to dress in anything less than a suit to a company function? please give some advice my way!

Oh, and in no way am I saying the men WEREN'T wrong - i realize either way they were very inappropriate, but i guess my questions is: was I in some way inappropriate too for wearing a dress?

I think when you wear a dress and most people are wearing suits you are going to get more attention.

That said I think that "professional dress" still includes dresses. And you should wear what you want, period. No matter what you wear, men should not look at you like a sex object. If the true problem was that your dress was not professional then the looks should have been looks of insult rather than looks of lust. What was your sense from other women there? Did they think you were not dressed appropriately?

I find navigating the world of female dress in the professional world extremely frustrating.

sorry for the repeat post, every one.

Thank you larae, very much appreciate your insight. Unfortunately, there were only two other women at the dinner, of almost forty (yes, I'm a lone ranger in this company). One was wearing a dress similar in nature to mine. the other was very conservatively dressed, but said that I looked nice. So, no negative feedback from them.

And, i agree, i feel frustrated myself. Thanks again!

Chell_belle, though I am not saying that you technically have to wear a dress to a formal dinner (I guess a nice formal pants suit would have done as well), I think it was totally appropriate to wear a dress (and that you should be able to wear a dress any time you damn well please). I mean, I cannot think of a time, business or pleasure, when I went to a formal dinner without wearing a dress.

Sorry for the multiple postings. I don't know what happened. I kept on getting error messages, checking to see if there was a post, and there wasn't, so then doing it again.

Weird.

I've spent nearly a half-hour trying to figure out why anyone in her right mind would listen to someone like Huckabee when it comes to miniskirts, and I still don't get it. It's not like Huckabee has any desire to wear miniskirts himself, so he wouldn't experience both the pros and the cons from a personal perspective.

I'm in the camp where I've been socialized to believe that what options a woman chooses for her wardrobe should be based in response to the weather, her personal ethics, and the location or event she is attending, not to the sensitivities of a stranger(especially if she doesn't live in the same part of the country at all).
Huckabee's comments tick me off mainly because he's not allowing the people who wear miniskirts (mostly women) to make an adult decision about when and if a miniskirt is appropriate for them.

Since no one else has done it:

I do not heart Huckabee.

Well, I'm relieved. I always had a sneaking suspicion that my knees and thighs should be covered at all times, and now that Huckabee has confirmed it for me, I can sleep a little easier tonight.

Shut the fuck up, Huckabee.

I want people to be attracted to me because they find me interesting, not because I'm wearing something ... well, I doubt I own anything provocative.

Right, you idiot. Because men aren't expected to dress for the visual pleasure of straight women or gay men. What, am I supposed to think Huckabee is expressing his high moral standards in not owning a miniskirt? Newsflash, moron--as a rule, men don't own mini-skirts.

Not only are men not *expected* to wear something provocative, but--to agree with EG's point--I can't even think of what would *constitute* "provocative" clothing for a man, particularly a straight, middle-aged man. There is no real male equivalent (is there?), so it's pretty safe to say a man would never get accused of dressing "provocatively" in the first place, unless perhaps he was stark naked or in his underwear, and even then there would probably be some kind of "mental illness" connotation rather than a sexualized descriptor. And isn't Huckabee indeed an idiot for trying to erase gender from the discussion with all those quaint "a person" references...a "person's" arms, legs, shoulders, hair...riiight.

And EG I feel compelled to give you (and Roy) all kinds of props for your tireless entitlement-dismantling and general kick-assedness on that other blog...is it OK to name it? (Never know in case it would just direct more trolls or whatever reason?)

Aw, thanks! I kind of feel that for my own mental health, to say nothing of my eyeballs, I need to walk away from it....but it's kind of nice to know that not everybody else is thinking "what's wrong with that EG? Doesn't she have a life?!"

Being a politician, Huckabee is naturally averse to stating what he really means, so here's a helpful translation for the rest of us: "Ladies, I'm a lecherous git and can't control myself, so you'd best hide anything you don't want me staring at. But don't cover everything, 'cause I'm entitled to enjoy watching you."

Listen, if I remember correctly, you recently finished your dissertation, no? That's freaking amazing, and when (if?) I ever finish mine, I plan to spend about six weeks straight, 24/7 commenting on blogs and with considerably less aplomb. But regardless, being an activist on blogs by pointing out oppression (which is activism after all) is of great social value and *is* having a life!! It should be a paid job as far as I'm concerned.

I did! I can't believe you remembered! That's so nice! Also, Donna now regularly refers to me as "Dr. EG" in comments, and I love her for it!

Huckabee's a wanker, but do we really need to defend the miniskirt? Granted, a small number of women wear them fashionably, but for all the violations of good fashion sense involving a miniskirt, I'm not sure how vigorously we can defend them.

Garrett, I know you're being facetious (sp.?)but I guess the problem is some DOOD dictacting what autonomous beings should or should not wear, according to his personal morality.
I happen to think men's short shorts are a bigger fashion crime.
Can't they leave a little something for the honeymoon?

Oh oh oh. I want to know the thread that Charity is talking about.

I happen to think men's short shorts are a bigger fashion crime.

So true! That would have been so much better of a follow-up question than the one about the burka.

Well, she did not forbid it, so...Feministe! (It's easy to figure out which thread...it's the one with roughly 500 comments.)

The one about hating kids? I read about half of that one.

Yeah, Garrett, because if a woman wearing a short skirt needs a little extra coverage (I speak from experience) she can always wear tights or leggings.
Whereas when a man's in short-shorts, there's nowhere else he can go.
Pulling up knee socks as far as possible just doesn't give the coverage required.
I'm just saying, I don't really want to know which way the bus driver is hanging, if you get my meaning...

Now I'm running over to feministe, because that's where all the cool kids are, apparently!

Yeah, that's the one Cara. It is pretty impossible to read the whole thing...regardless of one's position on the matter, though (although I obviously agree with her), I think EG's seemingly tireless diplomacy is admirable (along with her reasoning, of course).

That may well be the first time anyone has ever associated me with diplomacy! You are really very kind. I feel I lose my temper a bit too much.

*After checking out the Feministe post*
Damn, I know I didn't coin "crotch-dropping" but all the references to that one thread still makes me feel famous...
From,
A Repentant No-Longer "Child Hater," More of an Occassional Child Behavior Annoyed By Sometimes.

Am I the only person who misread Huckabee as saying he wears a thong, but not a miniskirt?

Maybe that's my brain damage.

Chell_belle, as you are aware, the problem is with your coworkers, not with your perfectly reasonable-sounding outfit. The sort of men that will judge you as a sex object (and that's a lot of them) will judge you as a sex object whatever you're wearing. If you're wearing a dress like that you wore to the party, you succeed as a sex object and are bothered with the attention. When you wear a pantsuit to work, you fail as a sex object, and avoid the attention. This is what some women fail to notice when they say "Hey, I just wear a pantsuit and men don't hassle me." Yes, to some extent that may be true. But this is not because the pantsuit is some wonderful device that allows dumbass misogynists to see you as a human being. It is simply because you fail their fuckability test. The test is still applied in every case.

So the unsurprising point, in as far as your story goes, is that these men you work with don't take you seriously. All that happened when you wore a dress (and, perhaps, when they consumed some alcohol) is that their attitude was brought into the open. Neither you, nor your wardrobe, is at fault.

I'm not going to tell you you should wear whatever you want, because in a business context that's just not true. None of us can turn up to work in a clown suit unless we work as a clown. Western society has a culture of professional dress that professional workers are expected to understand implicitly. But, for my money, a dress like you describe would be 100% appropriate for the occasion to which you wore it.

You've just had an unpleasant insight into how your coworkers really think about you. There isn't a good answer to the question of what you should wear to the next formal dinner, because whatever you do, the men win. But I think it would be a pity if you were intimidated into wearing a corporate burka.

Meanwhile, I too thought Mike Huckabee just declared himself in possession of a thong, and I can assure him that the sight of his saggy arse cheeks hanging out of it would be quite the opposite of provocative.

How about a skinny teen girl wearing jean shorts and a tee shirt....now, how about a huge-chested, voluptuous teen girl wearing jean shorts and a tee shirt? See the difference?

Moxie I was thinking about how it would feel for you to have that thread linked to. I hope that anyone who read the old thread, read the whole thing, and came away touched by what you said, not angry. I thought you were brave and probably helped a lot of people sort stuff out for themselves.

Thank you, Charity.
In a way, it did hurt. I don't want to be used as an example of feminist hate. By the end of the thread, I think we were reaching a good reconciliation. But then this guy comes along, skims the thread & all he gets out of it is that, "Some feminists hate children! They're bigoted!" What I got from the thread is; the way we were treated as children affects how we view children and how powerful language is.
Those who say that they hate children are probably using the word the way we describe any number of things, like how I hate mushrooms. That just means that we really have to think of how we use the word hate.
But, int he end, I have to take responsibility for my own language & my own evolution.
Sorry to hijack this thread!

Hey Moxie,

Yes, that thread can't be fun for you; the one here was very different, I think, because it was a conversation among people who'd been posting for a while and knew each other on-line, so there was a baseline level of respect. But if it is of any help, I'm almost certain that the "Roy" who wrote the post is our very own roymac, so he, if nobody else, read the thread all the way through and knows the resolution that we all reached. Which maybe doesn't make it less of a pain in the ass for you.

LoL thanks EG.
I can see both sides of the argument. I visit the cf_hardcore community, though I'm not a member & don't post. It's mostly for people to rant & the rants are mostly against ignorant parents. These people wouldn't hurt children. I can understand their side, I really do--like,t here was a recent post about a parent who brought their children with hair lice to a salon. WtF? I remember having lice TWICE as a child & you def. don't bring your kid to a salon. Anyway, OT.
I'm getting better with kids though. One of my main issues was insecurity. As a child, i spent most of my time with adults & never really related to people my age, so now I have no clue how to interact with kids. I just see them looking at me & I flash back to elementary school.
Anyway, again, sorry for the major threadjack. Oh, & I'm really sorry for the 6 posts, I guess my computer was being wonky.

OK. I'm going to take this post further off topic to say that head lice are the most disgusting things ever, and the only time I ever thought about not having children was when I considered having to deal with head lice. Children with head lice should be quarantined in their own homes with a public health notice tacked to the front door, and they should have to wear plastic shower caps at all times until the infestation is destroyed.

OK, and another off-topic factoid: did you know human beings are the only animals whose bodies can host three different species of lice? And that unlike the other two, public lice are most closely related to gorilla lice? And the evolutionary implication is that proto-humans continued to have sex with proto-gorillas after they'd begun to speciate?

Lice. It's the topic that just keeps on giving, as far as I'm concerned.

OmG, that is so gross, EG! Which is good, I enjoy gross factoids.
Eeeek, Protohuman/gorilla sex! That would freak out the right-wingers.
I distinctly remember having the lice when I was about 5. It was horrible. *Shudders* I just remember that ghastly shampoo & my mum going through my hair with that really painful comb for hours & hours. I had waist length hair.

I had lice twice too--got them from the same girl in my girl scout troop both times. Not a pleasant experience. My mom chopped off my then-long hair the second time to avoid having to comb through all the tangles (damn the no-conditioner lice shampoo!).

Um, I thought Huckabee said he owns a thong, too. I didn't comment before because it just seemed too weird for him to say.

And the professional dinner-dress thing? I would have worn the same thing. I am pretty up front about telling my coworkers to treat me like a human being, but it's hard when you're one of few women and the only woman in your (I'm assuming low) seniority level. If you have a good working relationship with the men at your own level where you feel like you can be candid, you could try some kind of humor (my favorite is saying cheerfully, "Surprise! I can wear a dress and still be completely uninterested in whether you would like to have sex with me!") but it's touchy.