For better or worse, I was never big on attending parties in high school or college. The fact that there being a dearth of invitations extended my way to such parties aside, I never grasped the appeal of attending events that have a high probability of experiencing the intervention of law enforcement. As a general rule, steering clear of shindigs covertly planned by teenagers is a wonderful way to keep a clean criminal record intact. Attending the more refined gatherings put together by graduate students is much more my speed.
Regardless, I found myself in an interesting situation at a gathering that took place early one academic year.
Many grad students from my program got together at a friend’s apartment to reacquaint themselves with one another after a summer break. It was here I found myself explaining to a friend that I had just returned from a wedding I was in back home. Naturally, I was asked how the wedding was, and I elaborated. I explained, that it was rather uncomfortable given the scorching day on which it took place. The worst part was the seemingly eternal amount of time taken for pictures outside while having the intense sun beating down on us as the groomsmen donned wool tuxedos. Needless to say, we lost a lot of water weight that day.
Apparently, I was not discreet enough as I described my degree of discomfort.
In the corner of my eye, I saw another friend of mine who overheard me and began to react to my tale of woe. She immediately began to dart across the room, literally tripping over shit while doing so, to interject. As she floundered in her journey looking like George Brett going after an umpire holding his pine-tarred bat, she began to question “Are you saying you have it worse than women? Are you saying you have it worse than women? Because women have it way worse!”
I guess I did not help things when I suggested that the halter tops the bridesmaids wore looked like decent options at that moment.
Dismissing the objector’s point was not the purpose of my retort, to suggest that all was peachy for those women present at that particular wedding. What I was getting at is the cost of conformity in such ceremonies.
Conformity
Male conformity is far more pervasive than just weddings. When it comes to attire that keeps clothing chains like Men’s Warehouse or JoS A Bank in business, the decorum of many professions and workplaces demands similar veiling of men to create indistinguishably between bodies. Take this picture of Congress below as an example. Depending on the lens of interest you may view this image, a few things may stand out. Feminists will point out that the makeup of Congress is male-dominated. Those interested in race will note the “Whiteness” in representation. In my case, the first thing that stood out to me was the conformity of dress. The men in this picture appear to be replicated in some image software in such a way that renders them almost meaningless and void of the possibility of acting independently of one another. They are presented as a cohesive bloc that represents a repressive establishment that is to be looked upon with suspicion.
By the way, I am not advocating for less dress here! I mean, the bodies of elected officials are not exactly desirable paragons of fitness.
In contrast, the women of Congress are very distinguishable from one another. Afforded a breadth of choices in dress, these women are presented as having the option to approach their respective offices in different ways. An ability to express individuality positions these women to visually act as a faction of change and hope. The choice of bright colors, whether they be in shirts, pants, or jackets, stands in stark contrast to the dark suits of the men. The eye of the viewer moves to them and demands attention.
But does this not fall into the old argument that female politicians are unfairly criticized for their dress, which distracts from their merits in performing the job? Let us talk about that.
Whenever this point about criticism of dress arises, I think of this shit-show of an event in this picture above. The date was Monday, September 26, 2016, and it was the night of the first presidential debate between Republican nominee Donald Trump and Democrat nominee Hillary Clinton. As expected, Trump comes onto the stage in a very conservative black suit with a white shirt and a blue tie. Very daring indeed!
Then there was Hillary Clinton who met Trump on stage wearing…a red suit. A red suit! Here we have the presidential nominees of the two major political parties in the United States on national television and one of them is a feathered fedora away from looking like Huggy Bear! And guess what, nobody said a word.
Can you imagine the talk after the debate if Trump had decided to go with the red suit? If he owns one, that is. Trump would have been ripped to shreds by political pundits, late-night talk show hosts, and the American public. I wonder if the moderator of the debate, Lester Holt, would have been able to hold it together? Come to think of it, it may have provided a good distraction from Trump’s verbal volatility that night.
Regardless, the debate illustrated the difference in latitude between male and female politicians as far as dress is concerned.
This seems to indicate that the male suit acts as a uniform of sorts. Uniforms distinguish groups of people from one another. By wearing one, it indicates that an individual is prepared to act as a member of a team and forgo individual accomplishments for the greater good of the group. Individual actors may perform better or worse than others on that team, but they share a similar goal. There, I just explained every team sport to you.
Coincidentally (or perhaps not), sports often become juxtaposed with the different branches of the military. It is often the case where sports and military service are metaphorically compared to one another by way of commitment to the team and individual roles played where the parts interact in such a way to create a functional whole. People essentially become cogs in a machine. Easily fixed in purpose and easily replaced. Therefore, there is little desire to have many sticking out of the bunch.
But what about those of us who do not “dress-up” for work? Does This line of logic stop here? Hell no!
Based on my observations, it is not out of the ordinary for men to just give up on or become completely out of touch with the fashion world after getting married. With the pressures of being a provider, this is understandable but there also seems to be a part of men that seizes to give a crap at this point in life. With that, many women may have a better handle on this aspect of being in search of the male wardrobe. Not that there are many options in the first place.
Such a lack of options provides the directive to play the middle of the road. There is no real option to stand out amongst the crowd. To be prim and neat is the best a guy can hope for. Causal everyday clothing is no less differentiating than those in the workplace. Shit, even the shirts of the metal bands of days past that presented those who once wore them as real badasses have now been reduced to and sold as cultural mulligans for those who missed the first go around with the bands. If you crave to stand out, no need for despair, some wacky and loud-colored socks are available with funny characters and sayings. Having these socks will be sure to make you stand out to someone who possibly bends over to pick up a fork they dropped at dinner.
I write about dress as being the only way men are forced into conformity here, but there are other ways which this happens. Dress is just the most obvious to me. There is some overlap with this feature of masculinity and loyalty, where the demand for loyalty leads to conformity. As I build on this site later, conformity will emerge as a recurring theme as new topics arise.
