Reykjavík Grapevine - 29.07.2011, Blaðsíða 34

The Reykjavík Grapevine
Issue 11 — 2011
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34
It was 1977, at the The-
atre Royal Drury Lane.
The voice, the vision, the
inimitable Nina Simone
erupts the audience with cheers
and laughter as she chides them:
“Come on girls, come on.”

This moment was all I could think of
as, walking home in the inextinguish-
able twilight of a recent summer eve-
ning, I was accosted by the shouts of a
middle-aged man. Though in my hand a
heel might serve as a clever weapon—a
deft defence against unwarranted ad-
vances—under my foot it champions the
opposite cause; stripped of its mythol-
ogy, the high-heel has a practical func-
tion somewhat akin to a ball and chain.
In any case I was alone, the man was
drunk and presumptuous, and I felt ill
prepared to face the consequences of
talking back. Instead of asserting my-
self as a dynamic, pulsating, thinking
human being, I conceded to my vulner-
able position, and walked away.
And there was Nina—conjured from
this, my most prized recording—sitting
at her piano, quintessentially self-as-
sured, smirking and shaking her head
at me.
It is indeed laughable how easily I
(among others) am enticed to be com-
plicit in forwarding an ideology that in-
sists that I be beautiful, idle, mute.
Part of the problem is no doubt an
unwillingness to consistently think crit-
ically about the philosophical implica-
tions of fashion—and to act accordingly.
I am not insensitive to the aesthetic
charms of dress. No doubt we are vi-
sual creatures, and the way we pres-
ent ourselves externally to the world
is likely a more essential way of com-
municating with and understanding
one another than most of us up on the
intellectual high-horse would care to
admit. But fashion need not be immune
to critical study though it is susceptible
to artistic whim. In a very concrete way,
fashion is an expression of our personal
and cultural values.
We cannot ignore, for example,
the social implications of the fact that
men’s fashion—though no less capable
of artistry and indeed frivolity—is gen-
erally characterised by a certain utility
that women’s fashion is not. We can-
not ignore the ways in which fashion
interprets and promulgates particular
ideas about the feminine ideal, and
feminine virtues. Let’s not pretend, for
example, that clothes that liken women
to cupcakes, or porcelain dolls, are not
appealing to specific gender roles, do
not evoke the image of the woman on
a pedestal: delicate, idle, mute. Indeed,
for the elaborately styled hipster queen,
you can look, but you better not touch,
because God knows she might tip over.
But the point is that fashion is not
the point. The point is that women are
not merely interesting as deep as their
clothes, or skin, and yet our culture
seems determined to treat us as merely
aesthetic creatures—or better said, ob-
jects.
I’m talking about a culture where
it is quite normal for a stranger on
the street to criticise my personal ap-
pearance—loudly and unapologeti-
cally—even while attempting to solicit
my sexual attention. I’m talking about a
culture where it is not uncommon for a
woman to be accused of “inviting” sex-
ual assault by the way she is dressed;
when appearance is all, it is more im-
portant that her clothes say “yes” than
that she says “no.”
This emphasis on women’s aes-
thetic is flagrant in the Icelandic media,
where “calibre” and “ideas” are gener-
ally understood to be irrelevant to sto-
ries about the ‘other’ sex. Fréttablaðið
and Morgunblaðið, especially, read sort
of like the curriculum at Álftanesskóli:
Women are mentioned in the context of
gossip and fashion; as content, they are
used mainly as fluff. ‘Look at this cute
actress talking about something!’ ‘Look
at this one! She runs a clothing store all
by her widdy biddy self!’
Can you hear me down here Nina?
I’m drowning in the patriarchy.
Back to London, 1977. “Well, love
songs,” Nina says, “are never ending.
Sometimes I listen to the radio and I say
‘They’re still at it!’ No matter what the
language, they’re still at it. They want
it, and when they get it they run from
it. Then they say, well we want a natu-
ral woman. Then they get one… scares
them half to death! Then they say well,
you know, we like them slim with no
tits, lily white with long blonde hair.
And then you talk to them and they’ve
got the same problem as you. Come on
girls, come on.”
If the Icelandic media is any indica-
tion of the state of affairs in this coun-
try, The Man is indeed drunk and pre-
sumptuous. He would have us believe
that success is as good as a pat on the
back for being pretty, that our empow-
erment lies in our ability to excite men
sexually, and that Ásdís Rán is our (ice)
queen. But we need not concede defeat
and walk away. The heel is in our hands,
we just have to be ready to use it.
Suffer For Fashion, Or Whatever
Opinion | Fashion
VALGERðUR ÞóRODDSDóTTIR
ALÍSA KALYANOVA
Comic | Hugleikur Dagsson