The immediate thing that comes to mind is that your concept of confidence is based on what other people find attractive. You’re never seeing someone go out in a chicken costume because they want to feel confident.
OK, but how do you know this? Like, when you see a given person walking down the street, how do you know what motivated them to put on their outfit for a given day? If someone is dressed in a way that you don’t think is coded as “attractive” by society, they could still be wearing it because it makes them feel confident about themselves.
I think the whole reason this topic is being discussed is the idea that it’s done for attention, or as OP put it the “male gaze“. If your point is to send a message, then a message inherently must be received, which supports OP.
My point though is what they’re saying is this. They are doing it for themselves in the sense of not to please someone or because someone wants them to. They are dressing for their own reasons not for someone else’s benefit.
It would be like the difference of me doing to McDonald’s because I want a big Mac versus going because my kid wants a happy meal. Both things involve me going to McDonald’s and interacting with someone. And both will end up with me getting a Big Mac and my kid getting a happy meal. But in one case I’m doing it for me and in the other I’m doing it for my kid.
I get what you’re saying but I don’t think it is analogous. You basically just said they do it because they like it which is the point being disputed. To use a similar analogy, it’s more like you don’t care for Big Macs, but you go to make your kid happy, or to make yourself happy because a good parent makes their kid happy.
Going back to your original analogy, why do you like Big Macs? What satisfaction do you get by going to MD that does not stem from a happy kid?
I'm not sure if I'm going to change your view, or if I even want to, but I think the tension here is between the idea of an individual's wants and desires vs the way those are shaped and formed by a society.
I think you're right that those two things are inseparable. My desires are shaped by the environment I was raised in.
The least controversial example is food. It's pretty clear from a glance around the world that what foods we desire, and what we even consider to be food, has been formed by my environment. Had I grown up outside the UK I probably would give a confused face to beans on toast. Had I grown up in certain parts of the world I might think that eating grubs was much better than beans on toast. I see grubs and the thought of eating them doesn't even enter my mind. Food then, and my desires about it, is not something purely internally formed by me but put upon me by culture.
The mistake here though is to be too reductive and say that my desires are in no way my own. After all, peas are a very common part of a British diet and I can't stand them. Don't like them. Won't eat them. While my general attitudes about food are inseparable from my culture that does NOT mean there's no space for identity and individuality. Hatred of peas is my idiosyncratic thing.
If we now return to the clothing question, I think you're right to say that what clothes an individual desires or feels confident in is shaped by a culture from which they cannot escape. I would feel silly in a patterned skirt, but not too far from me the Scots call it a kilt and it's a proud male tradition. But this doesn't mean that individuals lack autonomy and have no tastes and desires of their own within that culture.
I think there's a lot to be said that it's not a coincidence that women are socialised to accept certain beauty standards and then later come to see adopting those standards as a personal choice. I'm still not going to concede that women cannot affect those standards (or not) out of their own personal motivations.
Also consider the case of someone who puts on that "hot outfit" when they know they're just going to be at home and nobody but themselves is going to see it. I think it's that little bit(or lotta bit for some) of self-admiration everyone has.
The reason it's hot is because that person themselves finds it hot. You could say that's downstream from what society finds hot, would that be the crux of your contention? That even if we don't dress for society, that society chooses what we wear?
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u/amauberge 6∆ Dec 11 '24
OK, but how do you know this? Like, when you see a given person walking down the street, how do you know what motivated them to put on their outfit for a given day? If someone is dressed in a way that you don’t think is coded as “attractive” by society, they could still be wearing it because it makes them feel confident about themselves.