Why I Don't Like Dresses

I was raised in an age people like to think of as “simpler times,” where life was so much better.

Well, every age has its good and its bad, but let’s be clear: I was raised in the late ‘50s and the ‘60s, a time of racism, sexism and negative stereotypes of every ethnicity you weren’t. Life was fine if you knew your place in the hierarchy.

I was indoctrinated with the notion that for the female of the species, the two most important traits were to be pretty and to be obedient. It was all well and good (and in my family, expected) if one did well in school. My career choices (which were never nurse, secretary, sales clerk or teacher – the only choices for a decent woman in those days) were smiled at, but never taken seriously. If I wanted to sing, I could sing in church. If I wanted to write, I could keep a diary. But when I said I wanted to be an actor – and I was forcefully told the word was actress – I was vehemently discouraged and told that only women of questionable character would do something so unwholesome. In view of the “Me Too” movement, my parents were justified in being concerned with my career choice. But let’s not blame the women. They weren’t the ones with the power.

TV and movies were full of examples of a woman’s “place”: in the home, married and raising lots of babies. Wanting a career – until you married, when you put such childish things aside, at least until the children were raised – was fine as long as it was an appropriate career. But do not lose focus. The message was, what’s important is finding a man.

Throughout my early childhood, any time we went out somewhere special – Mass on Sunday, visiting the relatives, or going shopping in the city – I was made to dress in my Sunday best – what my mother jokingly referred to either as “Sunday-go-to-meetin’” clothes or “glad rags.” (And yes, play clothes were “sad rags”.) This was the norm for girls in those days: Frilly dress, scratchy petticoat, dress shoes, possibly a bow in one’s hair, a hat, dress coat and gloves. A child’s handbag, often matching mother’s on a small scale, held said gloves once inside, rosaries, possibly chap-stick and a fancy handkerchief.

My mother added to my adornment with ankle socks with lace edges or flowers embroidered on the cuffs, and underwear with rows of lace across the bottom – what I call child-molester pants because, for what earthly reason should anyone be encouraged to look at a little girl’s bottom?

How I envied my brothers in their trousers and suitcoats. I would have even worn a tie if only I could have worn trousers instead of an itchy dress.

As my mother combed and arranged my curls, she would tell me I wanted to look pretty when I went out. I was young and impressionable. Pretty girls on TV got everything. Ugly girls were just contemptable, if not evil.

So, out I obediently trudged, waiting to be pretty. At church I was rarely acknowledged, the seen-but-not-heard. At my grandparents’, my grandmother would say in a tone that often sounded like she was scolding me, “Well, don’t you look nice?”

I thought nothing more of it, since she said it once to include the three of us, and my brothers weren’t expected to be pretty.

Then on one occasion after we were already there, in scampered one of my cousins. My slender cousin who had honey blonde hair, the bluest eyes, and long dark eyelashes. “Well, don’t you look pretty?” said the same grandmother.

I was dark haired, with grey eyes, skinny arms and legs and a chunk body. I was the obedient child, so no one knew I existed. My cousin was pretty.

I knew, even then, I probably had no chance of ever being married. That was fine with me. That wasn’t really on my bucket list, especially if it meant I couldn’t be an actor.

People often assumed that, simply because one is female, one wants children. Well, no. I think my first and most continuous lie was, “Yes, someday. I guess.”

I had dolls – lots of dolls – but that’s because I had no friends. There were no girls my age in my neighborhood, and I was not allowed to play with boys (but then, I wasn’t quite as obedient as they thought). Girls were a year or two older or a year or two younger. That’s huge when you’re little. I gravitated toward the younger ones until they excluded me. They were easier to deal with.

I didn’t think like the other girls. I wasn’t interested in what interested them. My classmates wanted to marry Paul McCartney. I wanted to be Paul McCartney. And I didn’t have the social skills to navigate long-term friendships.

So, dolls played a significant role in my life as the friends who didn’t fight with me. I didn’t treat them in a maternal way as I carried them by the neck or the leg.

Barbie and Ken had all the freedom to do the things I could only imagine.

My doll house was my experiment in landscape architecture and interior design.

I was actually envious of cousins who didn’t have a doll house but only the people and the furniture. They had a piece of furniture that was a series of compartments to put their shoes in. They’d empty it and use it as an apartment complex. Imagine what I could’ve done with that!

And then I reached an age where I was taught how babies came into existence. I recoiled in horror. How could anyone embrace that or anything to do with it? My reaction was, “Eww! Why would anyone want to do that to their body? (I was taught about reproduction with no mention of sex.) I was having none of that!

I slammed into puberty a few years ahead of my peers, and decades ahead of my emotional readiness. While most of my peers were blissfully flat with bodies of a shape that gave no hint to gender identity, I was bulging out in ways that horrified me. While the hippies were burning their bras, I was being fitted for one. My peers didn’t yet have to worry about a visit from a “friend” that was now my nemesis.

If I complemented a friend about how lucky she was to be shapeless (“If I looked like you, I’d cut my hair short and wear trousers and pretend I was a boy,”) she would act like I’d insulted her. I on the other hand, had to endure insults in the form of comments about my breasts. Giving someone directions or in some other way being helpful frequently resulted in being sucker-punched with a comment like, “Nice boobs, by the way,” or “You’re so lucky to have big boobs.”

Seriously? I hate body part comments, not to mention the word "boobs". To me, those comments are simply pointing out my shortcomings and reinforcing someone else’s reason to “put me in my place.” It’s a statement that says no matter what you do, how accomplished you may be, you’re still female, and as such, so much less than. I’ve always wanted to make a comeback when a guy makes such a comment with, “I guess you’re not circumcised or there’d be nothing left.” But I’m so angered and embarrassed by their comments that I go into brain freeze.

Which brings me to dresses, or as I call them, slave clothes. If you like them, great. Wear them. But don’t expect me to. I spent years being forced to wear them, and a few years wearing them in a vain attempt to fit in. Clothes may make the man, but a dress does not make the woman.

I find dresses uncomfortable. At my age and shape, they simply enhance my frumpiness. I find ones that are so tight that the woman’s breasts are popping out the top to be disgusting because they reinforce the idea that a woman’s only role is sexual and decorative. If she isn’t selling sex, she isn’t worthy. If the “Me Too” movement really wanted to make a statement, those supporting it at the Academy Awards would have come dressed in trousers and suit coats, not slit-to-the-thigh or tops-open-to-the-navel gowns.

People tell me it’s a clothing choice, giving women more selection. I have enough selection, thanks. Many women wear skirts or dresses to appeal to men.

High heels enhance the shapeliness of the leg, making it more appealing -- to men.  They also distort the feet, setting the wearer up for future health issues. And don't even get me started on women's underwear commecials. There's no reason women should have to be sexy. Doing that, they’re setting themselves up as the “also ran.” Again, you have to appeal to a man to matter. I say, like me for who I am, not my clothes!

Don't get me wrong; I have nothing against men. I just don't see any sense in playing a subservient role by the clothes I'm expected to wear when men have to do exactly nothing clothing-wise to show their sexuality.

I met the man I eventually married in the same thing he was wearing: fencing whites, a mask and carrying a sabre (and I won the bout). He was a worthy opponent.

Recently, I was supposed to attend a party. A group of us at my kickboxing club had completed a diet and exercise program. To celebrate, they were having a “little black dress” party. I don’t own a little black dress. I wasn’t about to buy one to wear once. I mentioned I’d be wearing black trousers instead, saying I don’t do dresses. Another woman (a woman, for heaven’s sake!) told me that I needed to start  “doing dresses.”

No, actually, I don’t. I didn’t end up going to the party because 1) I’m an introvert and didn’t know most of the people attending, 2) while I like the idea of parties, I don’t actually like parties, and 3) I didn’t really want to socialize with people who believe that because of an accident of my birth, I am required to dress in a certain way in order to look good.

To me, a dress is yet another device by which women are kept enslaved. You don’t see superheroes in heels and dresses.