Gender in Clothing
1. Introduction
In the globalized world of today many cultures are merged and we have to get used to different customs and thus different clothing. Fashion is bigger than ever and the fashion-interest is spreading rapidly among young people in the world today. It is important to dress “right” and to express yourself through your clothing. Clothes can even hinder meetings between people that might have understood each other perfectly cause of all stereotypes our clothes create. Through globalization many different ways to dress are introduced that can be hard to combine with our western tradition of dressing or the other way around. How can it be so hard to treat everyone equally regardless of dress? A piece of clothing that has been debated and is very significant is the veil. Many people in west argue that it interferes with our basic human principles about human rights and equality. Swedish media reports repeatedly about Muslim women being harassed in public and the question whether to allow the veil at school or not has been highly debated in several European countries. Last years occurrences have shown that it is complicated for East and West to meet.
In this essay I am going to answer questions concerning mainly clothing but consider some aspects of fashion as well. Which functions does clothing have? Is there something like gender in clothing? To demonstrate and narrow this interesting field of study I am going to use the well-debated veil as an example. How do the functions of the veil construct the female identity? Does it also construct male identity? Which cultural other problems are connected to the veil?
The essay is mainly about gender structures but cause of the nature of the veil debate, nation, class and race are going to be dealt with as well. Because of the limited space, I have in my essay restricted my theories to those which I thought were relevant for my field of study. Obviously there are plenty of perspectives that do
In the globalized world of today many cultures are merged and we have to get used to different customs and thus different clothing. Fashion is bigger than ever and the fashion-interest is spreading rapidly among young people in the world today. It is important to dress “right” and to express yourself through your clothing. Clothes can even hinder meetings between people that might have understood each other perfectly cause of all stereotypes our clothes create. Through globalization many different ways to dress are introduced that can be hard to combine with our western tradition of dressing or the other way around. How can it be so hard to treat everyone equally regardless of dress? A piece of clothing that has been debated and is very significant is the veil. Many people in west argue that it interferes with our basic human principles about human rights and equality. Swedish media reports repeatedly about Muslim women being harassed in public and the question whether to allow the veil at school or not has been highly debated in several European countries. Last years occurrences have shown that it is complicated for East and West to meet.
In this essay I am going to answer questions concerning mainly clothing but consider some aspects of fashion as well. Which functions does clothing have? Is there something like gender in clothing? To demonstrate and narrow this interesting field of study I am going to use the well-debated veil as an example. How do the functions of the veil construct the female identity? Does it also construct male identity? Which cultural other problems are connected to the veil?
The essay is mainly about gender structures but cause of the nature of the veil debate, nation, class and race are going to be dealt with as well. Because of the limited space, I have in my essay restricted my theories to those which I thought were relevant for my field of study. Obviously there are plenty of perspectives that do
Bibliography: Literature Barnard, Malcolm (1996), Fashion as Communication, London: Routledge Djavann, Chahdortt (2003), Ner med slöjan! (Bas les Voiles!), Helsingborg: Sekwa Crane, Diana (2000), Fashion and its social agendas; class, gender and identity in clothing, London/Chicago: The University of Chicago Press Mohanty, Chandra (1993), Under western Eyes ,in Eriksson, C; Eriksson Baaz, M; och Thörn, H (1999); Globaliseringens kulturer, Nora; Nya Doxa Fanon, Frantz (1959), Algeriet av-slöjat (Algeria un-veiled) in Eriksson, C; Eriksson Baaz, M; och Thörn, H 1999, Globaliseringens kulturer, Nora: Nya Doxa Articles Mouneimne, Rima; Islam och slöjan (Islam and the Veil), 2005-12-21, Västerbottens-Kuriren, Sweden Kadri, Sylvia; Det hänger på håret( It depends on the hair), 2008-03-29, Västmanlands Läns Tidning, Sweden Internet Hübsch, Hadayatullah; Warum tragen Musliminnen ein Kopftuch oder einen Schleier?, 2003, www.kopftuch.info, Retrieved: 2008-03-14 Huffington Post, Stephanie D. Smith, Anna Wintour Takes Hillary Clinton To Task , 2008-01-18, www.huffingtonpost.com, Retrieved; 2008-03-15