This has gotten worse over the last 20 to 25 years, not better. Women in the US (and lots of other places) are still judged in part on their looks. This goes straight back to evolutionary biology. The women are judged, often unconsciously, by factors that are associated with fertility (tight jawlines, breast to waist or waist to hip ratios, long hair, clear skin, …). My wife comments on the fact that when she hit 50, she became invisible. Men in contrast are judged in large part based upon status/income-earning potential/wealth. [viz. Donald Trump and Stormy Daniels and Karen McDougal and …]. Although looks have probably become more important in judging men, they are still judged for status/wealth and hence graying hair and a little bit of weight are still not a problem. Every once in a while, I did/do management guru talks – those sessions with the huge video screens and headset where I walk around the stage and spout off things to 400 or 1000 people who seem to think something I say is insightful. At these sessions, I have gotten unsolicited interest from much younger women – even when I mentioned my wife in the session. I’m not the best at social cues so I probably miss some of the interest although I’ve gotten much better with age, but others are not subtle (e.g., a hotel room key in my pocket from a 20-something woman seemed like a clear signal). I doubt they were picking me on looks.
My sense is that online dating exacerbates the raw sociobiology.
I am not arguing that it needs to be this way. It does not. We certainly do not act on all our evolutionarily driven urges or at least can counter some of them. How we display female bodies v. male ones has, I think, gotten worse and not better. The question from my standpoint is how we can reverse the trend. I’m uncomfortable with the trend as it provides the wrong messages for young women (and for society on how to judge women). We can’t go back to the 50s (and I wouldn’t want to). I’m guessing that women’s appearance appeals to female as well as male audiences and ratings would confirm this. Rather than go back to the 50s, some people will go the other way and say that males should just learn to ignore how women are dressed. That’s like King Canute and the tide. Going back to the 50s involves women being covered up and asking people to ignore it seems, in a funny way, equally puritanical (people need to suppress not their bodies but their biological urges). Not sure what the answer is.
My wife is hoping for another category of wise older women to become important. Not the description she uses, but kind of like the tribal elder with the essential knowledge. No sign of that yet.
So now the head of the Forestry Dept, part of USDA, has stepped down amidst widespread reports of sexual assault and sexual harrassment, including by himself.
It’s clearly not the sexy clothes, if loose khaki pants somehow lead to this same sort of thing.
If I look at Oscars formal wear from the 50s (Oscar attire being the subject of the post you quoted), I don’t see a lot of difference relative to wearing long gowns that were form fitting, showing off womens’ figures, i.e. emphasizing bosoms and other curves, sometimes with slits that exposed a leg.
@OHMomof2, I was referring to last 25 or 50-75 years. I would agree that relative to whale bone corsets and bound feet, things are improving. I was always amazed at the clothes my daughter wore in HS (hooker chic). I decided that this was an issue I wouldn’t live or die on. I wanted to make sure she was a hard-working student, a good person, and wasn’t a serious druggie or drinker and would intentionally lose battles on the clothing front.
@Nrdsb4, could be. I’m not an Oscars aficionado. My sense is that transparent materials, slits in legs, etc. are much more evident now. My wife said Gal Gadot looked almost naked in one outfit. But, more broadly, do you think women’s clothes have not become more revealing in the last 25-75 years?
@greenwitch, I wasn’t arguing that clothes are the cause of or excuse for harassment. We do have control of our responses and not harassing is a pretty easy choice for people who have their heads screwed on. Viktor Frankl’s Man’s Search for Meaning, is a pretty profound book that focuses, in part, on our ability, if we choose, to separate the actions the world takes and our responses to them. But, I think one needs to separate actions (which are choices) from biological responses (which are not).
Well, if you google “Oscar gowns of the 1950s” you will get an eyeful of form fitting gowns with plunging decolletages, certainly many of them basically indistinguishable from those seen today.
I don’t have any issue with the revealing Oscar attire - that’s Hollywood. Looks, glamour and sex appeal is the currency that industry trades.
I also think there are plenty of female newscasters and talk show perosnalities that dress very professionally. Gloria Borger, Erin Burnett, Meghan Kelly, Brooke Baldwin, Mika Brezinski, Carol Costello, Savannah Guthrie, Michelle Cabrera, Christiane Amanpour and Hoda all present themselves in a professional manner. And Kate Bolduan who I adore has an extremely polished look.
I always found shows like the Oscars to send a mixed message. Support these women for the work they do and not there appearance and now back to the Red Carpet as we only judge these women solely on their appearance with a brief mention of their work.
“I always found shows like the Oscars to send a mixed message.”
That makes sense, since there isn’t one person or even one organization with sole control. Attendees wear what they like. The Red Carpet stuff is technically a different show.
“Support these women for the work they do”
Many of them are also working as spokespeople and models, not just as actresses. Lots of attendees and their sponsors are there in part to promote their clothing, jewelry, makeup, fragrances, hairstyling, etc. That includes “serious actors” the Academy loves, like Natalie Portman and Jennifer Lawrence (Dior), Cate Blanchett (Armani), Margot Robbie (Chanel), and many others.
I support all these people making money from ALL their work. But if any of them are complaining about being judged on their appearance while they are professionally modeling at the Oscars, that’s bunk.
James Levine is suing the Met over his firing, and for defamation. He was music director emeritus, which brought a salary of $400,000 a year. Unbelievable.
If I remember correctly, his sexual harassment of young men led to them to be suicidal.
I’m not going to talk about the political implications of the Stormy Daniels story, and I hope no one else does. But I do have one observation. As I understood what she was saying, Stormy Daniels asserts that she ended up having sex even though she didn’t want to, because she thought that by agreeing to have dinner in a man’s hotel room, she had unintentionally agreed to have sex with the man.
If a woman thinks she consented to sex, she consented. Stormy Daniels was involved in consensual sex here; I’m not saying any different. But agreeing to have dinner with someone in a hotel room to discuss a possible job is not consent to sex, and a pervasive belief that it is causes other women, women who agree to dinner but not sex, a lot of problems.