
Wonder Woman is a feminist fashion icon if there ever was one: the bustier, the hot pants (or is this a romper?), and of course her best accessory, her Golden Lasso of Truth.
“Is fashion feminist?” This is one of the most frequently asked questions I hear when someone finds out that I write about fashion. And I have to admit that I find the question tedious – not because it’s not important but because it’s the wrong question. It may be why we’ve never directly answered this question – though all our posts are informed by a critical feminist perspective. A better question to ask is: How is fashion an instrument of gender oppression and how is it a means to feminist liberation? I’ve compiled a short list of mostly popular, mostly online texts that address this question – some, more successfully than others. It should go without saying – but in case it doesn’t – this is hardly an exhaustive list of texts. Note, for example, that I haven’t included any full book-length studies on the topic and only a few scholarly texts. It’s meant to be a quick reference list, a pocket-sized digital guide to beginning a conversation about this topic.
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- Valerie Steele’s “The F-Word,” originally published in Lingua Franca (1991) and republished online here.
- Kaja Silverman’s “Fragments of a Fashionable Discourse,” originally published in Tania Modleski’s Studies in Entertainment: Critical Approaches to Mass Culture (Regents of the University of Wisconsin, 1986) and then republished in Shari Benstock and Suzanne Ferriss’ On Fashion (Rutgers University Press 1994).
- Angela McRobbie’s “Bridging the Gap: Feminism, Fashion and Consumption” in Feminist Review (Spring 1997): 73-89.
- Elaine Showalter’s “The Professor Wore Prada” originally published in Vogue (December 1997): 80 (3 pages).
- Showalter’s response to the academic backlash against her Vogue article, “Taming the Rampant Incivility in Academe” in The Chronicle of Higher Education (15 January 1999).
- Showalter’s “Better Things to Do” in Media History 6.2 (2000): 109-110. (Also a response of sorts to the Vogue kerfuffle.)
- Emily Raine’s “The F Word” in Worn: Fashion Journal issue 5 (Fall/Winter 2007): 37-39.
- lipstickeater’s “a brick . . . i mean, a book, in my handbag” (25 April 2009)
- Susie Bubble’s “Haters Gonna Hate” post on Style Bubble (22 January 2010)
- Meg Clarke’s Good Morning Midnight blog post, “Why Fashion is Worth Blogging About.” (17 February 2010)
- Lisa Armstrong’s Times (UK) article, “Fashion is Still a Feminist Issue” (3 March 2010).
- “Do Clothes Make the Woman?” in Frontiers: A Journal of Women Studies 31.1 (2010): 166-171.
And finally, here are a few posts we’ve written on the subject of fashion and feminism in relation to, among other things, queerness, popular culture discourse, and academia:
- Queer + Fashion (7 May 2009)
- Mind Over Malls or, Does Academia Hate Fashion? (3 August 2009)
- Shopping with Threadbared: A Conversation (11 January 2010)
- The Incensed Beauty Guru and Pop-Feminism (9 March 2010)
Feel free to add on to this list in the comments!
Check back later for PDFs of Showalter’s “The Professor Wore Prada” and Raine’s “F Word”!
Thanks so much for bringing these all together in one place! I look forward to visiting the ones I haven’t read yet between semesters.
You have plenty of Showalter here, but I also wanted to share “Fade to Greige,” in which she works through her own thoughts on feminism/fashion as well as several of the texts you’ve already linked above.
http://www.lrb.co.uk/v23/n01/elaine-showalter/fade-to-greige
also a good one! thanks!
Thanks for this! The timing seems especially ripe when a flurry of young women are staunchly declaring themselves non-feminazis.. but carving out huge spaces of privilege for themselves in universalizing the resilience/experience of women, or blanket statements about media representation (‘man i hate feminists/feminism but i think it rlly sux how the male gaze portrays us’ (who is us?)
What an amazing list of resources for your readers. You are truly the BEST!
Good Morning Midnight does it again, a response, an elaboration, a feminist-femme-queer fashion testimonial: Is Feminist + Queer Interest in Fashion Possible?
I’m definitely a feminist and I love fashion and style. Shopping, advertising and editorials are often degrading and counter-productive, so I avoid those things with very little effort. I also feel too much emphasis is placed on those latter three things, when the construction and creativity of the clothing and the designers is strangely overlooked, on most fashion blogs, anyway. So I really appreciate sites like this one that don’t regurgitate the gossip and mindless consumerism that is so prevalent elsewhere.
Thanks for posting all these resources together. It’s a question that troubles me (as well as a topic I know almost nothing about) so i’m really looking forward to delving more into these!
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every time i read anything by elaine showalter, i can’t help but think of michael schowalter humping mother nature in that Stella sketch.
I blush every time y’all link to me! Thanks for including me and psyched to read the links here which I hadn’t come across yet.
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I’m a feminist who loves clothes. My son’s kindergarten teacher–a snappy dresser herself, once complimented my outfit and sort of general style, and I said, “Well, I love clothes, they’re my weakness.” She responded, “Not at all! it’s an art form!” Since then I’ve felt less defensive and more embracing. If Teacher Polly says it, it must be true. I’ve never emphasized fashion on my own blog, but I read lots of clothing blogs, including this one. Sometime I plan to do a week of fashion posts, just to try out being a fashion blogger.
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