Categories: uncategorized
Date: 06 October 2006 19:25:23
As the title of todays offering suggests I find men in suits intimidating. I particularly find middle aged men in suits intimidating, because they tend to represent a set of cultural assumptions that I find it difficult to connect with and find, to a certain extent threatening. For example I am sure that the Ofsted inspectors who I am soon to meet will both wear suits and speak that language which is best described as "suit".
Yet would I dream of asking a man not to wear a suit in my presence? Of course not. A man has the right to choose to wear whatever he feels to be appropriate and what he feels comfortable in.
So why it that the same Western, middle aged, middle-class, men have the right to:
tell the young that they should not wear baseball caps or hoodies because they appear threatening
tell young women that they should dress more modestly because they are giving men unfair levels of temptation
tell Muslim women who do dress modestly that they should not wear a veil because it is divisive?
Just as I was almost coming around to the idea that we were beginning to live in a post-patriarchal society the BBC gives this report on Jack Straw which highlights why international feminism is still relevent.