Stop judging women solely on their appearance
Copyright: Fotolia/Africa Studio
Almost everyone has an opinion on a woman’s appearance. Some people just have the decency to keep it to themselves. From the length of her skirt, the tightness of her jeans to the depth of her cleavage, from the height of her heels to the color of her lipstick: we are all guilty of judging people by their exterior.
People like to think that they can tell a person´s life story by analyzing someone’s appearance- the shallowest of all analysis. I think that Jenna Marbles does a great impression of how quickly we judge people based on their appearance in her “What a girl’s (shoes/makeup/nail polish et cetera) means” videos.
The problem is that there isn’t an outfit that a woman can wear without being judged. We are trying to find meaning behind everything, even if there is nothing to find.
“You are wearing black today. Did someone die?”
“Look at that girl wearing the short red dress. What an attention seeker!”
I think women are the more guilty party in this issue. Not only do most of us spend an absurd amount of time worrying about what we look like, but we are also the ones making snarky comments to our friends about innocent passers-by.
There isn’t an all-encompassing solution, but until women stop believing that looks are all that matter and begin to concentrate on what’s inside their heads, things won’t change.
It’s going to be a lot harder, if not impossible, to change opinions on people’s perception of what’s considered not-so-lady-like and what’s lady-like (I hate this one). The unfortunate truth is women’s clothing choices are judged so early on that we take it as an inescapable fact of life when we really shouldn’t.
I would consider myself quite feminine when it comes to my clothing choices but as of last year, I found myself wearing less skirts and dresses and have almost given up on wearing tops with any kind of cleavage.
Even I was taken in by the illusion that if I wore a short skirt (the definition of short is open to interpretation), then I somehow “deserved” the stares and whistles that came my way. It is hard to keep your head straight if that’s the environment you grew up in.
Women are always being pitted against each other wherever we look. The media doesn´t help much, in fact they often build walls instead of bridges. Why can´t women act like men do with their friends and be each other´s “wingman”?
Instead, we feel like there is an unannounced competition and somehow every woman is trying to take our place as a wife, boss or friend. If women bonded together like men do, we really could make a difference.
Author: Eliska Jelinkova
Editor: Manasi Gopalakrishnan
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