Perhaps no man has ever troubled to imagine how strange his life would appear to himself if it were unrelentingly assessed in terms of his maleness … if he were compelled to regard himself, not as a member of society, but as a virile member of society. … His newspaper would assist him with a “Men’s Corner,” telling him how, by the expenditure of a good deal of money and a couple of hours a day, he could attract the girls and retain his wife’s affection … He would be edified by solemn discussions about “Should Men Serve in Drapery Establishments?” and acrimonious ones about “Tea-Drinking Men”; and by irritable correspondence about men who expose their anatomy on beaches (so masculine of them), conceal it in dressing-gowns (too feminine of them), think about nothing but women, pretend an unnatural indifference to women, exploit their sex to get jobs, lower the tone of the office by their sexless appearance, and generally fail to please a public opinion which demands the incompatible.

Dorothy Sayers, Are Women Human?, 1938

Heh heh heh. Oh my. I have a number of thoughts about this.

Some of this seems to me to reflect a society that was, for the first time, dealing with a big influx of women into the public workplace, and did not quite know how to handle the new workplace dynamics this created. This was a problem unique to Sayers’ age. Now, we tend to fall into the other ditch, insisting that men and women are exactly the same and should be treated as completely interchangeable, which does not prepare us well for those many ways in which we aren’t.

But part of this rant, particularly the part about how women can’t seem to wear anything without attracting criticism from some quarter, remains relevant, because it is an outworking of a human universal, to wit: a grown woman stands out, in public, in a way that a man doesn’t.

It took me an embarrassingly long time to figure this out, so I would go around doing what I thought of as “normal person” activities, not realizing that when I, a woman, did them, it came off looking as if I was (at best) trying to attract attention.

I also could not wear “normal person” clothes.

Deborah Tannen has pointed out that there is no “neutral” outfit for a woman. Whatever she chooses to wear will be seen as a choice, and an image she is trying to cast.

It’s easy to be annoyed this by (Dorothy Sayers was!), but as I put more thought into this, I realize that we might as well be annoyed by the fact that people notice loud noises or color contrasts, or that they get grumpy when they’re hungry. It’s a fact of life, nobody’s fault, that we all have to work with. Us ladies need to realize that, whatever we do (or, especially, wear), we will stand out, and adjust accordingly.

Thanks to my cute little sister for helping me think through this.