For FUCK'S sake, put on something nice.
So the new book by Chris Stedman, Harvard Humanist "chaplain" and all-around self-righteous little twit, has been excerpted on Salon.
Enough people have already written about Stedman's double standards of behavior for theists and atheists; about his narcissistic humblebragging, passive-aggressiveness, and two-facedness; and especially how full of shit he is about what happened and what was said at that liberal atheist dinner party in Chicago. Ayn Rand wrote more-natural dialogue than Stedman writes.
You know what I'm going to write about? The way that knob was dressed. I was easily the youngest person there and unfashionably underdressed (nothing new there). Looking down at my feet, I noticed there was a hole in each of my socks.
The Spokesgay got me thinking about this:This “fashionably underdressed” claim is a crock of shit, too. It’s transparently a fashion statement on his part; he goes out of his way to describe himself as a hipster (really).
And it has nothing to do with being a poor grad student. Button-down shirts and chinos cost no more at the thrift store than artfully distressed jeans. Even Goodwill doesn’t sell socks with holes in them. I know this as someone with an entire wardrobe from thrift stores, from super casual to business dress.
I acquired most of my wardrobe the same way, and I can vouch for this.
Personally? I think this goes beyond hipsterism. Stedman strikes me as one of those militantly underdressed types. The sort who don't dress up when it's appropriate not because they have no fashion sense, but because they can't be bothered with anything as .... frivolous as appropriate dress. I say this as someone who dresses for comfort most of the time.
See, I don't owe the general public beauty. When I'm out doing my errands, I don't give a fuck how pretty other people find me. If I'm visiting a friend at their home or going out for coffee with them, I will take a little more care with my appearance, but still we're really not talking "dressed up" at all.
However, I would have the basic fucking consideration, were I invited to a dinner party whose other attendees I did not know well, to put on a clean, unstained, unwrinkled top that was not a T-shirt, sweatshirt, or flannel shirt; pants in the same condition that were not sweatpants or jeans (or even a skirt); and shoes other than sneakers, very plain sandals, Crocs, or the like. I would probably throw on some jewelry, which I don't always do, and I might even wear makeup, which I do even less often.
Now I'm not saying makeup would be a requirement in such circles. If the party were being held in Stedman's stomping grounds of Cambridge, Massachusetts, some of the other women, regardless of age, would likely not be wearing it. But I'd wear it, because that's me.
Why would I go to that trouble? Because it's a private event. Because the setting is part and parcel of the event. Because sweatpants and T-shirts set a different tone from pressed trousers, collared shirts, silk blouses, and skirts. Because if you accept an invitation to such an event, you are tacitly agreeing to conform to that tone in how you present yourself there.
You ever attend a wedding with a traditional dress code and spot one of those dolts? You know, they attend in a T-shirt and jeans, and their excuse is because "they're their own person" and "they don't conform to other people's expectations," and you should be happy for their company no matter what they're wearing?
Naw, dude. What you're doing is demonstrating disrespect for the people who threw the event and the other people who attended it. The formal dress is integral to the setting. Everybody else finds the sartorial trappings, if not completely enjoyable (shoes pinch, straps dig, ties choke, etc.), important enough to the atmosphere that they put up with them.
Now, if I were posting this in a public forum, this is where I'd expect the SJW Butthurt Brigade to start whining. OMG WHAT IF YOU'RE POOOOOOOR??!?! OMG WHAT ABOUT THE COLORBLIND/DEPRESSED/OTHERWISE DISABLED?! OMG WHAT IF HE'S GOT TEH ASS BURGERS?!?! And, of course, at least one long anecdote, glurge dripping from the finger being vigorously wagged at me, from someone who did have one of those dolts at their wedding, and how he died of cancer a year later, and how the important thing was that he was there to share in their joy.
Yeah. Whatever. Your late guest was still being a rude, selfish special snowflake. Maybe you valued his presence there above his appearance, but I guarantee you that eyes were rolled at him, and the rollers were entirely justified.
Poverty was already addressed upthread. Yep, people do live in places where they have minimal transit options, either public or private, but if they can obtain clothes, period, they can obtain reasonably nice ones, for whatever variables of "reasonably nice" work for their local culture.
In any case, Stedman isn't poor. He may be a "thrifty graduate student," but he's also a high-profile internet commentator and Harvard academic. The only privilege he appears to lack is that of heterosexuality. The core urban area of Boston, Cambridge, and Somerville has sufficiently good public transportation and enough thrift shops to outfit him decently for a dinner party.
Obviously, dress codes have to bend to realities for many. If you are disabled in such a way that it makes it hard for you to pick out clothes that suit you and/or put them on, and you do not have someone who can help you with these tasks, others should make allowances for you. But, let's be honest, how many slobs attending cocktail parties or weddings or, ugh, funerals in complete slobbitude are in such a situation?
And, really, speaking as someone who's suffered really awful depression: If I were that depressed, I wouldn't be at a dinner party. I'd be home in bed.
happiestsadist said to me once that there is far more pretention in austerity and plainness than there is in ornamentation. It's true. Consider the garb of nuns and priests, of Orthodox Jewish men, of the Amish and Mennonites, of the various kinds of Protestant fundies who are into "modesty." (To their credit, Quakers dropped their elaborately wrought "plain" garb when they realized it called unwanted attention to them.)
Also consider behavior. Vegans, straight-edgers, and other orthorexics come to mind. So do sanctimonious teetotalers and the OH HAY I'M A VIRGIN!! types like Lolo what's-her-face. And every single bourgie liberal who slaps a "Simplify. Simplify." sticker on the Volvo or VW Nu-Bug they park outside their homes appointed with expensive "natural" products. Much I hate quoting a Catholic apologist like Chesterton, he was right when he said, "There is more simplicity in the man who eats caviar on impulse than in the man who eats Grape-Nuts on principle." Likewise, there's less pretension, less self-absorption, in people who dress apropos to a given setting than in people who don't give a fuck where and when they stand out.
Finally, I'll note that while the fashion industry is a cesspit that deserves all the brickbats that can be thrown at it, sneering at fashion in the sense of dressing nicely, or caring about clothing at all beyond a way to protect one's skin from the elements, betrays more than a little misogyny. What we wear, both in terms of its utility and in terms of what it signals to others, is not unimportant.
It's certainly a lot more important IMO than most of the sports world. But because sports are associated with men, their frivolity is never called such. Whereas making textiles has been associated with women since time immemorial, and fashion, in the modern West, is associated with women and with gay men. Women especially are caught in the bind of being deemed "frivolous" if we care about how we look - including by certain other feminists - but "frumpy" and "unfeminine" if we don't.
(Also, according to many, any straight man who puts a little effort into his appearance must be an effeminate metrosexual. Once upon a time, he was just called a "sharp dresser" - and he was admired.)
Tl;dr: Someone was good enough to invite you to a private function where you'll be well fed and well watered. Show some respect: Put on some nice clothes. Oh, and don't write later with fussy disdain about being served "hors d’oeuvres [you] couldn’t name," especially when you claim to be all about "diversity." And when you just wrote two paragraphs earlier about how you were there in part for the food and drinks anyway.
Unlocked.
This entry was originally posted at http://ms-daisy-cutter.dreamwidth.org/1905814.html. Please comment there using either your DW account or OpenID.
Enough people have already written about Stedman's double standards of behavior for theists and atheists; about his narcissistic humblebragging, passive-aggressiveness, and two-facedness; and especially how full of shit he is about what happened and what was said at that liberal atheist dinner party in Chicago. Ayn Rand wrote more-natural dialogue than Stedman writes.
You know what I'm going to write about? The way that knob was dressed. I was easily the youngest person there and unfashionably underdressed (nothing new there). Looking down at my feet, I noticed there was a hole in each of my socks.
The Spokesgay got me thinking about this:This “fashionably underdressed” claim is a crock of shit, too. It’s transparently a fashion statement on his part; he goes out of his way to describe himself as a hipster (really).
And it has nothing to do with being a poor grad student. Button-down shirts and chinos cost no more at the thrift store than artfully distressed jeans. Even Goodwill doesn’t sell socks with holes in them. I know this as someone with an entire wardrobe from thrift stores, from super casual to business dress.
I acquired most of my wardrobe the same way, and I can vouch for this.
Personally? I think this goes beyond hipsterism. Stedman strikes me as one of those militantly underdressed types. The sort who don't dress up when it's appropriate not because they have no fashion sense, but because they can't be bothered with anything as .... frivolous as appropriate dress. I say this as someone who dresses for comfort most of the time.
See, I don't owe the general public beauty. When I'm out doing my errands, I don't give a fuck how pretty other people find me. If I'm visiting a friend at their home or going out for coffee with them, I will take a little more care with my appearance, but still we're really not talking "dressed up" at all.
However, I would have the basic fucking consideration, were I invited to a dinner party whose other attendees I did not know well, to put on a clean, unstained, unwrinkled top that was not a T-shirt, sweatshirt, or flannel shirt; pants in the same condition that were not sweatpants or jeans (or even a skirt); and shoes other than sneakers, very plain sandals, Crocs, or the like. I would probably throw on some jewelry, which I don't always do, and I might even wear makeup, which I do even less often.
Now I'm not saying makeup would be a requirement in such circles. If the party were being held in Stedman's stomping grounds of Cambridge, Massachusetts, some of the other women, regardless of age, would likely not be wearing it. But I'd wear it, because that's me.
Why would I go to that trouble? Because it's a private event. Because the setting is part and parcel of the event. Because sweatpants and T-shirts set a different tone from pressed trousers, collared shirts, silk blouses, and skirts. Because if you accept an invitation to such an event, you are tacitly agreeing to conform to that tone in how you present yourself there.
You ever attend a wedding with a traditional dress code and spot one of those dolts? You know, they attend in a T-shirt and jeans, and their excuse is because "they're their own person" and "they don't conform to other people's expectations," and you should be happy for their company no matter what they're wearing?
Naw, dude. What you're doing is demonstrating disrespect for the people who threw the event and the other people who attended it. The formal dress is integral to the setting. Everybody else finds the sartorial trappings, if not completely enjoyable (shoes pinch, straps dig, ties choke, etc.), important enough to the atmosphere that they put up with them.
Now, if I were posting this in a public forum, this is where I'd expect the SJW Butthurt Brigade to start whining. OMG WHAT IF YOU'RE POOOOOOOR??!?! OMG WHAT ABOUT THE COLORBLIND/DEPRESSED/OTHERWISE DISABLED?! OMG WHAT IF HE'S GOT TEH ASS BURGERS?!?! And, of course, at least one long anecdote, glurge dripping from the finger being vigorously wagged at me, from someone who did have one of those dolts at their wedding, and how he died of cancer a year later, and how the important thing was that he was there to share in their joy.
Yeah. Whatever. Your late guest was still being a rude, selfish special snowflake. Maybe you valued his presence there above his appearance, but I guarantee you that eyes were rolled at him, and the rollers were entirely justified.
Poverty was already addressed upthread. Yep, people do live in places where they have minimal transit options, either public or private, but if they can obtain clothes, period, they can obtain reasonably nice ones, for whatever variables of "reasonably nice" work for their local culture.
In any case, Stedman isn't poor. He may be a "thrifty graduate student," but he's also a high-profile internet commentator and Harvard academic. The only privilege he appears to lack is that of heterosexuality. The core urban area of Boston, Cambridge, and Somerville has sufficiently good public transportation and enough thrift shops to outfit him decently for a dinner party.
Obviously, dress codes have to bend to realities for many. If you are disabled in such a way that it makes it hard for you to pick out clothes that suit you and/or put them on, and you do not have someone who can help you with these tasks, others should make allowances for you. But, let's be honest, how many slobs attending cocktail parties or weddings or, ugh, funerals in complete slobbitude are in such a situation?
And, really, speaking as someone who's suffered really awful depression: If I were that depressed, I wouldn't be at a dinner party. I'd be home in bed.
happiestsadist said to me once that there is far more pretention in austerity and plainness than there is in ornamentation. It's true. Consider the garb of nuns and priests, of Orthodox Jewish men, of the Amish and Mennonites, of the various kinds of Protestant fundies who are into "modesty." (To their credit, Quakers dropped their elaborately wrought "plain" garb when they realized it called unwanted attention to them.)
Also consider behavior. Vegans, straight-edgers, and other orthorexics come to mind. So do sanctimonious teetotalers and the OH HAY I'M A VIRGIN!! types like Lolo what's-her-face. And every single bourgie liberal who slaps a "Simplify. Simplify." sticker on the Volvo or VW Nu-Bug they park outside their homes appointed with expensive "natural" products. Much I hate quoting a Catholic apologist like Chesterton, he was right when he said, "There is more simplicity in the man who eats caviar on impulse than in the man who eats Grape-Nuts on principle." Likewise, there's less pretension, less self-absorption, in people who dress apropos to a given setting than in people who don't give a fuck where and when they stand out.
Finally, I'll note that while the fashion industry is a cesspit that deserves all the brickbats that can be thrown at it, sneering at fashion in the sense of dressing nicely, or caring about clothing at all beyond a way to protect one's skin from the elements, betrays more than a little misogyny. What we wear, both in terms of its utility and in terms of what it signals to others, is not unimportant.
It's certainly a lot more important IMO than most of the sports world. But because sports are associated with men, their frivolity is never called such. Whereas making textiles has been associated with women since time immemorial, and fashion, in the modern West, is associated with women and with gay men. Women especially are caught in the bind of being deemed "frivolous" if we care about how we look - including by certain other feminists - but "frumpy" and "unfeminine" if we don't.
(Also, according to many, any straight man who puts a little effort into his appearance must be an effeminate metrosexual. Once upon a time, he was just called a "sharp dresser" - and he was admired.)
Tl;dr: Someone was good enough to invite you to a private function where you'll be well fed and well watered. Show some respect: Put on some nice clothes. Oh, and don't write later with fussy disdain about being served "hors d’oeuvres [you] couldn’t name," especially when you claim to be all about "diversity." And when you just wrote two paragraphs earlier about how you were there in part for the food and drinks anyway.
Unlocked.
This entry was originally posted at http://ms-daisy-cutter.dreamwidth.org/1905814.html. Please comment there using either your DW account or OpenID.