Fashion conventions can be deadly for those they disadvantage

Evidence

Despite a basis in mutual expectations and collectivities, conventions are not necessarily fair or democratic. If normal status depends on adhering to tacit rules, there are always political dimensions to who starts a convention and who maintains it. “Norms of partiality” benefit one group over another. Majorities commonly promote social norms that advantage themselves over minorities, and in internalizing these biased conventions, even the disadvantaged parties may come to accept them. The feminist critique of women’s beauty standards, writes the sociologist Karen Callaghan, posits that “the woman who strives to achieve an aesthetic idea does so not for self-actualization or accomplishment, but for masculine approval.” These standards have not just been oppressive but deadly. In the nineteenth century, stiff crinoline petticoats puffed out skirts so far that the cheap materials often brushed against open flames and caught fire. This arbitrary convention of dress caused three thousand women to be burned alive. Meanwhile, men wore wool suits both flameproof and close to the body. — W. David Marx, Status and Culture, 139

Categorization

• ADDENDUM: Directly extends the immodesty moral-panic piece: conventional dress enforced on women carries lethal as well as moral costs, a gendered asymmetry with a body count.
• XREF: connects to: Status-driven dog breeding now overrides health in perceived beauty — W. David Marx, Status and Culture: How Our Desire for…, 803; Fashion restraints function less to beautify than to render women’s bodies powerless — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 351; Dressing for display makes women dependent on others’ recognition for self-worth — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 1582 (+1 more)

Broader Connections

• Fashion restraints function less to beautify than to render women’s bodies powerless #expands (0.90) — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 351
• Dressing for display makes women dependent on others’ recognition for self-worth #expands (0.85) — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 1582