It’s summer time, it’s hot as balls, and every woman on earth has been forced to revisit the annual question: Is it OK to wear less clothing even though you’re gross? This season gross could mean almost everything on your body, but for older women, the anxiety centers mostly around their upper arms.
In a recent LA Times piece, KC Cole asks:
In the heat of summer, women of a certain age are wondering whether it’s OK to abandon sleeves and let their upper appendages just hang out. Or is concealed carry the only option?
Does it matter how toned you are? Or is crepe-paper skin even on decent biceps enough to make you “disgusting,” as one woman put it. And the older you get, the bigger the quandary.
She goes on to recall a brunch on a sweltering day where she was the only woman present who’d gone sleeveless. She inquired with a friend who confirmed that she too had been perplexed by the modesty, given the heat. Cole then describes an internal debate common to many women who are old enough to remember feminism’s second wave, or in my case, were taught women’s studies classes by its proponents—an era when being objectified, on purpose or otherwise, was considered a barrier to progress, not a choice that could happily coexist alongside it.
It goes something like this, and I’m paraphrasing: Didn’t we bust our asses to stop having to worry about how we looked only to find that a younger generation of women is more than happy to slap on a coat of lipstick on and tell us to cover up our gross arms?
Cole writes:
Feminists want to look good too. But for some people, it’s hard to get beyond binary. You’re either against lipstick (and women as sex objects), or for it.
She discusses feminism’s much heralded (and critiqued) right to choose: “Heels or Birkenstocks, leggings or sweats, stay-at-home-mom or corporate exec.”
“Is bare arms one of those feminist dilemmas?” she asks, “Or is it more a matter of simple vanity versus sweltering head?”
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
