Alex Nakamitsu ’26 is planning on majoring in philosophy. She is Japanese and Swedish and loves the outdoors. Email Alex at aanakamitsu@wm.edu.
The views expressed in this article are the author’s own.
I was asked in May to write this piece; unfortunately I had laundry in the dryer at the time so I just got around to it.
In all seriousness, it goes without saying that everyone should first read Linnea Leijon’s piece, “A-dressing ‘going out tops,’” if you haven’t already. Many people interpreted her piece as an attack against a seemingly innocuous choice that women make: wanting to dress nicely for parties. Whilst her writing at times takes a patronizing tone, at the core of her article is a salient critique of choice feminism. Leijon raises important points on the role women play in being complicit in their own objectification.
Much of the responses in regards to the article, particularly on YikYak, were along the lines of “I dress for myself” or “I never dress for male attention.” Many took her stance to be sexist for judging a woman’s fashion choice. On the surface, this seems obvious. When I’m deciding what to wear to a party, I never think, “Oh, the boys are gonna love this.” On the contrary, I like to think that I chose my outfit because I truly like it and feel confident in it.
Behind the criticisms against her article is a particular line of liberal feminism, known as choice feminism. It follows the basic assumption that the ultimate form of liberation is the capacity to have a choice, and that any choice a woman makes is inherently feminist. This form of feminism also presupposes that a woman is never capable of choosing her own oppression. For example, a woman choosing to wear makeup, shave their body hair or in this case, wear going out tops, is just as liberating as someone choosing to not do these things, as both have equally exercised their autonomy and realized their capacity for choice.
Adopting choice feminism, however, leads to some pretty absurd consequences. I would like to challenge this notion that every single choice a woman makes is inherently liberating and completely independent of norms and expectations deeply ingrained in our culture. What I believe Leijon was trying to question in her piece is why women gravitate towards wearing more revealing outfits when they go out, and how we should critically think about where our choices stem from.
The choices that every person makes, regardless of gender identity, have to some extent a degree of external influence. This spectrum of choice varies from person to person, but under a deeply-patriarchal society, women have historically had much less choice than men. Just as an example, until 1974, women could not hold credit cards in their name. But just because many of the legal barriers that prevented women from having the same opportunities as men were lifted, doesn’t mean that all the systemic issues holding women back have magically disappeared. Societal expectations for how women ought to behave deeply permeates our culture.
When we don our most skin tight crop tops for a party, we may not be “investing in the idea that you are an object for the night” as explicitly or directly as Leijon suggests, but it goes without saying that there is some level of expectation for how women should dress for parties. Leijon clearly states, “There is no dress code for going out, but the notion of going out tops sets an expectation for what women should wear.”
Women are conditioned from a very young age to think and act in ways that align with patriarchal values. I’m sure many women reading this have been given baby dolls and toy makeup kits to play with as children, reinforcing gender stereotypes that women should be maternal and materialistic. While this gender socialization is not necessarily wrong or evil, these values are instilled in us from a very young age and follow us into adulthood.
With choice feminism, every aspect of what it means to be a woman in the traditional sense gets rebranded into a liberated action. The notion that every woman’s choice is inherently made equal demands no structural change and brings the feminist movement to a point of stagnation. It’s convenient to blindly accept that wearing a revealing outfit is a choice that just so happens to align with patriarchal norms. Simply put, it’s just lazy feminism.
This is not a call to return to purity culture or to restrict women from dressing in a way that appeals to the male gaze. I too enjoy things that align with female gender stereotypes, and I wouldn’t want anyone to shame me for it. Where I think Leijon’s piece falls short is how it brings blame upon women who dress this way, without understanding the broader context of how they are socialized into certain behaviors. Statements such as “So why not wear a ‘going out top’ to places besides parties if it makes you feel good? Maybe the reality is that it doesn’t. Even if you ‘look sexy’ you might not like what you’re wearing,” read as accusatory. We must instead turn our attention to the inescapable pressures women face, and dismantling these systems that keep women subjugated.
Although going out tops are a relatively harmless example, we are seeing more and more absurd and harmful beauty trends gaining widespread popularity. From buccal fat removal to Brazilian Butt Lifts, radical procedures are becoming more mainstream. While we shouldn’t stigmatize or shame the individual women who undergo these procedures, or perhaps wear skimpy going out tops, we should be critical of our culture that normalizes and encourages it. Why is it that we feel good or empowered when we show more skin, when we go under the knife to alter our bodies? Heedlessly saying that these actions are just an individual’s choice further commodifies female beauty. It’s time to lift this veil of comfort we have created for ourselves and to thoroughly scrutinize the consequences of our actions.