The Problem With Pantsuits
Is Menswear Necessary in a Man’s World?
Hillary Rodham Clinton, patron saint of the pantsuit, appeared to me in the moment I needed her most: in the midst of a debilitating crisis of faith in feminism.
It was summer 2014 and I’d flown across the country to intern for a women’s empowerment nonprofit in Washington. I’d just finished my freshman year at UC Berkeley, and the boys I’d dated so far were nerdy, progressive, and on average pretty darn respectful. Nothing could have prepared me for what I’d find in D.C.
I was met with a young professional culture where everyone was at least a couple years older than me. Socializing always involved alcohol, usually at dim, sweaty bars in hip neighborhoods. Though I was only nineteen, I was blessed with a hand-me-down ID from a girl at work, so I didn’t have to spend all my Friday nights watching TV alone in my apartment.
During my first weekend in D.C., I went with some new friends to Adams Morgan’s latest it-bar. I had fun dancing for about twenty minutes. Then I accidentally bumped into a very drunk guy, and he stuck his hands up my dress.
I stood there in a daze, paralyzed by my inability to comprehend what had just happened. I wasn’t able to ruminate for long, though, because moments later another guy grabbed me from behind. I felt like that girl who dies first in a zombie movie: dark figures staggering toward me, closing in from every direction, hungry for my flesh.
That night, I learned what it really feels like to be a woman: the toll of never being able to separate myself from my sexuality.
I had come to this city to try to convince myself that I was professional and powerful, but I had never felt more unimportant and vulnerable. It only got worse in the following weeks as older men groped me, made lewd sexual comments about me, and whistled at me on my way to work and then yelled at me when I kept walking. During one professional conversation with a 27-year-old man, I mentioned I’d just finished my freshman year. He blurted, “You’re nineteen? Jesus, you’re barely legal.”
The thing is, when men unfailingly treat you like you don’t deserve your humanity, like the only thing special about you is your sexual potential, eventually you start to believe it.
As the hot, sticky, suffocating D.C. summer wore on, things seemed more and more hopeless. What’s the point of networking, of bar-hopping, of anything, if all you’ll ever be is an object?
Eventually, a bartender realized I wasn’t actually 23 and confiscated my fake ID. After that I was happy to spend Friday nights watching TV alone in my apartment. At least no one would try to stick their hands under my clothes there.
In the midst of struggling to come to terms with inescapable objectification, I found myself face-to-face with Hillary Clinton.
The night of the annual gala given by the organization I worked for, my supervisor assigned me the task of illuminating Hillary during her photo op. I anxiously lugged a photography light, teetering in high heels, until Mrs. Clinton’s limousine pulled up outside the Kennedy Center. Everyone instantly fell silent as she strode over to her designated spot in front of the camera. For a brief moment between shots, her eyes, as cobalt blue as the pantsuit she wore, met mine.
I was in awe. Here was a woman who was tough as nails, who’d spent her life shattering various glass ceilings, who refused to let men boss her around or make her feel small.
Instantly, I wanted to be just like her, to command as much respect as she did. I bet no drunk guy ever stuck his hands up Hillary’s dress, I thought. They physically can’t, because she only ever wears pantsuits.
It occurred to me that maybe I’d been doing it wrong. Maybe the reason I failed to command the professional respect Hillary did was because I’d worn pencil skirts and eyeliner to work and to subsequent happy hours, rather than minimal makeup and no-nonsense pantsuits. If I wanted men to stop seeing me as easy prey, maybe I needed to stop looking like it.
So I changed. I cut my long hair so that it was a couple inches shorter than my shoulders. I stopped wearing makeup and shaving my legs. I dressed in loose-fitting, matronly attire for both work and bars alike.
Suddenly, I could leave the house without being groped. My short hair and pantsuit comprised a shield: I could walk to work without being catcalled, and I could have professional conversations with men without getting hit on. The pantsuit, a tried and true symbol of female empowerment, had worked its magic.
Or not.
That summer, whenever I took one last look in the mirror before leaving for work, I didn’t recognize the pantsuit-clad person staring back at me. My whole life, I’d had long blonde hair. I’d enjoyed wearing makeup since my mom finally let me experiment with sparkly purple eye shadow in seventh grade. But apparently, that version of me would never be taken seriously.
And now, that version of me was dead.
Herein lies the problem with pantsuits: they mandate that in order to break into a male-dominated space, one must dress like a man.
I’m sure there are women who feel most like themselves in pantsuits, and it’s wonderful that their preferred attire is able to transcend the otherwise impermeable glass ceiling. But what about me?
What about First Lady Hillary Clinton, who wore dresses and skirts in the 1990s? Whose style choices were endlessly scrutinized and put on “worst dressed” lists? Whose attempts at health care reform failed at the hands of men who told her she should go back to baking cookies?
Maybe her choice to switch to an all-pantsuit wardrobe when she ran for Senate in 2000 was just an arbitrary change of heart. But maybe she realized that in order to fulfill her ambitions of serving her country at a higher level than any other woman in history, she couldn’t continue to refuse the advice of aides who encouraged her to change her appearance. Maybe she sacrificed her skirts and dresses at the altar of feminism, martyring her conventional womanhood so that the world would finally begin to understand what females were capable of.
If this sacrifice is a necessary step for women to enter the professional realm, it’s bad news for women who are unable, unwilling, or unaware of the need to jettison their conventional femininity. This requirement places the blame for sexual harassment and professional discrimination upon women who wear skirts and heels instead of pantsuits. If you wanted your boss to take you seriously, why did you wear so much makeup? If you didn’t want to be hit on, why did you wear that dress?
When my confidants asked me these questions, I began to ask them of myself. I chastised myself for not recognizing that shorts weren’t a way to escape sticky summer heat — they were an invitation. Gone were the days where I could wear denim cutoffs to get ice cream at the shop next to the high school on hot August nights, hoping my brother’s cute older friends were there. I should have realized that wanting to attract the attention of boys my brother’s age meant I couldn’t be mad if I got leered at by men my dad’s age. I should have realized that nineteen was way too old to still dress like a teenaged girl.
Hillary Clinton’s generation of feminists sought to prove that they could do anything men could do. They fought for an Equal Rights Amendment that emphasized their sameness to men. They entered a male-dominated Congress at unprecedented rates. They defied all rules and conventions when they wore pants on the Senate floor in 1993. The pantsuit, therefore, was an appropriate symbol for second-wave feminism: If men could wear pants, so could they.
My generation of feminists is shaping up to be different. While our sexual politics are as adolescent as we are — still growing and changing, too nascent to definitively characterize — it’s clear that unlike our predecessors, we don’t want to just do all the things men do. Instead, we want the freedom to choose to do anything we want without being objectified or invalidated. Whereas Senator Mikulski fought to wear a pantsuit on the senate floor, girls younger than me are fighting to wear miniskirts to school without being told they’re distracting their male classmates.
It’s great that Hillary Clinton has taught America to take women who dress like men seriously. Now someone just has to teach the nation to take women seriously no matter what they wear.
