Costume consciousness

I just got back from a major conference, and my gosh, what I saw people wearing!

If you think I'm going to continue on that theme, sorry to disappoint. I expect you rather thought I would, though, because practically every major conference anywhere draws posts like that. Geek conferences, MLA, library conferences like the one I just got back from—it doesn't matter. Somebody always writes the Fashion Post.

And "somebody" is invariably a woman. And "somebody" is invariably writing about women. And "somebody" invariably has nothing good to say, either.

Why is this necessary? Why is it proper? Why is it a good idea? Don't we have enough people running us down for superficial reasons? Don't we have enough appearance anxiety as it is?

Another thing I notice about Fashion Posts is that the posters of same attribute what they judge to be poor sartorial choice to character flaws. She didn't care enough. She wasn't trying. She's stuck in the (insert decade of poster's choice; varies by age of poster). There is no humor in these judgments (as, I note, there usually is in the rare cases when Fashion Posts also treat of men), no sympathy, no fellow-feeling, no allowance for differing taste.

At its worst, the Fashion Post disputes its victims' right to be in public at all, Dressed Like That. This is bad enough; we have a lot of nerve bemoaning our relative scarcity at conferences when we ourselves add a fashion gauntlet to all the other gauntlets involved in getting to a conference. What's worse, though, is that it isn't always about dress. "Dress" can be code for "she's too fat," or "she's too old," or "she's too butch," or "she's too femme." It's not just a fashion gauntlet any more; it's an all-over image gauntlet.

I'm a fat, scarred, homely, aging woman with unfashionably long ("hippie") hair and a decidedly off-center sartorial sense. I can think of plenty of blogging women I frankly don't ever want to see at a conference, because I don't want to endure that laser-like visual inspection, don't want to think about the mockery with which I'll be spoken of in private later. Definitely not what I go to conferences for.

I challenge all my fellow misbehaving conference-goers to forego the Fashion Posts for the next conference they go to. Further, I challenge us to change the Fashion Post genre. Hey, I saw this unbelievably cool outfit at ACRL, a gorgeous swirly tan dress with a net shawl tied at the waist and let drape...