Rethink message we are sending women and girls
We are more than how we look, writes Desirée de Jesus
“We would really love to hire you, but — would you be willing to change your hairstyle?”
Surprised, I raised my eyebrows. “It’s just, we’re a family brand,” he added quickly.
Can’t imagine hearing this request during a job interview? Well I did. I was a teenager applying for a summer cashier job for a multinational media and entertainment company. Back then, I wore my textured natural hair in “locs,” a hairstyle you’ve probably seen on Ava Duvernay, the award-winning filmmaker.
Sad and puzzled, I glanced at my reflection as I left the store: I was dressed professionally and my hair was styled neatly, so why weren’t my communication skills and film knowledge enough?
Sadly, experiences like mine are more common than you might think. Throughout much of the world, girls’ and women’s appearances are used as excuses to marginalize them.
In some schools, this policing of girls’ appearances includes rules that characterize girls’ bodies as sexual distractions that prevent boys from learning.
Last year, girls from high schools across Canada protested these discriminatory dress codes on International Day of the Girl Child. Many argued that instead of fostering productive learning environments that benefited all, the rules unfairly targeted girls and normalized sexist behaviour.
For many girls and women of colour, these school and workplace dress codes all too often are applied in a way that imposes the additional burden of conforming to a beauty standard that requires them to straighten their hair, wear straight-hair extensions, or face disciplinary actions.
With pressing problems like child marriage and forcible displacement, it’s easy to think that issues like implicit bias and sexism aren’t as important. But letting discrimination continue in contexts that are supposed to empower and educate girls has consequences.
It marks certain spaces in society as offlimits. It teaches girls to anticipate a future in which they’ll be blamed for attracting unwanted attention, discrimination and sexual violence. It also shows boys that they’re not responsible for their own behaviour.
A recent art exhibition titled What Were You Wearing? at the University of Kansas, pairs sexual assault survivors’ accounts with clothing matching the description of what they were wearing when attacked.
It interrogates the common misconception that survivors’ appearances provoke sexual violence.
The inclusion of children’s clothing in the exhibit is particularly troubling. It reveals links between the logic informing dress codes that target girls and victim-blame assault survivors.
One might be tempted to think this sexist practice only affects “certain kinds” of girls or women. However, in just the past two months, three public figures — television meteorologist Kelsey McEwen and MPs Catherine McKenna and Celina Caesar-Chavannes — have confronted appearance-based gender discrimination.
After receiving a body-shaming tweet calling her maternity clothing “disgusting,” McEwen told viewers women’s bodies should not be a public concern.
Not long after, McKenna challenged politician Gerry Ritz’s use of a gendered stereotype (“climate Barbie”) to describe her appearance and devalue her societal contributions.
And, in her parliamentary address, CaesarChavannes discussed the prevalence of bodyshaming, and wore corn-rowed extensions in solidarity with those who’ve experienced discrimination because of their hairstyles, head scarves or bodies.
Enough is enough. It’s time for people of all genders to think about the messages we send girls and women.
Actively working to remove implicit cultural, gender and racial biases from our dress codes and attitudes toward girls and women affirms their personhood and inherent value.
Even though most of us may never have public platforms like McEwen, McKenna and Caesar-Chavannes, we still have a responsibility to each other to make a difference within our spheres of influence. Our future depends on it. Desirée de Jesus is a video essayist, Concordia University public scholar and film and moving image studies PhD candidate researching representations of marginalized girls in popular culture.