What to wear....

Just a very very quick blog post today, about a particular article that I came across this morning. It is a piece in the Daily Mail about women who dislike/are fed up with/want to change their partner's style or particular items of clothing. With the title of the piece being 'Can you make your slobby hubby sexy again?'.

I can't believe how shallow and patronising a piece this is. There are several issues that could be taken up about this particular piece:

• Image shouldn't be important if you care about and respect your partner
• They shouldn't have to dress a particular way to please you
• What you deem fashionable/acceptable/smart (delete as applicable) may be vastly different to what they think
• Respecting and caring for your partner, it must be quite hurtful to have someone telling you they don't like the way you look, particularly if you have been married/together a long time

I have nothing against people who take pride in their appearance, whatever manifestation that pride may be it is up to them. Just as I don't see the value in judging someone based on the type or brand of clothes that they are wearing. I am sure there are a great number of people who would walk past me and find a hundred ways in which they could 'improve' my look.

The phrase fashion-conscious has been mentioned and a criticism of a husband for buying and wearing the same type of clothes over the decades together. If something fits, works and you like it I can hardly see a problem or the need for a spouse to want you to change. The individuals all look well dressed after their 'make-overs' and seem relatively happy and polite about the changes that have been made. However, it doesn't change the fact that the whole focus of this was to get the men to change because their partners had deemed there was something not good enough about their look.

The reaction to this article will be interesting as there is a little bit of me that cannot help but wonder what it would have been/looked like had the article been reversed. At the point of writing this blog post the positive rated comments on the article identify that it is sexist and the reaction would be very negative if men had done this to their wives. This is perhaps a very fair point, as when we think of control and manipulation we often have a very set idea of what and who this looks like. With the negative rated comments being about how good the changes were and that men should take this on board. Although as the boards are realistically anonymous (despite screen names, you could be anybody) we cannot be certain of the genders posting the comments at the end. I do think this is worth raising because too many people assume that any individual who identifies as a feminist but want female superiority and dislikes men. When in fact feminism is about social and political equality with respect for both genders. This respect works both ways, and means that neither sex should be judging or dictating to the other.