"I wanted to look good. I also wanted to look credible."

January 3, 2018 1:51 PM

How I Learned to Look Believable (CW: sexual harassment)
posted by Lycaste (39 comments total)

I really want to credit the NYT for the many new ways in which it has failed us.

But this, "what did she wear?" is so same-old, same-old.
posted by Dashy at 1:56 PM on January 3, 2018

What are you talking about? The article is a woman explaining in the first person about the humiliation she personally experienced and the compromises she had to make, over and over and over, to be believed about sexual harassment.
posted by joyceanmachine at 2:13 PM on January 3, 2018 [43 favorites]

This author is responding to the insidious Tone Argument through the lens of personal presentation. It's really well done.
posted by Thella at 2:33 PM on January 3, 2018 [14 favorites]

I hope she got satisfaction with her legal case and wish her well, but that scrolling thing over the outfits really is annoying. Damn it, if I want to scroll, let me scroll. And get off my lawn.
posted by yes I said yes I will Yes at 2:40 PM on January 3, 2018 [1 favorite]

Well, it struck me (super) wrong, I was (sorely) disappointed, but I'll zipper now.
posted by Dashy at 2:43 PM on January 3, 2018

Ok the takeaway is that she should be able to wear whatever the f she wants, but she can‘t, because misogyny? That‘s a pretty good point to make, no?

At UC Berkeley, no less. This is not some stodgy East Coast elite school or Mormon college or whatever...I mean they literally portray UCB as a Marxist factory (snort!) and a haven for everyone but white cis men etc but the truth is a woman will still not be supported here unless she‘s 100% perfect all the time. Lots of good lines in the piece.
posted by The Toad at 3:19 PM on January 3, 2018 [14 favorites]

Anyone know more about the author's case? I know it's not the point, but I'm curious.
posted by medusa at 3:27 PM on January 3, 2018

Well done, this.
posted by MonkeyToes at 3:29 PM on January 3, 2018

Because this article is included in NYT's Style section, a certain amount of description by Hagberg Fisher around what she wore and why it mattered is to be expected (and absolutely matters in making her points). Well written for sure.
posted by but no cigar at 3:32 PM on January 3, 2018 [4 favorites]

I see it not so much as talking about what she wore as a nod to the fact that the article is in the Style section, I see it more as an act of subversion by the Style section to present a long article that's really about tone-policing and the impossible balancing act that anyone laying a charge of sexual misconduct needs to pull off.
posted by adamrice at 3:47 PM on January 3, 2018 [43 favorites]

Advertising keeps promising that if we only buy this, well, this, no, this, we will be safe. And here is a lovely article reminding us that there is nothing with that power, if we do not have the power to start with.
posted by clew at 3:50 PM on January 3, 2018 [9 favorites]

It might help to read any one of the many clear statements she makes to let you know that she can't talk about the case directly and is using the wardrobe workaround deliberately.

One of the things that’s been most challenging is the confidentiality that a legal proceeding requires. When I couldn’t outright say what I was doing, I could at least post loafer pics.

I can’t say whether I participated in such a hearing, but I can say that on the morning of Nov. 2 I carefully showered, sprayed my hair with leave-in conditioner, put on my VPL-free underwear I’d bought the year before at Uniqlo, put on those same Club Monaco dress pants, and took the black and gray sweater out of its drawer.

There's a Susan Glaspell play that is in the same tradition and similarly subtle.
posted by Don Pepino at 4:03 PM on January 3, 2018 [15 favorites]

I believe her.
posted by Space Kitty at 4:32 PM on January 3, 2018 [1 favorite]

Hell, I'm wondering if I know her.
posted by clew at 4:42 PM on January 3, 2018 [2 favorites]

This is fantastic
posted by thivaia at 4:59 PM on January 3, 2018

Thanks for this.
posted by Valancy Rachel at 5:33 PM on January 3, 2018 [1 favorite]

This is a great article. I love the way the photos of the outfits subvert the expectations one might have, looking at nicely photographed outfits in a newspaper or magazine article. Like "Fashion, Fake Geek Girls, and WorldCon" and "The Logic of Stupid Poor People" and "There is No Unmarked Woman", it uses the vivid specifics of clothes to help me see the choices we make in our self-presentation -- especially the ones I'm conditioned not to see.
posted by brainwane at 5:38 PM on January 3, 2018 [14 favorites]

What are you talking about? The article is a woman explaining in the first person

(I'd like to note for posterity that I absolutely did not indicate disbelief of, nor did I even address, the author or her stated experience)
posted by Dashy at 6:20 PM on January 3, 2018

I thought it was really well done. As others have noted it's a good take down of tone-policing.

It's also a testament to the author's agency. She couldn't control very much of what happened in the proceedings but she was determined not to be passive.
posted by oddman at 6:36 PM on January 3, 2018 [9 favorites]

For anyone else who feels like they just read a 2,500 word subtweet they can't quite untangle, the case she's discussing is described here. Looks like Berkeley settled with her over delays in responding to her complaint for $80K.

She may be writing so obliquely due to constraints imposed by the settlement. My initial thought on reading it was "For someone who wants to be taken seriously, she sure spent a lot of words convincing me she's a clothes horse."
posted by Coventry at 6:52 PM on January 3, 2018 [1 favorite]

This is brilliant. The author has been subjected to so much scrutiny already. I admire her for writing about something that some people will dismiss as frivolous but I know I have an elaborate "how will this be perceived?" thought process before I buy anything and that's just me going about my ordinary life.
posted by TheLateGreatAbrahamLincoln at 7:14 PM on January 3, 2018 [5 favorites]

Ooof. That hits close to home. Men really can't understand the constant judgement women feel because of our clothes and it is so exhausting. I hate clothes, I hate shopping, but even I am super aware that others are judging me solely by my clothes/brands in a way they never would for a man. I can't wait for the Star Trek jumpsuits to be the norm (I guess yoga pants are one step on the evolution towards them).
posted by saucysault at 7:15 PM on January 3, 2018 [16 favorites]

I used to have a white shirt with a peter pan collar, embroidered with flowers. I was wearing it when someone who felt entitled to a relationship was parked outside my window, watching me. He later commented on the shirt: how he thought it was maybe a nightgown, but then realized it wasn't. Just letting me know that he was watching.

After that, I felt dirty wearing the shirt. But I didn't want to give it away either. Some sort of defiance, I guess. I eventually gave up. There was no point in keeping a shirt I never wore.

I'm very thankful for this article. It made me feel less crazy and alone.
posted by MrBobinski at 7:19 PM on January 3, 2018 [28 favorites]

I feel that criticising her for not being specific enough about her situation is missing the point. It's not an article about one specific situation; it's about the whole dance of being a woman in public and in the public eye, particularly in regards to sexual assault. It's the victim who's on trial, and every detail about you is picked over and everyone feels free to make judgements based on what you're wearing on every single appearance. It's not just "what were you wearing when it happened" -- as she vocalises in her piece, it's a constant "are you projecting an appropriate image of someone we will believe, at every time, in the exact right way".
posted by Cheerwell Maker at 7:25 PM on January 3, 2018 [38 favorites]

Your perfectly pedestrian choices will be used against you. The length and cut of your skirt. The height of your shoe heel. Wanting to pursue graduate studies. Bringing suit. Dress accordingly, ladies. Perhaps the red cape and white headgear will keep others from judging you?
posted by MonkeyToes at 7:43 PM on January 3, 2018 [6 favorites]

This rang true for me, particularly all the decisions I've made without being able to articulate exactly why I was making them.

Gray turtleneck says "Hi boss, please don't remark on my clothing choices today."
Black slacks with blazer say "I deserve to be in this meeting and should not be kicked out."
Colorful blouse with no cleavage, jeans and low heels says "I care enough about this date to look nice, but my expectations are modest and yours should be too. Please don't get handsy without permission."

And that's from all the "did you see what she was wearing?" reaction to just about anything any woman does ever, from the 7th grader who kept getting sent home when I was in middle school, to Michelle Obama, to every female assault victim ever.

And all this time I've just looked politely confused when people talked about expressing themselves through fashion.
posted by bunderful at 8:52 PM on January 3, 2018 [11 favorites]

I admire anyone who can publish a fuck you to the NYT style section in the NYT style section. a number of women have done this but Hagberg Fisher does it especially well. this is a very funny piece, it would have done very well at the Toast or the old Hairpin or some such place where the readership went into a piece expecting that the writer knew what she was doing and knew what she was saying and was doing it on purpose. the way you do. the price of a prestige venue with a much larger audience is that people will belittle you without understanding you, for no reason whatsoever, I guess. would that the whole literate world were a place where people understood that a woman telling jokes is a sign she is clever, not a sign she is stupid.

My initial thought on reading it was "For someone who wants to be taken seriously, she sure spent a lot of words convincing me she's a clothes horse."

what

could you explain further, or quote any sentence that made you think this? she writes like someone who is entirely confident in her self-representation as a serious person, just like any accomplished writer and academic does as a matter of course. what part of the piece sounded like it was an effort to induce people to take her seriously? she was talking about having done that in real life -- getting people to see a human person when they look at her in hearings and complaints and negotiations. presented as a style-section fashion conundrum, for people who are familiar with that literary form and appreciate a certain relentless style of humor. that's not anything like asking for respect from her readers, which she is not doing and certainly has no need to do. she assumes it and she has it.

as for being a clothes horse, what are you talking about re: anything she wrote, and also what's that got to do with being taken seriously.

this isn't very oblique, at all. it's well controlled and very angry, I guess that's kind of similar?
posted by queenofbithynia at 11:54 PM on January 3, 2018 [32 favorites]

This is fantastic. Perhaps men would find it easier to understand if she’d explained the consequences of getting the outfits wrong. But women know the stakes already and it’s interesting to see a success story instead of the more usual beatdown based on clothes or behaviour in a legal arena (eg Amanda Knox).
posted by harriet vane at 1:06 AM on January 4, 2018 [3 favorites]

One of the reasons i have never made a conplaint about sexual assault is because I have large breasts and therefore whatever I wear I'm "asking for it". I feel this article captured the ridiculous of that reality. I can not imagine conveying my experience like she successfully did.
posted by b33j at 2:04 AM on January 4, 2018 [4 favorites]

Wow. I did not expect any paper's Style section to have a piece like this. Some of the lines that struck me harder than I expected (either from empathetic horror or anger):

"...appearances at school-sponsored forums where a person may hide in the back while attempting to keep her heart rate manageable as she listens to lots of powerful people proudly talking about what a great job they’re doing despite the person making accusations hearing nothing from any of them and quite frankly having no idea what’s going on;.."

"I learned this all on the full-time job that is being an objector to sexual harassment in America."

"I didn’t want to look so downtrodden that I would look obsessed with being a victim, as it was suggested. I didn’t want to look so feminine and girlish that I wouldn’t be taken seriously; I’d seen the way young-looking women are treated. And yet, I didn’t want to look too aggressive, too much like a “rabble-rouser” with an “agenda.” Of course I had been cautioned about that."

"I wish that we lived in a world where I could both wear high-heeled gold-detailed boots and be utterly reliable and credible, but the patriarchy is still too strong. Talk about a narrow path to victory."

"And you know what they say about harassment victims with visible shirttails: They’re lying."

"This is a great everyday outfit for those campus days when you have no idea whom you might run into." - taking a standard style-line and turning it into Jacksonian horror.
posted by Mutant Lobsters from Riverhead at 2:13 AM on January 4, 2018 [16 favorites]

I appreciated reading this, and felt for her.

But I mostly was left thinking not so much about her situation but about people in similar situations who can’t afford to buy their respectability, can’t fit into clothing brands likely to provide it, whose gender identity clashes painfully with these sorts of presentation expectations, etc.
posted by Stacey at 4:43 AM on January 4, 2018 [11 favorites]

would that the whole literate world were a place where people understood that a woman telling jokes is a sign she is clever, not a sign she is stupid.

but we aren't funny, everyone's always telling us that
thus our jokes only exist in our puny woman brains
woman brains that are of course entirely different from man brains which is why we're a different species and unable to reproduce and the poor males are reduced to babbling inanities at us in an attempt to provoke us to spontaneous combustion resulting in the furtherance of the male species
of course if males result from females who are so entirely different one wonders how their brains have evolved separately and with such inviolable superiority, scientists should get on that stat
male scientists of course, since only their brains are capable of seeing important things like things that aren't fashion
that's how it works, right, that's why so many people don't assume a woman is capable of intelligence, it's because we're biologically incapable of it, i mean all this eye-rolling at a woman talking about fashion is totally done in good faith right, no one is sexist here just species-ist, it's science, not lazy unthinking stereotypes

it's reassuring really i mean as a hetero woman i don't have to worry about dating any more since heterosexual reproduction is in fact impossible with such massive differences
posted by fraula at 5:30 AM on January 4, 2018 [5 favorites]

As I write this I'm wearing, uh, random jeans and a button-down I like but it's from goodwill. Oh, and the certainty that my clothes have little influence on the respect I get. I'm wearing that also, being male. Not wearing that must suck.
posted by kleinsteradikaleminderheit at 6:08 AM on January 4, 2018 [6 favorites]

those in need of a respectable presentation for court appearances but who cannot or will not aspire to the heights of academic financial privilege and crisp androgynous style exemplified by the GAP outlet store of Sedona, Arizona, might consider sending soothing subliminal messages via these fashion tips.

judges and juries can't help but be fair and understanding to a woman who dresses like a Cuisinart, it reminds them of their mothers' kitchens

(the inane text in that link is yet another inexplicable feminine "joke," but the outfits are deadly serious.)
posted by queenofbithynia at 7:41 AM on January 4, 2018 [2 favorites]

Consequences of putting some/a lot of thought into what you wear: Experiences and testimony dismissed out of hand due to perception that women as a class are too busy choosing to care about dumb shit like fashion to be able to operate rationally, which sets us apart from all the intelligent people who know they don't have to care about dumb shit like fashion at all

Consequences of putting very little/no thought into what you wear: Experiences and testimony dismissed out of hand due to perception that you have either over or under-performed femininity

Just another tightrope none of us can actually cross successfully, by dint of being born into these damnably untrustworthy bodies.
posted by obstinate harpy at 8:08 AM on January 4, 2018 [12 favorites]

Caitlin Moran, on clothing: "And we fret about all this — appearance, clothes — because it matters. If we're still getting talked-over at meetings, is it because we're not dressing powerfully enough? If we're getting sexually harassed, is it because we're wearing the wrong skirt? In 2008, a rape case was overturned because the judge decided the alleged victim must have consented to sex, because her jeans were "too tight" for the accused to remove on his own. This is what we're thinking about, when we stand in front of the wardrobe. Will this outfit define the rest of today? Will it, if I am very unlucky, affect my life? Is this going to be the subject of a court-case? Could I run for my life in these shoes? Do I have anything for who I need to be today?"

One outfit--one set of choices--in hopes of keeping you tactically prepared, immune from (verbal and non-verbal) judgments about your sexuality, comfortable in various environments. One outfit to make yourself feel good, and to present appropriately in professional context. This choice every day, even knowing its futility and limits. And the fallout if in choosing to emphasize one aspect, we leave ourselves vulnerable and blameworthy in other ways, ways that have material consequences.

So much depends upon a red cowboy boot.

Lycaste, thanks for bringing this essay here.
posted by MonkeyToes at 9:28 AM on January 4, 2018 [14 favorites]

For those who are somehow skeptical that women always, always have to consider shit like this, take a gander at Corporette, which is a professional women's clothing blog that's mostly for lawyers and similarly-formal folks. Seriously, just check out this discussion on what nail lengths and colors are appropriate for the office.
posted by mosst at 12:49 PM on January 4, 2018 [4 favorites]

For those noting the subversion of the Styles section, shout out to recently installed Styles section editor, generally menchy and sharp character, mefi's own, Choire Sicha.
posted by latkes at 6:04 PM on January 4, 2018 [19 favorites]

Thanks to Lycaste, also, as a regular subscriber of the NYT and specifically the Style section, somehow I missed this!
posted by honey badger at 6:25 AM on January 15, 2018