Women and Media Spring 2017: Dress like a woman

Friday, May 12, 2017

Dress like a woman

Kianni Johnson

Women in Media

May 11, 2017

This is how we DRESS LIKE WOMEN!

For my project, I created an Instagram account; @DRESSLIKEA.WOMAN, illustrating the many ways to “dress like a woman.” As we briefly discussed in class, there was a news report in February, where Donald Trump said he wants his female staffers to “dress like women; even if you’re in jeans, you need to look neat and orderly.” Consequently, the many women who worked on his campaign felt pressures to wear dresses, to comply with view of woman. Since then, there has been a hashtag #Dresslikeawoman on social media, rejecting the idea that women should be restricted to some narrow sartorial category. Therefore, my account utilizes that hashtag and others, to demonstrate the many ways a woman can dress.

My Instagram features many different things but the main focus is women who do not comply with Trump’s idea of what women should be dressed like. As well as, specific women who may work at a job that is something “a woman shouldn’t do.” An example of this would be a member of the Marine Corp. Women’s Workforce in the Marines have come a long way. By the height of the Vietnam War, there were about 2,700 women Marines both stateside and overseas. By 1975, the Corps approved the assignment of women to all occupational fields except infantry, artillery, armor and pilot/air crew. According to the 2012 demographic report, women make up 7.11% of the Marine Corps. They are integrated into nearly all Military Occupational Specialties. They serve globally and proudly carry on the traditions of those first trailblazers as they continue to open doors for future Marines to follow.

Another goal of my Instagram is to display other positive images/resources that young children can relate too. In 2016, Barbie came out with a “You Can Be Anything” campaign, #Youcanbeanything showing girls that they can become anything they imagine, no matter their gender. Ruth Handler, the creator of Barbie said, “My whole philosophy of Barbie was that, through the doll, the girl could be anything she wanted to be. Barbie always represented the fact that a woman has choices.” This was beyond amazing to me. There is also a phenomenal video on the Barbie website, which I found very inspiring. Barbie does a phenomenal job demonstrating many different careers and overall showing girls that if they can imagine it, they CAN become it. The possibilities are endless!