Skyler

“For a woman, respecting tradition isn’t an option when the tradition in question involves the exclusion of women.”
― Richard Thompson Ford, Dress Codes: How the Laws of Fashion Made History

“...the sense that men were alien, that if I were to foster any intimacy with a man it would be both despite and because of the fact that I could only be a body to him. And I had been right to be afraid. How can a body ever be safe when it is only a body? How can we expect that no stranger will be tempted to torch an empty house? But Nathan was not alien. He had seen the lights on in the house: he has discerned the scenes that took place away from the windows, in the secret rooms. His acknowledgement of my body had allowed me to start to forget about it. The facade of the house has been my duty, my obsession, and now I could wander away from it for days, trusting it had proved its use.”
― Lillian Fishman, Acts of Service

“most gendered clothing doesn’t refer to human biology; instead it reflects a social convention. “Women’s clothing” isn’t clothing that is especially suited to female bodies—it is simply any clothing that women typically wear. This means that every transgression of gender norms is also a potential revision of those norms:”
― Richard Thompson Ford, Dress Codes: How the Laws of Fashion Made History

“Ironically, dress codes that require modesty can eroticize the boundary between permissible and illicit, encouraging lust rather than preventing it. Concealment contains the timeless allure of forbidden fruit.”
― Richard Thompson Ford, Dress Codes: How the Laws of Fashion Made History