Fashion has been seen a device for confining women essays

Fashion has been seen a device for confining women essays BA Hons Technical Effects for the Performing Arts Fashion has been seen as a device for confining women to an inferior social order. (Finkelstein, J. 1996 After a Fashion Melbourne: Melbourne University Press p.56) Why? Do you accept these arguments. Illustrate your argument with reference to specific examples. The male and female body shapes are physically different, therefore clothing for each gender has to be tailored to fit these variations. Womens clothing generally incorporates more darts to accommodate the bust and hips, while mens clothing has a more rectangular shape to cover their less curvaceous body. If these curve accommodating darts are the only adjustments necessary to make male clothing fit females, we have to ask why men and womens fashions have been so different throughout history? Can different still obtain equality? Are women confined to a lower social order? If so, what confines them? There are many different views to these questions, but no right or wrong answers, just opinions. I will be discussing some of these opinions, as well as contributing my own to help give a broader view of how, and indeed if fashion has been a device for confining women to an inferior social order (Finkelstein, 1996 p.56) The main reason for our fashions being so different is because we define ourselves as being male or female through a system of opposition (Schreier, 1989 p.4). Our fashions have therefore served to divide us through accentuating the physical differences. Men are expected to conform to wearing clothing that is deemed by the society in which they live to be masculine, and women, feminine, for example, during the 1950s men wore suits that comprised of trousers and a hard-edged jacket to accentuate their broad shoulders and in turn their physical strength. During most eras the requirements for feminine fashions were garments that ...