NEW WAVE FEMINISM

One of the differences between the new wave of feminism and previous ones is that feminists do not seem to care any more about what clothes women wear. Long gone are the days when being a feminist implied hating fashion and burning bras (as a 46-year-old woman who has had three children, I am naturally grateful for the latter). Indeed, since feminism has turned towards women’s freedom to take their own decisions in life, women wearing what they wish (be that plain, colourful, wide, narrow, on trend or outdated) fits neatly with that concept.
When it comes to clothes it is difficult to put the finger on what is gender discriminatory, because (unfair as that may be) first impressions of both men and women are often formed by how we look. A comment about women having to shorten the length of their skirts in order to be successful is clearly discriminatory. But if a businesswoman or female politician goes to a meeting in flamboyant clothes or shoes and people or the media comment on them, does it happen only because she is a woman? Would that happen if a businessman or male politician went to a meeting in flamboyant clothes or shoes?
Much has been written about women in power being judged mostly by their clothes (a newspaper’s parade, this summer, of female ministers as a models’ line-up being a reminder of how little things have changed since the 1960s for some). And yet there are many women in some of the highest positions in power (from Merkel to Lagarde and from Clinton to Rousseff) who are hardly ever judged by their clothes.SUMMER  FASHION