Yes, we really want this gift … her truthful, comic bravery and no more Spanx.
There are 86 ways to Sunday that women get talked about and judged when it comes to looks. We hesitate to say this, but the odds are that no matter what feminist “wave” we are living in, there will always be those who feel like what we wear and how we wear it are fair game for unsolicited and unwelcome opinion commentary. Because, hey ladies, we just don’t understand when guys are really just trying to be encouraging!
The most recent example of what many of us see as a double standard was put best by SNL cast member Cecily Strong at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner, when she asked all the members of the press to take an oath:
“I solemnly swear… not to talk about Hillary’s appearance… because that is not journalism.”
It took almost no time at all for some of the male young guns in the press corps to object. Hey, we guys are criticized just as much for what we wear, they proclaimed! Yeah … in their self-absorbed guy world, one mention of someone’s necktie is equal to the barrage of appearance criticism high profile women like Hillary Clinton take every day.
Yet, the famous and those of us in the larger ranks of the not-so-famous, do have to think about how we’re going to look in public at the risk of being called out for gaining weight or letting ourselves go or looking old or being past our expiration dates. And with that, many of us have succumbed to the uncomfortable evil that is Spandex shape wear, having convinced ourselves that the appearance of smoother and firmer is a 21st century requirement.
But one brave woman has taken one for the female team with the aim of leaving those lady sausage casings in the dresser drawer forever.
This weekend, we say, “Thank you, thank you, Tina Fey!” for your #LastDressEver campaign. Of course, technically, it’s not the dresses we object to. It’s what we’re expected to wear as foundational garments these days to smooth out our lumps and bumps … apparently to make us more acceptable to the men folk that we have a problem with. Because, God forbid, our tummies might show just a little too much or our derrieres aren’t as perky as they once were. Some women thank Sara Blakely for launching the Spanx empire that includes many pieces that could pass for implements of torture, especially when a gal is expected to wear more than one of them at a time to pass for acceptable.
Tina Fey was more than happy to bare all those “secrets” on national TV as she bid them a final farewell:
Thank you again, Tina, for giving us this gift for Mother’s Day we didn’t know we wanted — the gift of #NoMoreDresses and #NoMoreSpanx.
Image via Wikimedia Commons/Gage Skidmore/CC License
