Skyler

“We were taught to value love yet not to rely on it too heavily, because the world of excessive freedom in which we had been made would not foster the long-suffering loyalty that love required. We were encouraged to care deeply about the state of our world but our ability to affect it personally was very much in doubt. In general, we were told that the distance between desire and obligation had been closed in the preceding decades, but everyone seemed to agree that the absence of obligation would not free us. Most of all we found ourselves believing in complexity. This paradigm had some merit; it allowed us to avoid extreme states of dogma and ignorance, like militarism or participation in pyramid schemes.”
― Lillian Fishman, Acts of Service

“Zuckerberg in his uniform of gray T-shirts embodied the ideal ethos of Silicon Valley: an unselfconscious nerd too busy obsessively designing tomorrow’s technology to worry about appearances. This has a naïve charm. But if the CEO of the company thinks he isn’t doing his job if he spends any energy on the frivolous matter of attire, then what are we to think of the employee who arrives at work wearing a sharp tailored suit or a pair of high-heeled Louboutins? Here Zuckerberg’s shift to the second person is revealing: he begins discussing his own ambitions but then insists that “making… decisions about what you wear… consumes your energy.” Purported indifference to appearance becomes a reason to judge based on appearance; a new dress code displaces an older one.”
― Richard Thompson Ford, Dress Codes: How the Laws of Fashion Made History

“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

“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