“Is that what you’re wearing to the grocery store?”
You’re wearing your pajamas. Granted, they’re loose on you to optimize comfort when you snuggle into bed to watch the latest episodes of your favorite show but they probably look like rags to anyone else. You know there’s no point complaining so you change into something more “presentable”. Your mother gives you a grudging look of approval before you march out of the house, already plotting ways to sneak in your favorite snack amongst the gazillion fruits and vegetables.
Your brother is free from such biting remarks when the task falls on him. You think he looks more ragged than someone who’s survived a week in the woods without any spare clothes and has more holes in his shirt than a sponge. However, your mother is immovable; she sees nothing to be fixed. You huff in annoyance but the feeling is fleeting. The differential standards that you, as a woman, and your brother, as a man, are held to are nothing new.
Such gendered standards of appearance and presentability are instilled from a young age at home in later preparation for one’s formal entry into society. A woman is always expected to possess a basic level of presentability that demands beauty and appeal in appearance. A pair of sweatshirts and sweatpants, uncombed, frizzy hair, and no make-up are far from this idealistic expectation. This view assumes that a woman’s confidence is built on her ability to turn heads with the way she looks, something that many women unfortunately still ascribe to today.
On the other hand, a man can look like they’ve been mauled by a bear and no one would bat an eye. The very fact that he is a man is the foundation of his confidence, regardless of his actual appearance or his own perceptions of his looks. An unwashed face, a worn-out shirt and a pair of shorts that are laughably uncoordinated in color scheme, and barely combed through hair do not set a man apart in the space they occupy the same way they do a woman. The woman is a beautiful, untouched glass sculpture frozen in space; the man is anything he wants to be, limitless.
At this point, you may wonder: what’s wrong with expecting a woman to look presentable?
There’s nothing wrong, of course. The contention arises in the double standards; why aren’t men held to the same standard of presentability? A woman must present herself without a hair out of place on a daily basis before the world even thinks of giving her the respect she deserves.
A man could walk in wearing a unicorn onesie and he would still passively receive a basic level of respect that a woman would have to actively fight tooth and nail for. To exist in a space anywhere in society as a woman is an exhausting affair. One could map the radius of space a woman is allowed to exist in without fear of judgment of her appearance and it would almost always be limited to her home. Often, she is not free even in her own home. Even running to a local grocery store barely a few steps away from her house demands utmost care in appearance. As the story goes, no such expectation falls on the man.
Today, various institutions, companies, and franchises have monopolized this disparate double standard to ensure women retain a basic level of presentability. Beauty products, clothes, and accessories have been embellished over and over to catch a woman’s eye. The woman is essentially a doll, dressed in society’s expectations. In turn, women have bought into this expectation, albeit not mindlessly, as they preach about the confidence gained from a perfect hair day, the perfect eyeliner, and the on-point outfit that brought out the color in their eyes. Truly, a woman’s confidence increasingly lies in her appearance.
No man would ever have to rely on appearance to confidently navigate a world that has been built for them.