Vogue is reporting that Michelle Obama is taking on the cause of “outfit repetition.” This is the important social problem whereby women are criticized for wearing the same outfit more than once where men can wear the same thing over and over.
Brooke Bobb reports:
Michelle Obama raised this difficult-to-dissect subject last week when she told the crowd at Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference that former President Barack Obama wore the same suit for nearly eight years. “That’s the unfair thing,” she said. “No matter what we do he puts on the same tux. Now, people take pictures of the shoes I wear, the bracelets, the necklace—they didn’t comment on that for eight years, he wore the same tux, same shoes.” The scrutiny of a First Lady’s wardrobe is nothing new. In fact, it’s a deeply rooted tradition in American culture, but Michelle Obama’s statement certainly makes you think. Whether in politics, business, or celebrity land, women have to constantly change up their look while their male counterparts tend to get a pass.
Bob also interviews Susan Bordo, a Professor of Gender and Women’s Studies at the University of Kentucky and author of the 2017 The Destruction of Hillary Clinton. In her book, Bordo argues that “when Clinton adopted the repetitive uniform of a man—the famous pantsuit—she was judged.” As Bordo writes, “While many male politicians can relax with a pretty standard professional dress code and are rarely criticized for being too ‘serious,’ ‘gruff,’ or ‘ungracious,’ women have to calibrate their outfits carefully to avoid being too schoolmarmish and too sexually provocative, and to regulate their emotional presence to be both warm and charming and ‘tough enough to handle the job.’”
Of course, if women limited their fashion choices to only a few options the way men do, Vogue would go out of business.
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