“$3.99 a pair? That’s GAS prices!”

Posted by Jaki in The Opposite of Advice.

Feminism starts small. You don’t wake up one morning in your grandmother’s living room with a mohawk introducing your life partner. You aren’t on the bus and words like “patriarchy” and “fascism” start falling out of your mouth. At first, there might not be a large difference to the people around you but when you are a feminist, there is a change in you that is just as real and valid as plastering stickers on the bumper of your Subaru. There is no universal battle that defines the female experience for every woman. There are personal conflicts that are personally tailored to each woman’s situation. For me, it was those damn stockings.

I hate stockings. They are the most useless article of clothing ever created. It is fabric so sheer that it offers no elemental protection. They are expensive and no matter how many you buy, you always need another pair because they are completely destructible. They force you to change the way you interact with everything around you. The world is full of sharp corners and chairs with snags. For me, stockings are the cruelest form of mental bondage–they tie you to a seat and inhibit your movement until you transform into a mannequin. A run in your stockings is a chink in your armor and it lets everyone see the real flesh beneath it, the flesh that has scars and stubble. Be ashamed of it. Hide it away. Cover yourself. As a grown-up (or what passes for one), I have no hatred of stockings. I find them sexy at times and I have enjoyed wearing them when the mood fits. As a young girl, I found them confining because of what they symbolized. Stockings were what ladies wore.

Now, I’ve worn stockings on numerous occasions and I’ve done several unladylike things while wearing them. My first sexual experience was in the basement of a church. The young man I was with grew impatient with me and ripped the crotch out of an expensive pair of pantyhose. I remember protesting but he slid his hand through and under the material until he reached behind me. It was the ultimate act of subversion for me to be dressed so primly while being taken on a dusty floor. Wearing those ripped pantyhose during the rest of service was a silent thrill.

That’s when it began.

That’s when I started to realize the hypocrisy of it all. I could look like a lady with smooth sheer legs while hiding so much underneath, like a very ruined support top. A lady has to be more than stockings. For that matter, who gets to decide what is a lady and if so, who wants to be one of those lady thingies anyway? The next Sunday, I didn’t wear any at all.

My mom was livid. There is a proper way things are done and ladies don’t walk around barelegged. Ladies don’t flaunt themselves. All the reasons she gave me for wearing them only strengthened my resolve.

“You mean, I can’t be a lady without stockings? What about women in the Bible?”

“If my stockings snag on accident, am I not a lady anymore?”

“If I can’t afford stockings, can I still be a lady?”

“If my legs are enticing men, then doesn’t that mean they need to be gentlemanly?”

There were several Sundays when I’d leave the house wearing them only for them to “accidentally” rip. There was a struggle for a while. My mother started to carry a back up pair and on several occasions I was told to walk down to the nearest store to buy a pair. I don’t remember the final conversation but at some point, I stopped discussing it. She’d complain about my bare legs and I’d ignore it. She’d lecture me on proper dress etiquette and I’d nod along. Things progress to the point where I realized that I don’t have to justify my life and my choices to anyone besides myself.

Stockings are thin destructible pointless rules that made me feel like my nakedness is too hairy and pockmarked to be beautiful. Fuck stockings. We should burn then in a compost heap filled high with your bras, her veils, someone’s makeup and whatever else binds us to the sexism of a society that will never be satisfied. Now I know that what I am is dictated by more than what covers (or does not cover) my body. I play the lady role when it suits me. I have the dresses and the accessories. I love a cute pair of peep-toe pumps like the girliest of them. It’s almost perverse the pleasure I get from slipping some pumps on and walking out into the world with my brown bare legs.

The Opposite of Advice |