We Should All Be Feminists

Dior’s t-shirt that displayed the simple sentence…We Should All Be Feminists was a powerful statement.  Fashion tells a story.  Our wardrobes represent who we are.  Our clothes represent our behavior, how we are feeling and it also represents the times we live in.

History has made a direct impact on the fashion industry.  During WWII there wasn’t enough fabric so the style was simple.  Those luxurious fabrics were scarce and so clothes were made with rayon.  After WWI the hemlines dropped into the fun and fiery flapper era before the financial crash and in the post hemlines dropped. The economic boon of the 50’s was very glam and the styles reflected that with A-line skirts and form fitting clothes.  Hippie wear took over in the 60’s with mini and maxi-skirts.  The clothes were more free-flowing and that represented the shift in the 60’s taking place.  The 70’s became more glam with the disco era.  More women joined the workforce in the 80’s and the clothing of straight broad-shouldered conservative suits came onto the scene.

I have followed the fashion world as long as I can remember.  Designers are saying something with the clothes they are designing this season.  The mood of the globe is weighing heavily on their decisions.  Clothes were gender-neutral, there was also an ode to military looks and lots of female power suits.  But what was the most powerful was that designers were not only making a statement with their clothing line but with words and the music being played at the shows.

I have always been a fan of the t-shirt with a saying.  Seeing the designers forge together to make a statement about their state of mind is empowering to the fashion world who has always represented the times we live in.

Comments (Archived):

  1. Sofia Papastamelos

    Maria’s collection for Dior was amazing. Love the T shirts and her message.

    1. Gotham Gal

      Me too!

  2. meredithcollinz

    Love The Future is Female from the fabulous entrepreneur Rachel Berks & Otherwild! And a portion of the proceeds go to Planned Parenthood! http://otherwild.com/produc

    1. Gotham Gal

      I have the t-shirt and sweatshirt!

  3. Jeremy Robinson

    I agree. The capability of women is the greatest under under-utilized resource of these United States. If we can really resource this even 70% correctly we sure could be something special here.

  4. Twain Twain

    I know that the culture of tech we’ve inherited has brought us to this lack of representativeness IN THE CODE ITSELF: https://uploads.disquscdn.chttps://uploads.disquscdn.c…I’m not a feminist. I’m a HUMANIST: we put human-centricity first in everything we think+do.As I try to design and code AI, I’m mindful of the opportunity and responsibility to build systems that are as BIAS-FREE for each and every person as possible. It’s not easy to do because there’s about 2000+ years of philosophical mindsets from about 50 white, educated, upper middle class guys whose thinking, language and cultures aren’t representative of 7+ billion people (of whom about 3.2 billion are online).They’re the guys whose paradigms have put us into the binary boxes of 0, 1, % that THEY have defined.We can design+code the tech differently to change that for the future of Humankind so that AI and economic systems generally are less autistic, less biased (so don’t assume we’re probabilistic and biased like dice) and more empathic and understands our language, our cultures and our values.