What Happens Next: A Gallimaufry

melancholic romantic comic cynic. bi & genderqueer. fantasy writer. sysrae on ao3.

listen, I’m someone who has very little interest in fashion beyond the holy trinity of Things That Are Comfortable, Things I Bought At The Op-Shop and Nerd Shirts From The Internet, but as a white afab person, in addition to all the sexist fuckery to which young girls are routinely exposed concerning their appearance, I was also taught - and internalised, uncritically - a great deal of racist bullshit about what kinds of clothes and jewellery and hairstyles are “trashy” or “cheap” or “unwearable”, and that’s something I’m still actively having to work through

because so much of what’s passed on this way is dogwhistle white middle class racism, like the idea that certain bright colour combinations (which just so happen to flatter brown or black skin) are “gaudy”, whereas other combinations (which just so happen to flatter pale skin) are not, or the idea that certain types of patterned fabric are too “busy”, or that lots of rings or chunky jewellery is “tacky”, and yeah, there’s a lot of classism impacting those judgements, too, but let’s just say, there’s a reason so many adults lost their shit about the idea that Bratz dolls were sexualised in a way that Barbie wasn’t when I was growing up, and it had nothing to do with the dolls actually being sexual at all

so, yeah: gentle reminder to other white people that even if you’re not that interested in clothes or fashion, you’ve likely still absorbed a certain degree of ambient misogynoir about what combinations and styles are “acceptable”, and it’s helpful to be aware of that and to try and work through it

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