Why we shouldn't dress to fit in | Amanda Jefferson | TEDxRutgersCamden

I was in my friend's room, I was helping her organize her closet, we were surrounded by the save piles, the Donate piles and it was time to try on the babies, she put on a black jacket, turned around, looked at herself. mirror and said, ugh. I had to ask him what I always ask, which is very neutral, well, what do you think? Although he was pretty sure judging by his body language, this wasn't going to be a keeper, he turned around, looked at me and said, "The truth is." I hate it, but you know what they say that everyone should have a black blazer, so I'm keeping it.

I was speechless. I looked at the sky. What they say everyone should have a black blazer. Who are they and why do we follow this rule? She shrugged and said, I know, I know, but they say everyone should have a black jacket, so I'll keep it, and she put it back in her closet. I can't stop thinking about that moment for weeks. I mean, I had already had my A good number of black Blazers were part of my power suits in my corporate days, but why did she keep them as if they were complacent black and why did I fit in to belong and feel powerful professional to not ruffle feathers because they said we should start?

Think about how that black jacket could be one of the many things we wear because someone somewhere said we should. Our closets are time capsules of these rules, unspoken, outdated, and rooted in the US, but when we stop to think about it, it's all very mysterious, actually, who are the ones who made these rules? Let's dig a little into history and talk about a rule that we all know well. Rule number one. Men don't wear skirts. Women wear skirts. That's the rule, but men. have started appearing on the red carpet and on magazine covers wearing puffy skirts, they are breaking a rule, but where does this rule come from?

Men have worn skirts since the beginning of humanity, they are easy to make. It is practical, it was not until horses were domesticated in Central Asia and in the year 3000 BC. C. that pants became a more practical option. It's much easier to ride a horse in a pair of pants than in a skirt, so horses became a symbol of power, and so pants became a symbol of access class power. If they rode horses, they better do it riding awkwardly saddled sideways with their skirts so that the patriarchy sends the message that pants mean power, so not skirts, that is an unspoken rule that practically lives in the closet of all men, but when you stop to think about it.

Seems like a pretty smart choice, right? I mean, I'm going to assume that the men on that red carpet at the magazine photo shoot didn't need to ride horses for that event, so why the hell did they need to wear pants? ad

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another rule we all take for granted rule number two brides wear white robes at least in western culture they must wear white really said who this role probably dates back to about 2 000 years ago in the Roman Empire when brides wore white robes white represented purity and chastity and was a nod to Vesta, the Roman goddess of the Home and family women, white went out of fashion after the Roman Empire and, instead, women wore their best

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es because it was not a practical option to wear white at a time when it was not.

It's not easy doing laundry at a royal wedding in 1840. Queen Victoria married Prince Albert in a white dress and the dress was featured in publications around the world. Women wanted to copy the elegant queen and suddenly white became a symbol of wealth and status. Why was it white? in particular a symbol of wealth, well if you wore white that meant you were rich enough to get married in a clean place versus the dirty environment so common in the industrial age to this day and even the most progressive women. I know, including myself, proudly wear their white dresses to the altar, but why do we follow this rule?

We do this because of deep cultural conditioning. We do it because it is a tradition, but do we want to continue following a rule that is based on women being pure chastity and ideally modeled after European royalty is that who we are is what we still want, let's take one more rule where we are starting let's see an obsolete rule that becomes obsolete in real time rule number three women must wear high heels ah the high heels it was actually men who wore high heels as a status symbol in the old days we have all seen those images of men with their wigs, makeup and stockings and yes, skirts and heels, it wasn't until the enlightenment that men decided that heels were frivolous and irrational, so they should be worn by frivolous and irrational women, contrary to belief popular, the cures at the time were not designed to make a woman look taller, they were designed to make them look smaller, the heel itself was hidden underneath.

These long, billowy skirts, but they wanted a little pointy heel sticking out from underneath to give the look of the smaller woman now, that is, they wanted the look of the smaller woman now those days of billowy skirts are over, but they did. memory. Alright, my years wearing those pointy heels before starting my business. I had a 20-year career working in corporate and academia and those pointy heels were part of my power suit. I remember wearing my comfy sneakers on my long drive just to sit down. at my desk and reluctantly took off those sneakers and put on my soul-sucking heels and kicked off those heels under my desk whenever I could, but looking back I see more clearly what was at stake just 12 years ago when I was working. at an Ivy League institution wearing that powerful daily uniform of heels and Blazers, we had a revolving door of vice deans coming and going, always men.

A new vice dean called an all-staff meeting and said that, effective immediately, all women had to wear pantyhose. and they couldn't be bare-shouldered, they had to wear a cardigan or jacket, which led many male supervisors to Google what the heck a cardigan was so they could have that awkward conversation with their female subordinates, and by the way , any arrangements for working from home. that several new mothers had been null and void, with immediate effect it became very clear to me and my co-workers that this was about much more than a dress code, we and the women in that room suddenly found ourselves with a Much less power and many more cardigans for women today, new generations of women cannot imagine spending an entire work day in uncomfortable heels they are trying on heels and the rules for heels for clothing and the rules that work for them, so at this point I might be looking at myself and thinking, "Okay Amanda, I have the black pleaser, maybe you're even wearing one right now." I have a closet full of pants.

I put on white. And now I'm there with you? The Blazers I have heels, some of them pointed, I wore the white one, the difference is that I'm waking up to it. I'm starting to learn how these rules masquerade as traditions where they came from and I'm starting to see all the times I blindly followed these rules even as a child, especially as a child. I remember one particular moment very well, we had just moved to a new city and I was waiting at the bus stop for my first day of school at a new school in the new city. waiting for fifth grade, suddenly, out of my peripheral vision, I saw my new older, cooler neighbor, John, come running up to me saying you can't go like that and I looked down and said, go, what are you talking about ?

You have to do it. roll up your jeans, roll up my jeans, he says yeah here we roll up our jeans so I got on my knees and rolled up my jeans and he just got more frustrated, forget it, not like that, I'll just do it and he leaned over and made some kind of fold complicated. and roll and there I found myself on my first day at a new school in ridiculously baggy jeans folded very tight at the bottom, sure enough I arrived at school and everyone had their genes rolled up in exactly the same way the crisis was averted until I realized that all the girls wearing the exact same fashion sneaker, ugh, it never ends, all of this means that all of this means that in many ways we are all sleepwalking through life with this high school mentality that we are trying to to fit in. to belong, not to get irritated, to do what they say we should do, but what we want is that this is a time of great upheaval in our society and the stakes are high, we are reclaiming our power, whether men in the world or outside. red carpet wearing skirts or women ditching that infamous black jacket or heels for more comfortable, less restrictive clothing or not even identifying as a man or woman at all we are answering a call within ourselves, not from some mysterious them, it's basically just the patriarchy in disguise I want to challenge us to go deeper I want us to ask who they are and why they dictate what I wear on my body on my feet and what I wear in the hallway let's all go back in time to that scruffy room where I was helping my friend in instead of just collectively shrugging my shoulders and putting that black jacket back in the closet because they said we should.

I invite you to lean into the discomfort. I invite you to question that mysterious day and start thinking about how you can ruffle some feathers. Heck, maybe you still pander to black, maybe you use white, but you do it because you love it, but can you somehow start to create some signals for the rule makers that you're in them and you're getting out of it? I'm going to start ruffling some feathers, would you appreciate it?