The breathing gets harder, even I know that. Make room for me, for it’s too soon to see if I’m happy in your hands. I’m usually hard to hold on to. You may mean well, but you make it hard for me.
(credits to Kutekyla)
I looked around me. And I wonder, over these years, have I grown to become a bad girl?
Slightly more than a week ago,
“Assortative Mating” (which I think is a euphemism for eugenics, don’t you think?)..telling us who we should marry. This in my humble opinion, threads on dangerous water, for it proliferates the elitist mentality(if it is not already rampant)..
And then came yesterday,
The newspaper article on dress codes in a particular private school(which I assume should be a place of learning for the young adults we can trust upon? No?).
Don’t get me wrong, I do think that it’s important not to dress too shabbily and skimpily for school, for after all; it’s a place of learning. But I wonder if it is just me, to feel that the “dress code” is going to be the perfect reason why Singaporeans don’t know how to dress according to the occasion? (In many instances, I’ve seen students asking their lecturers what they should be wearing for an important meeting/interview) Gradually, with all the perimeters set aside to tell us what to do and what not to do, we have become so used to having rules lead the way we live.
And while reading the article, it caught my attention when the school’s reason to justify their new rule is to prevent putting off students who are serious about studying. The underlying stereotype and assumption that stared back at my face—people who dress skimpily aren’t serious about studying?
Not that the students who aren’t dressing skimpily or inapporiately according to their regulations are dressing up “appropriately” either, isn’t it? Or so, in my dictionary of what “appropriate” should be.
When it comes to dressing, I feel the need to speak up–maybe I’m bias, for I believe that people should be entrusted upon to know when to wear what. The importance of dressing well is to leave a good impression, to show respect. Time after time, I’ve seen that the people who seem to take pride in their so-called “laid-back and proper” style bring on their “laid-back” attitude in the way they dress wherever they go—say sports shoes to job interviews, dates and basically, almost everywhere (which I have to admit, when I see, I crgine on the inside). Doesn’t help when they slam those who bother donning on cufflinks and leather shoes…Makes me wonder if the slamming stems from their inferiority or inability to put clothes together properly.
On the side note (euphemism for “I’m going out of point”), the body should be viewed as a place to express our identities. A place for you to showcast your individuality. To challenge social normatives, for if we’re all going to do as we’re told, then when do we truly start living?
If we all have to dress up the way we’re told to, is it a clever way of making us mask our personal identity? Personal identities are often ambiguious and it’s hardly possible to contain them into categories. And it may be the very fact that we’re afraid of the unknown, the ambiguious that explains why we usually give that dirty look to people who are different from the majority?
Like the Vagina Monologues proclaims, short skirts does not suggest that one is sexually transgressive, neither is it a form of invitation, nor indication.
It is, self expression.
Bring on the cufflinks when you mean business.
Put on a polo tee when you’re thinking casual.
There is a time, for everything.
Come to think about it, shouldn’t one’s wardrobe be like a rainforest–where a certain style rules, and diversity is celebrated?
Do not tolerate, for it puts you in a psuedo-superior position.
Understand, for that’s what truly matters.
Having said that, living life is an art.
You need to know when to give, when to take.
When to listen, and when to question.
I guess with age, the rebel in me grows. Sometimes, I have to admit that it’s getting difficult to breathe in such a contrive environment.
Little wonder Miss Ho calls me the “devil’s advocate”.
What’s new anyway?
(credits to Chrissiecool)
