Fluctuating Female Fashion

While reading Kaja Silverman's Fragments of a Fashionable Discourse, an idea that really stuck out to me was that the sexual center of the female body is less stable than the male body.

"Female dress, on the other hand, has undergone frequent and often dramatic changes, accentuating the breasts at one moment, the waist at another, and the legs at another. These abrupt libidinal displacements, which constantly shift the center of erotic gravity, make the female body far less stable and localized than its male counterpart. I would also argue that fashion creates the free-floating quality of female sexuality"

After thinking about this for a moment, I realized how true it really was. Even in modern times, female style is frequently changing: one minute it's belly shirts, then miniskirts, then back to crop tops. The constant change is insane and does exemplify the uncertainty in female sexuality. For men, there will always be something mysterious about women, and perhaps it is this ability to change what attracts men so frequently. As Silverman goes on and quotes Flugel, he introduces the idea that the entire female body is sexualized (rather than just one part), which definitely explains why fashion is constantly changing. The curvature and softness of the female body is nice to look at from many angles, therefore men's ability to be attracted to women will remain constant, even as the focus of style changes. Perhaps men get bored with focusing on one part of the female body, and therefore influence the changes in fashion for their own pleasure.

Although this is positive for men as women will always be dressing to please them, this constant change is difficult for women. Not only does the idea of whats fashionable for clothing change, but also the most attractive body type. In the past, women wore padding to make their behinds look bigger, but now everyone wants to be skinny, but not too skinny, just healthy looking. It's all so confusing and it seems as if women are constantly being objectified and controlled by magazines and other forms of media to look a certain way. Although to some extent men feel a similar kind of pressure, all together women are more often seen as sex objects, therefore making this idea of what is 'attractive' or 'beautiful' much more difficult to constantly fill.