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Why women wear clothes *

by
Anthony M. Ludovici

The International Journal of Sexology 5, 1951–52, pp. 108–109


- p. 108 -
In Why women wear clothes, Dr. Cunnington, the indefatigable student of the sartorial vagaries of women, investigates the influences (social, economic, psychological etc.) "which seek to find expression in feminine costume and produce those variations which are called fashions." He takes only a selection of these influences and devotes eight chapters to them as follows:— Costume as a Direct Method of Sex-Attraction; Costume and Physical Charm; the Costume of Attractive Regions; The Costume of Neutral Zones; Sex Appeal and the Tout Ensemble; Costume and Emancipation; The Influence of Sport on Costume; and Costume as a Mirror of Events.
        In discussing origins, he does not enter at all methodically into the part played by magic, climate, migration, flight from victorious enemies, etc., in the creation of the need of bodily apparel. Also he spends no time on the causes and history of sexual differentiation in clothing; and, as this phenomenon alone, if only in regard to its untoward consequences, might occupy a whole volume, the omission is regrettable. To refer to only one of these untoward consequences, it is important to bear in mind that where clothing is different for the sexes, much more physical abnormality tends to be passed unnoticed than where clothing is the same. For, where it is not the same, the womanly man, like the manly woman, is still classed at sight as belonging to the sex for which the garments worn are appropriate; whereas, where clothing is the same, such instantaneous assumptions in regard to border-line cases are impossible, and thus it tends to make only the pronouncedly male or female, who are obviously male or female, despite their uniform, safe and fit objects of interest and pursuit for normal members of the opposite sex. In this respect sexual differentiation in clothing tends to pass off as still distinguishably male or female, men and women who are not really so easily distinguishable, i.e., the aberrant types of male or female, with a high percentage of femininity or masculinity in their composition and who are, according to Schopenhauer's and later Hirschfeld's celebrated conception, deficient in M. or F. as the case may be. (This conception plagiarized by Weininger, is still believed by thousands to have been Weininger's own discovery).
        Neither does Dr. Cunnington hint at any of the reasons or untoward consequences of the topsy-turvy traditional European dress for the two sexes, — i.e., why the essentially male garb — the flowing robe or skirt (surviving only in an abbreviated form in Greece, the Scottish Highlands, and in the priesthood of some religions) should have become the woman's characteristic garment, whilst the essentially female garb — trousers or knickers — should have become man's characteristic garment.
        He was probably too much concerned (especially in a book for women readers) about retaining the light superficial touch, to dare to refer to such interesting questions. Indeed, the general impression made by his chapters is that of a writer more anxious to entertain than instruct; and here he succeeds admirably, for his book is always amusing. Nor is it altogether fair to imply that it is throughout merely waggish. Much sound sartorial philosophy is dispersed over its pages, and even if we do not always agree with some of his inferences from the vagaries of fashion, they are always stimulating and provocative. The pecuniary vulgarity of our civilization is illustrated by the following:— "A material may be attractive chiefly because it is too costly to become 'common'"; and "it is correct to look as though one owned a motor" (in Town). The sartorial incompetence of English women by:— "The English-woman is not remarkable for her colour sense;" and, on the use of "poster effects" (i.e., those which compel at least one glance from Man: "the average English woman has no instinct for such things", and relies instead "on a kind of dogged perseverance." As regards class and social status, we are told, quite accurately as it would seem, that "it is almost impossible to place a woman in the social scale from the appearance of her costume," and "the professional ladies of easy virtue are hard put to it to distinguish themselves from the amateur, and the simpler male is bewildered," — which recalls the jibe of a French 19th century wit who, replying to the question, "A quoi reconnait-on une femme comme il faut?" said: "a la peine qu'elle se donne pour ne pas en avoir l'air."
        Sometimes the author plumbs surprising depths, in sex-psychology, though we may be left to guess their rationale. For instance of the supposed physical modesty of Woman, he says very truly: "A woman is more liable to be thrown into modest confusion by the awkward behaviour of a shy man than by one more experienced and who is presumably more dangerous to her virtue"; whilst, later in the book, we are informed, we believe with perfect accuracy, that "the muscular woman is repellent to his [Man's] instincts." Unfortunately, medical though his training has been, Dr. Cunnington ex-

        * Pp. 261. 7/6). London: Faber & Faber.

- p. 109 -
plains this inadequately. He says it is because Man is attracted to qualities in Woman which are unlike his own. This, however, is a modern interpretation of a prehistoric phenomenon, established ages before human beings had become sufficiently debilitated and morbid to see any attractiveness in unlikeness. Remember, Dr. Cunnington says "repellent to Man's instincts" — not to his latter-day newspaper-fed mind. It is justifiable to infer, therefore, that if the author is right (and we believe he is) in speaking of Man's instinctive aversion to muscular women, he is referring to an impulsive, unreasoning reaction, the mechanisms of which were conditioned in the species when Man was still in the making. But, if Dr. Cunnington had ever heard of Dr. Oscar Riddle's researches, he would have explained this reaction differently. For Dr. Riddle discovered that one of the more fundamental distinctions between the sexes is their metabolic rate, and that athleticism and everything that increases the female's muscular development, also tends to assimilate her metabolic rate to Man's, and hence to make her more masculine. Consequently, female athletes and muscular women strike the male's instinctive sensorium as masculinoid — i.e., abnormal and not likely to function typically as female without aberrant manifestations. This would explain the normal male's "instinctive" dislike of such women.
        It is impossible in a short review to touch on all the interesting questions suggested by this book. There is no doubt that the problems connected with clothing and costume, whether ancient or modern, are among the most fascinating related to sex-psychology. A volume twice the size of the present one could hardly exhaust them, even if it dealt with each of them scrappily. Seeing, therefore, that Dr. Cunnington obviously has the scholarship to produce such a treatise, it can only be regretted that he should not have thought fit, even at the risk of sometimes exasperating his more frivolous readers, to discuss his subject more seriously and thoroughly. This subservience of modern authors to the lower-middle-class woman, who enjoys her Daily Mirror for its pictures, and who goes to the "pictures" for her news and her morals, is leading to a vast output of books which thus just miss being quite indispensable.

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