Schrodinger's Slut — or why it actually does matter what you wear

I AM NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR HOW OTHER PEOPLE REACT.

This is essentially the argument Amanda Marcotte makes regarding school dress codes for girls at Double XX today.

According to Amanda, girls should be able to wear skirts so short their panties show, and if boys find that disrupting, well, too bad. What we need to do is just IGNORE all the bodies around us and just focus on minds. Girl's minds, of course. How boy's mind's react to provocative clothing and overt displays of sexuality are none of Amanda's concern. The fact that such reactions are A) involuntary and B) distracting is not relevant. Who cares how boys perform in school anyways, amirite?

I recommend that …[we don't]… measure girls by their hemlines by not measuring them by their hemlines. Try ignoring their bodies completely and getting directly to the work of cherishing those minds and those hearts instead

Yep. Show us your panties girls, and we'll just focus on your hearts and minds. Hearts that clearly don't give a shit about other people and minds that are so mired in narcissism and self-delusion that they can't comprehend another person's perspective.

Sounds like excellent training for female adulthood.

But let's back up a little bit. Yesterday, CleverGuy, Judgybutthole and PrinceCharming were over for dinner and a postprandial game of Monopoly. Yeah, we're a pretty lively bunch. We got to talking about the concept of Schrodinger's Rapist and why it's such a stupid metaphor to express the also incredibly stupid idea that all men should be treated as potential rapists.

What we really enjoyed about the whole concept is that MEN should pay attention to how they are dressed and how they are acting in order to counter women's fear that they might be raped. But women should NOT have to pay attention to what they are wearing or how they are acting because patriarchy. Or something.

So we came up without own little thought experiment, and it goes like this:

Schrodinger's bawd

Assume that all women are bawds and want to have sex with you. Everyone is either LUCKY or UNLUCKY, and no one has any idea what the frick is going on. Your state of luckiness (man or woman, good or bad) depends upon what clothes you are wearing!

See? Brilliant!

We'll mash them all up together in an act of unparalleled genius and call it Schrodinger's Clusterfrick.

All men are rapists and all women are bawds and the only way to tell one from the other is to check out what people are wearing and how they are acting.

But that's not fair is it? We have to take other people's feelings and reactions into account when we move through the world? We have to consider how other people might respond to our actions and choices? We have to step outside our own personal little world-view and try and see reality from someone's else's perspective?

Clearly, that's bullshit.

You know, I think I've changed my mind about what I'm going to wear to my exam. I think I'll go with this:

Come on now! It's just a piece of clothing. And if people react negatively to my sense of fashion and appropriateness, well, that's their problem, right?

I can't be held responsible for how other people react. And I sure as hell can't PREDICT how other people will react.

The cat, she is dead AND alive, at the same time. Everything else is just random.

Right?

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  1. 11 years ago
    Marlo Rocci

    So here's my deal: IF it's okay for feminists to suggest that all men are rapists and that society should conform to this presupposition, then it's equally okay for non-feminists to suggest that all women who dress like bawds are looking for sex all the time, and all that screaming and resisting they do is just an odd form of foreplay.

    *shakes head*

    Although this appears to be what is going on in Egypt right now. Women wearing western dress are assumed to be bawds and are publicly raped. So I do have a bit of a problem with asserting that women should feel shame about their clothing. I'm against JB on this one. The fact that the same clothing that would get you raped in Egypt does not generally have the same effect in the States suggests that men can evolve and be better.

    I sort of view the ultimate in male good behavior and the society we should be striving for is one where women are so safe that one could walk downtown in the middle of the night nude and not be threatened. So I measure how safe a society is for women by how short the miniskirts are. The less threatened women feel by men, the more nude they become. You could almost call it a crime index. The pantyflash crime index.

    • 11 years ago
      Leap of a Beta

      And what would be keeping those women safe? Cops lives being laid down? Men acting for those women?

      What women wear in public is directly tied to two things: what the environment (weather) demands and what kind of commitment to her current/future husband is expected of her by society. Women will wear the bawdtiest outfits they can get away with without being criticized for it. So, if you want a woman to be able to chose to walk down the street nude you woulf have to have a society that is completely without sexual morals

  2. 11 years ago
    Ter

    Re Schrodinger's Clusterfrick to assume "All men are rapists…"

    I'm sure you've heard of the ‘One Billion Rising' against violence against women recently. Apparently one billion women "will be raped or beaten" which is equivalent to 1 in 3 women throughout the entire world.

    That would mean that approximately one billion men are rapists or woman-beaters so maybe Clusterfrick has some legs! Well, it would mean that 1 in 3 men throughout the world are rapists or woman-beaters – but I'm sure Schrodinger would be satisfied with this number.

    It's beyond me how anyone could believe this "one billion" number, but hey, if a nation's leader says so, such as Australia's Prime Minister Julia Gillard, then it must be true!

  3. 4 years ago
    joe

    Il stick with adult video games....theyre safer.

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