What's Your Identity?

Style is an identity. As our society and culture has grown, so has women's ability to identify with themselves as individuals. What a woman wears now to school depicts the type of person they are, an athlete, fashionista, punk, hippie, or completely unpredictable. The cultural norm in the 1960's was a woman was what society told her to be.

Analyzing the Skip Jack I realized that from a woman's hair to her skirt was very repetitive and bland no matter the situation. For example, there is a young woman photographed in a dress while standing in the snow and there is a girl in a similar length and styled dress in the summer. Every young woman looks the same. I began researching the styles and etiquette of the 1960's and discovered that women were not allowed pants or shorts in school, and jeans, never. Individuality in women was not promoted or celebrated. It was frowned upon to step outside of any boundary set for a woman.

The equality of women to men and their rights began to flourish from 1960 to about the 1980's and the boundaries that held women faded. In the Skip Jack taking a look at a person and being able to tell their story was not a possibility. Today, you would be able to instantly know about a woman from a glance at the style they're portraying. Hebidge wrote an entire book on style and its definition within culture today. That's the beauty of the evolution of culture, forever changing and growing. A tiny detail such as having the right to choose an outfit to wear to school can be the start of defining yourself with a bright unique future, a career path you choose, a way to express who you are without repercussions, a life that's yours.

Now women are not only able to attend college with men and wear pajamas to class if they wish but they are individuals not copies. Women have a choice to be themselves. Before equality of rights and even sometime after, having a life not dictated my norms was a dream. (word count 350)