Feminism in Fashion: How Emily Ratajkowski Helped Me Find It
BY MORGAN STEVENSON-SWADLING
I knew the comments section would make me cry before I read it, but still I scrolled down and clicked the button that declared there were 230 comments, and watched the hundreds of criticisms and commendations unfurl.
“Basing your career on catering to the male gaze is not feminism.”
“I don’t dislike her because of this article, but by her own admission she was quite naive to say the least.”
“What do models think about or think will happen when they are posing in provocative clothing or lack thereof? Suck it up and reap what you sow. Quit whining.”
I wanted to close my laptop in horror and convince myself that these were only a few outliers in a sea of praise, perhaps distract myself by going for a walk or talking to my roommate. Instead, I continued to scroll, finding more and more criticisms, sensing the inevitability of what I would find.
Published in The Cut, Emily Ratajkowski’s recent essay “Buying Myself Back: When Does a Model Own her own Image?” focused on her fight to reclaim her image in a world where powerful men have sought not only to own her body, but profit off of it. Her experiences ranged from being sued for posting a paparazzi picture to having an entire museum exhibit focused around nude photographs of her that were shared without her consent. In her essay, beyond merely sharing her story, she seeks to heal from the misogyny and self-doubt she has faced in the fashion industry.
As I read through, I felt I developed a kinship with her. It didn’t matter that she is ten years older than me or that she's a devastatingly famous model and I’m a nobody in college. Reading her words, I felt the interconnection of womanhood, I felt her pain, I saw myself in her words. And here, collected in the comments section, were all of the fears that I felt about being a woman- that I could tell Emily also felt- thrown back at me. It didn’t matter that none of them were about me, because every single one could’ve been turned on me.
The most common turn of phrase I’ve heard different influencers and style icons throw around is that clothing is a form of self-expression; It’s how you project yourself to the world. But that’s the complexity of it. It is fine to express oneself through clothing, but if that expression is viewed as a person’s entire identity, what is there to stop anyone from reducing a person to what they wear, or how much of their body they chose to reveal? What has self-expression become in the social media era, where you are reduced to clothes and skin, and your pictures as labeling tools to be returned to again and again? In such an era, clothing becomes more than self-expression, it becomes who you are.
I hit puberty early and developed curves before I even fully understood what sexualization was. My mom would beg me to cover up more, to pull down a shirt, to find less form-fitting jeans. I didn’t particularly get it. I knew that my boobs were bigger than those of my peers, but they wore the exact same outfits with no issue. “But Mom,” I would say, “if I were skinny, there would be nothing wrong with the outfit.” And my mom would purse her lips, knowing that I was right. My body was what it was, and she knew it would be a weapon used against me.
Unfortunately, she was right. I began to observe this beyond home. Male teachers called me out for being a flirt whenever I so much as laughed in class. I would get raised eyebrows instead of commendations when I answered a math problem correctly. I didn’t know that my existence as a woman, and in particular a curvy young woman, meant that I should adapt my presentation if I wished to be taken seriously.
I suppose in those days I could be called naive for not knowing better. Emily’s comments called her naive at the age of 20, for drinking at a photoshoot, for allowing naked photographs of herself to be taken, for chatting with the older photographer after hours. But must we call the young woman who is sexually assaulted naive? The question asked is always “what did you expect?” Why is “naive” cast around as an insult?
The comments choose to ignore the fact that Emily landed in that scenario because she was working towards building a career. They depict naivety as a bad thing, over understanding why we feel the need to use such words as “naive.” The social narrative continues to be that it is the fault of the young woman for not growing hardened enough early enough. It is easier to say that a woman should not be so desperate to succeed than to unpack why she may feel that way, than to determine that it is because society has dictated to women that in order to prove her worth she must never expose herself and constantly cheer girl power. It’s too uncomfortable to swallow the bitter irony of this expectation.
Many commenters critiqued the fact that Ratajkowski spoke of this experience when there are far more pressing issues globally concerning the rights of women, which disproportionately impact women of color; and not even solely women, all those who were assigned female at birth or currently have a vagina. But what these comments fail to recognize is that while Ratajkowski is a rich white cisgender model, she was not attempting to speak upon and tackle all existing issues. She wanted to speak on the microcosm of her personal experiences as a woman in fashion, and to discredit this is to overlook the overarching pattern of male-dominated media manipulating how women’s bodies should be perceived.
More than anything, Ratajkowski’s piece signals that there is more work to be done in bringing attention to the treatment of women across the world. The conversation should not end with rich, white cisgender models but rather push further to bring attention to the ways in which these issues affect women of color. To share one’s issues and experience is not a declaration of apathy towards the problems of others. Her essay is a graceful move of bravery and vulnerability— a step towards healing. It’s a start, not an end.
The past few years of my life, I have fought to become more comfortable with sharing my truths. I thought I had no right to share what I was going through because I held privileges. I bottled up so much that I was afraid to say, until my own health began to diminish, until my ability to speak and feel began to shrivel. If there was anything I walked away from the article with, it was this: that my stories are enough.
Some comments give me hope. They commend Ratajkowski for her vulnerability. They call her a voice for everyone. There’s one comment in particular. From a user by the name of benlai.nw, it reads: “We all have a voice that we were born with, a voice which knows no words. As we hear the voices of others with their words, we think that they must be speaking the truth. Those voices start to crowd out our own true voice until we think that the voices of others are our own voice. But they are not. ”
Emily Ratajkwoski is not the exhibition of naked photos of herself that hung in a famous NYC museum. She is not the paparazzi photo she got sued for. She is not someone who belongs to the public or to her husband or anyone else. She is herself. And that is the only truth that matters.
I wanted to leave the essay feeling inspired and comforted. I wanted a satisfying conclusion and revelation, some way in which I could affirm to the world that I am a woman and I am confident and my body is my own and mine to dress or undress, regardless of what others may perceive. In some ways, I did leave with that. But it was far more complex than that. I realized that my “truth”, my feminine body, cannot yet exist without major shifts in society. Perhaps that is what I must come to terms with- that I may never feel fully comfortable. But that doesn’t mean I will stop trying.