Do Not Let a Man Tell You How to Dress or Wear Your Hair

I lived the majority of my life without a man telling me what to wear. Even my father never weighed in. Mother and I had that covered.

Two husbands knew better, I guess. Plus, I developed a good fashion sense in my twenties. While my first husband photographed models, I copied their look and makeup. He also learned from them and did my makeup the first time. I still use those principles.

Once, when I was going to the hairdresser to get my long hair cut short, I told him and his buddy,

They both complied. Genuinely so, I felt.

So it was quite a shock the first time a man tried to tell me how to dress. The first guy told me my skirt was too tight, as he followed behind me up a staircase.

The next time it happened, the guy told me I should wear Spanx under my dress. He had a large belly himself, so I turned to him, grabbed it, shook it, and said,

“YOU’RE saying that to ME??”

I don’t suffer fools gladly.

Which is why I don’t think I was overreacting by grabbing his belly.

Since then, other women have told me stories of their man telling them what to wear, or what not to wear. The latter always happens when the man thinks the woman is dressed too sexy for other men to see. You can hear the ownership.

One of my best friends had a double mastectomy for breast cancer. She chose the route of restructuring her breasts by having the surgeon extract belly fat to create new breasts. As a result, she has bigger, firmer breasts, but no nipples. She has “nipples”, but they are tattooed on to look 3-D. Look it up if you don’t believe me. They look completely real from the front.

Recently, her husband asked her if she was wearing a bra. She wasn’t. He asked,

“Shouldn’t you be wearing a bra?”

Her reply was,

“Why? Are my nipples standing up?”

You see why she is one of my best friends.

The whole concept of men weighing in on our looks or clothes is foreign to me. When I was married to my second husband, we visited friends of his. The wife was nicknamed “Dooie” because she took care of everyone. She gave us toothbrushes already loaded with toothpaste when we were there. I am not making this up.

I had recently cut my hair short. She had long, flowing locks, and admired my cut. She asked me,

“Did you ask Elliot if you could cut your hair?”

I looked completely bewildered and answered,

“No, of course not. It’s my hair.”

She turned to her husband and said,

“Did you hear that Larry?? She doesn’t ask his permission to cut her hair.”

Shortly after, she took a job, cut her hair, and left the marriage where she had been the stay-at-home mom and her husband’s caretaker.

Was I a good influence or not? I think so, even though my own marriage ended years later, for entirely different reasons. At least he never tried to tell me how to dress or wear my hair.

Her husband went on to marry a hairdresser. There’s irony in there somewhere.

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This post was previously published on New Choices.

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