Intersectionality is a new word to me, but the concept is not unfamiliar. In any field in the world, as long as it is related to humans, intersectionality is a character that cannot be avoided. When we were kids a long time ago, we thought about everything in the world by sorting them into black and white, good or bad-the binary judging system. However, as we grow up, we think things comprehensively from different aspects, the gray zone appears.
Here the gray zone is not just a third zone, as there are different degrees of the color gray, the zone can consist of several ones.
In my map, the six subject positions are gender, religion, occupation, nationality, place, and education. I picked out these according to my own experience, thinking they are the most fitted subject positions for me when I do my dressing practice.
Nationality is the biggest influence, linking with three other subjects: place, education, and gender, which means they all interact with each other and play a role in my fashion choices. According to Susan Kaiser, at the beginning of her “Fashion and Cultural Studies”, page 1, she states:
“Fashion is never finished, and it crosses all kinds of boundaries. It is ongoing and changes with each person’s visual and material interpretations of who he or she is becoming and how this connects with others’ interpretations.”
My nationality as a Chinese, my gender as a female, and all the education I received since I started to learn, form my value towards Fashion. And the value keeps changing, as long as I am still active in the world. Every time I talk to a new person, every time I listen to a new person, there is a small part of his or her value showing there. It is my choice to agree or disagree, accept or deny, but as long as I am aware of a different value, my own value involves a more comprehensive one.
What does it mean to be a female in China? What does it mean to be a female Christian? What value does the country or the religious belief put on a female? How do nationality and religion work together to form a female? What does it feel like to be a Chinese living in New York? Having been living in New York has what impact on Chinese? The relationship between education and occupation, the same between education and religion, how does it work?
There are so many questions that arise and they seem to have nothing to do with my dressing choices, but they do. As a Chinese, I am reserved about showing too many skins. As a female, I like to keep my hair long and feminine, I like to have some feminine curves in my clothing. I don’t like neutral sportswear. As in New York, I like dressing in black or dark colors. As a student, I care about matching my dressings with my outside information, so I look appropriate in many places. As a Christian, I don’t feel comfortable wearing short skirts, buying luxury items or just spending money without careful consideration to see if I really need to buy something. As a Fashion designer, I care about what I wear to places when people know my occupation and have expectations in my dressing aesthetic.
It already seems complex to satisfy all the requirements. But it is more complex in real life because all six subjects are mixed together into consideration. It is not something binary that can be solved using oppositional thinking. In “Fashion and Cultural Studies” page 2, the writer Susan Kaiser wrote:
“Oppositional thinking, for example, oversimplifies differences and limits options for the analysis of connections and entanglements.” “That is, power is multidimensional, not just oppositional. Fashion helps us to contemplate power in ways that multiply, complicate, and intersect beyond oppositional thinking.”
It could be understood as it is through considering and being affected by all the subject positions, that one can find its own fashion power. This is also why the unique experience we have is what makes us different, both physically and mentally.
Resource:
Kaiser, Susan, Fashion and Cultural Studies, London, Berg (2012): 1-2.
*All the images source are from Google image search.
