In America, fashion and clothing are used to express one’s unique personality. At MICA this is especially evident among some students, each struggling to out do one another to look like an “artist”. Unfortunately we sometimes (perhaps often) judge one another based upon this surface shallow perception. Americans recognize this fault and many try to swim against this tide of consumerism, but the current is strong and our fight is constant. It wasn’t until I came to the UAE that I realized how public our bodies have become. Over time the amount of clothing considered acceptable for American women has reduced. Today women can wear short shorts and tight shirts or a long shirt and leggings that leave barely anything hidden. A tiny amount of fabric compared to the long dresses and multiple under layers women wore a few decades before. We wear things that our ancestors would never have been able to conceive. I think America could stand to learn from Middle Eastern culture. The large percentage of American people with eating disorders and low self confidence could be directly related to how we see our bodies as public domain. Believing this enables us to make comparisons and judgments about one another and to measure our self worth upon appearances rather than the whole person.
