Response 4

Listening to these two episodes, I realized how unmodern our present, modernized world is. Social norms that were instilled centuries ago are still very prominent today. From the idea that women’s clothing shouldn’t have pockets, to the conformity of suits, gender norms have yet to be broken down in fashion. Take reticles for example. It seemed bizarre to me that women would be expected to only carry a bag large enough to carry a few coins. Then I came to realize that there have been little to no advancements in that sector today. Women have an incredibly smaller amount of clothing options when it comes to convenience. Now shift over to men’s suits. At every formal event you attend, it can look as though every guy there looks the same. This is because of the conforming history that the suit has. But why do we still accommodate these outdated norms? Shouldn’t it be easy to acknowledge and dispose of them? Not quite. I believe the issue as to why we still allow clothing to be so biased is due to what we were taught it symbolizes. It has been integrated into society that for a woman to seem carefree and fun, she must have pocketless clothing. It has been subconsciously etched in our minds that a man of powerful status is one in a mundane suit. This all drove me back to the section of the pockets episode where they bring up the question, are clothes modern? At that point, it seemed like such a silly thing to ask. But after reviewing these two episodes, I firmly agree with Trufelman when she says that clothes are in fact, not modern