Dress Yourself Confident

        Last week I talked about body image, and how fashion helped me develop a healthy relationship with my body .  I achieved this healthy relationship by defining my own ideals, and dressing to show off the traits I like.  I consider this body-positive fashion--dressing to highlight the things you like instead of dressing to cover up flaws or fit a manufactured ideal.  Most fashion advice I come across tells you how to look a particular way, which conveys the idea that there is a right way to look.  There isn't.

        Today I will discuss how to dress in a way that helps your self image.  I won't tell you how to look taller, or how to look thinner, or how to look curvier.  Who am I to say that being tall or thin or curvy will make you feel good about yourself?  I will also not tell you how to hide features.  So many tutorials on how to dress tell you how to hide things that they decide are "bad."  I am not interested in reinforcing any particular beauty standard, nor do I want to encourage people to fixate on their flaws.  Instead, I will explain how to show off traits you like about yourself, and how to dress to celebrate your body as it is now.  You get to decide what to show off based on what you think is beautiful.  I am just here to explain how to do it.


        There are a few basic ways to show off features you like:

1. You can expose them, (as long as you aren't breaking any nudity laws).  
2. You can put something attention grabbing over these traits, such as a bright color, or bold pattern.  
3. You can choose a cut of clothing that draws the eye to this trait. 

        All of the advice I will give that focuses on how to play up your best features falls into one of these categories.  As there are many parts of the body, I will not be able to tell you how to play up every single feature.  If you find that a feature you really love about yourself is not discussed below, use the general techniques I listed above to emphasize your beloved trait.

        Another way to dress for body confidence is to reference an era in which your body type was the ideal.  I will discuss this a bit farther down.

        Gentlemen, I have advice for you as well.  Just scroll down past the ladies section to find it.

Ladies

Arms/shoulders

Michelle Obama is wearing a high neck dress
to show off her Michelle Obama arms.
You too can show off your Michelle Obama arms
if you wear a dress with a similar neck.

        Showing off your arms and shoulders almost always requires you to actually expose your arms or shoulders.  Shoulder cutouts and clothing with decorated shoulders have both been in fashion recently.  These look cool, but do not typically show enough of your shoulders to reveal their full glory.


        Anything with a high neck and no sleeves  will show off your shoulders and arms very nicely.  Any sort of halter top will work as well, but I think the high neck tops show off shoulders best.   If you do not mind sacrificing arm mobility, off-the-shoulder tops will also show off your shoulders, but a bit less than the other types of tops.

Back

We're bringing sexy-back back

        The back is an underappreciated body part, one that can look quite sexy or beautiful when given the chance.  If you have an awesome back (whatever constitutes an awesome back in your book), the best way to show it off is to literally show it off.  Wear a backless dress or shirt to show off the back.  If you need to wear a bra and want to show off your back, consider a lace or sheer back instead.  It will still show off your back, without showing off your bra.  You can also just wear an awesome bra and show that off.  I am talking about the bras with the extra straps and lace in the back, the ones that were clearly designed to be shown off.  If you wear these you get the double whammy of showing off your back and your excellent taste in undergarments.

Chest

        Unfortunately, nudity laws in most states forbid women from showing off their great chests by exposing said great chests.  So we need to get a bit more creative in playing up this feature while not "disturbing the peace."  Anything bodycon or form fitting will call attention to your chest.  Wrap dresses (which show off your entire figure) tend to flatter chests nicely.  Anything with a scoop or V-neck should also be flattering.  The sweetheart neckline will also bring the ladies front and center.  If you are feeling daring, rock a plunging neckline.  I don't even have any cleavage and I feel unstoppable in a plunging neckline.  Imagine how powerful you random readers who actually do have cleavage will be in a plunging neckline.

She has cleavage and a plunging neckline.  Now
she is a super hero.  That's why she has a cape.

Waist

        The natural waist is the narrowest point between your chest and hips.  Showing off your waist is one way to show off your entire figure.  So if you are lazy and don't want to think about how to flatter your chest, and your waist, and your hips, and your legs, just focus on your waist.  Many things that compliment your waist make everything else look good as well.

Woah it's me! In a crop top and big skirt.
It's almost as if I really want you to appreciate my waist.
APPRECIATE!

        The first option is just to expose your waist.  Yay! This is legal. Wear a crop top and a high waisted skirt or pants.  Let there be a gap at your natural waist.

        If it is too cold to expose this strip of skin, or you prefer not to show your midriff, you still have many options.

        Wear a belt over your clothing at your natural waist.  You don't need pant belt loops, your waist is powerful.  It will hold the belt in place.  If you are wearing a jacket or cardigan, put the belt over this as it will pull all of the material in at your waist, and draw attention to it.

        Wear something that flares out just below your waist, such as a peplum or flare skirt.

          You can also have the break in your clothing happen at your natural waist.  Tuck a shirt into something high waisted. The eye will be drawn to the line between your shirt and bottoms, and thus to your waist.  High waisted items get bonus points because they flatter legs as well.

Tummy

        Most people want to hide their tummies, but not you.  You are a rebel with your own beauty standards--or maybe just a person whose stomach fits the current ideal.  As with your chest, anything tight or bodycon will show off your tummy.  You can also just wear a crop top and leg coverings that start at your hips and not your natural waist.  This will allow you to share the glory that is your stomach with the world most directly.  High waisted shorts and pants also draw attention to the stomach.  Some people think mushing their stomach into something high waisted will hide it.  This won't happen. The shorts will fit snugly over your stomach, emphasizing it's shape. So if you love your tummy, tight dresses, bare midriffs, and high waisted pants are the way to go.

Hips/ Bum bum

        Again tight/bodycon dresses and skirts will let the rest of the world appreciate your hips and booty as much as you do.  Colorful pants, leggings and jeggings will also call attention to your hips and butt.  It is easier to see how clothing lies on the body when the clothing has a simple pattern.  Therefore, jeans or leggings with a pattern will emphasize your shape more than single color ones.  However a very busy pattern will draw more attention than the actual body underneath.  I'm looking at you galaxy leggings.

You will be so mesmerized by the mysteries of the universe
you will forget all about the mysteries of the legs in the galaxy pants.

        For some reason all butts look good in yoga pants.  So if you happen to have a butt, which I sincerely hope you do, yoga pants are for you.  All of these things I just mentioned except the body condress also flatter your legs.

Legs

        The great things about legs is that you can expose them in public.  This is the easiest way to show them off.  Wear short skirts or short shorts.  You can get away with showing more of your legs with a high-waisted skirt or pair of shorts than you can with ones that start at your hips.  High-waisted things make it look like you are wearing more clothing than you actually are, so you can look refined, while showing off all of the legs.

        High shoes force you to flex the muscles in your legs and butt to maintain balance.  This shows off the shape and muscles in your legs very nicely.  You can exaggerate this effect further with sheer or patterned stockings.  The sheer material or pattern will look different at different angles as it sits on your legs.  This emphasizes the contours of your legs and reminds the rest of the world that your legs cannot be stopped.

Mrs. Robinson knew the power of a good pair of stockings

Pick an Era for Inspiration

        Maybe you just aren't feeling yourself right now.  Maybe there isn't anything you really like that you want to show off.  I truly hope that's not the case, but it happens, and you shouldn't be hard on yourself about it.  You are already being hard on yourself. Don't be hard on yourself for being hard on yourself.  INCEPTION SELF LOATHING.

        As I have said, the ideal female body has changed drastically over the years.  One way to help you build confidence and dress in a way that best suits you is to reference an era in which your body type was the ideal.  I guarantee you there was a time and a place when people built like you were the gold standard of beauty.  Obviously don't put on a Halloween costume to look like a person from a historical era(at least not for a few more weeks).  Instead use historical style applied to modern clothing to achieve something that celebrates your body.

Curvy Builds

        Sir Mix-a-lot, and Nicki Minaj have sung their praises of a curvy body.  Mainstream beauty standards are beginning to shift toward embracing curvier builds, but the fashion industry has not quite caught up.  Not to worry though.  A curvy build has been the ideal more than once in the past century.  

This is the Gibson Girl she is too busy
being elegant to bother with you plebians

        Good reference eras are 1910's and the 1950's.  These were the times when a dramatic hourglass figure was idealized, so clothing was designed to best compliment those figures.

        In the early 1900's the Gibson girl, an elegant curvy woman with an exceptionally small waist, was the ideal.  Today full figures are often very sexualized, so the refined and curvaceous Gibson Girl provides a unique avenue for curvy women to appreciate their bodies without sexualizing them.  To achieve this look in a modern way, focus on emphasizing your waist.  The section above on how to draw attention to your waist will explain how to do this.  To achieve the elegance of the Gibson Girl, mix form fitting clothing that compliments your figure with more modest elements.  A bodycon maxi dress, or a form fitting top and pants with a loose jacket can achieve this.

        1950's fashion remains relevant today.  Tight crop tops with full high waisted skirts, fit and flare dresses, sweetheart necklines, and high waisted anything, are modern items that draw from 1950's fashion.  As a result, they compliment curvy girls and don't look like costumes.

Straight Builds

        Contrary to popular belief, flappers were not particularly thin women.  They wanted to achieve a straight boyish figure, but not necessarily a thin one.  So I don't care what you weigh, if you have a straight figure, by which I mean you do not have a well defined waist, then 1920's flapper style is for you.  The flappers didn't need curves to be sexy, in fact they did everything to hide their curves.  Instead they focused on showing off their arms, legs, back and attitude.  You can look at the above sections on how to show off all of these things.

These flappers don't care to be skinny, or curvy.  They threw away
all the old fashion rules and looked cool doing it.

        The hallmark of flapper fashion was the dropped waist.  Shirts would end, and skirts would begin at their hips.  You can channel this by wearing dresses without built-in waists, dresses with dropped waists, or long shirts with a skirt worn at the hips.

        You can also channel the flapper in spirit by wearing more androgynous clothing like loose pants, shirts and edgy tailored jackets.  

Skinny Builds

Just something to wear while watching a Mad
Men marathon.

        The "waif" look was very popular in the 1960's and 1990's.  

        In the 1960's, mod style idealized a thin fragile build.  The most currently wearable mod item is a short, straight dress.  This is intended to downplay the figure and show off the legs.  Much of women's mod fashion was quite androgynous, so menswear inspired clothing is another flattering option for skinny women.

        In the 1990's, heroin chic became the new ideal.  Heroin chic describes a woman who looks a bit like a well dressed drug-addict.  She is thin, pale, and angular. Fortunately for all of the skinny girls out there, this look is making a come-back. The clothing from this time was typically loose, shapeless, and distressed.  The look, when done correctly, can be effortlessly cool.  Slip dresses and loose ripped jeans paired with a loose half tucked in shirt are fashionable today, and were fashionable in the 1990's 

Athletic Build

Just because she can't wear this clothing to the gym
does not mean she cannot still crush you while wearing it.

        Looking healthy and athletic was idealized in the 1980's.  Much of the fashion from the 80's poses the risk of blinding people with neon, trapping them in puffy sleeves or choking them with hair-spray.  I would avoid drawing literal inspiration from 1980's fashion.  Much of the clothing emphasized the legs or used tight or spandex fabric to show off women's jazzer-cise sculpted bodies.  The modern athleisure trend has roots in this.  Athleisure is a trend of dressing like you are going to the gym to not work out.  It typically includes leggings, sports bra style tops, crop tops, and oversized tank tops.  Dressing to emphasize your powerful legs, and wearing clothing currently marketed as athleisure are the best ways to compliment an athletic build.

Men

        Body positivity is a bit different for men than it is for women.  I can tell you, without question, that men struggle with their body image, yet there just isn't much conversation about it.  Perhaps men find it emasculating to admit to struggling with their own bodies, and thus the body image conversations never start.   Men who do struggle with their own bodies have fewer tools on hand to address it than women do. Men's fashion is much less complicated and expressive than women's fashion is.  While it is possible to find advice encouraging women to embrace their good traits, almost all of the advice I could find on dressing different male body types focused on making men look like they fit the current ideal.  Forget the current ideal.

         As with women's ideals, the ideal male body has changed repeatedly over the past century.  Because men's fashion does not focus on emphasizing specific traits, I will focus on discussing how to dress in a way that best flatters your build based on historical male ideals.  If you find that you do not fit into any of the categories listed below, read about all of the ones you sort of fit.  You will likely be able to pull some advice from more than one category.

General Male builds from left to right:
Trapazoid, Rectangle, Upside-down triangle, Oval, Triangle

Heavy build (Oval / Triangle)

        Up until the twentieth century, extra weight signified a man's success, and was thus desirable.  If you look at pictures of wealthy men from the late 1800's and early 1900's you will see some impeccably dressed but distinctly heavy gentlemen.  Their clothing allowed them to translate their girth into an imposing yet refined presence.  Men's clothing from this time was quite intricate.  While I wouldn't tell you to dress like a robber baron, you can learn from their style to improve yours.  If you are a heavier guy, you have the ability to wear more intricate outfits with more accessories than thinner men.  The extra fabric will not overwhelm your body.  Emulate the robber baron's old world elegance with vests, suspenders, cardigans, or scarves (but please not all at once).  These are the modern ways to introduce the intricacy of  turn-of-the-century men's fashion into an outfit.

OG's of the business world

        During the 1950's, men's suits became their largest and most loose fitting.  While larger men were not exactly idealized in the 1950's, the clothing itself was very friendly to heavier men.  From the 1950's we can pull suits with a straight fit, wide lapels, and large ties.  The larger lapels and ties are flattering because they will be more in proportion with your body.  Long coats, particularly trench coats and double-breasted coats are great options as well.  These jackets would overwhelm a thin man, but are perfectly manageable for larger men.

The extra weight really does help one rock a vest

Skinny Men (Rectangle)

Let's all take a moment to appreciate the
skinny suit.

        It appears trends in ideal men's body types roughly track the same way that women's do.  In the 1960's the counterculture made skinny men the ideal.  This ideal shows itself in the skinny suit that emerged as a reaction against the loose, wide suits of the 1950's.  You can emulate this mad men cool with slimmer fitting clothing.  Everything you wear should be proportional to your body.  Focus on skinny or slim fit jeans, skinny suits, jackets and shirts that come in at the waist, slim fitting cardigans, and skinny ties.  If something has the word skinny, or slim built into the name, it is likely meant for you.

Muscular Men (Upside-down triangle)

        The macho muscular man was idealized in the 1980's.  However, after looking into men's fashion from the 1980's, I cannot in good conscience encourage you to dress that way.  If you wish to do so, please research 1980's fashion yourself.  

The Rock works hard to be The Rock.
He wants you to appreciate that he is The Rock.
So The Rock wears shirts that come in at the waist.

        If you are putting effort into achieving a muscular physique, you probably want to show it off.  The main fashion problem muscular men face is finding clothing that fits them properly.  The key to complimenting your build is finding clothing that tapers in at the waist.  Look for T-shirts that taper in at the waist, or athletic fit button-down shirts.  You may also want to wear V- or scoop-neck shirt as these will give you more room up top.  A fitted sweater can nicely show off all of your hard work and be used in layering as well.  You will want to balance out your broader torso with your pants.  Straight cut jeans are your best option for achieving this balance.

Trapezoid Man

        Congratulations trapezoid man!  You fit the current male ideal.  Wearing current fashions should suit your body nicely.  If you are not sure what current fashion is, you can read the men's section of my article on fall fashion.  In general you should be looking for items that fall between what the muscular, and skinny men wear.  Slim fit pants, jackets, suits, and button downs that taper in at the waist will best compliment your trapezoidal physique.

Look at those parallel lines!
Now that's sexy.

        It does not matter what your body looks like.  It houses you, which makes it pretty amazing.  Sometimes we need a teeny bit of help remembering how amazing our bodies are.  Dressing to best compliment them can undoubtedly help with that.  Generally, this is done by playing up good traits or pulling inspiration from an era in which our bodies were the ideal.  Try the above advice and remind yourself, and the rest of the world, how epic the body that houses you is.

Let's Talk about Body Image

        Hi friends, I have been looking at other fashion blogs and vlogs for inspiration lately.  I've noticed that most of these blogs spread a consistently inconsistent message about body image.  This is not just done by blogs, but by magazines, TV shows, and just about anyone who doles out fashion advice.  They will claim they endorse body positivity, because body positivity is cool right now, and then give out body shaming advice.  They say embrace yourself—then tell you how to hide your flaws.  They say love your body—right before discussing how to look more skinny in photos or how to look like you have bigger boobs or a better butt.  "Embrace yourself" seems to really mean "embrace the things that fit a narrow beauty standard, and hide or change the rest."   The original reason I started blogging was to provide a body positive perspective on fashion that was, you know, actually body positive.

No Beyonce, you didn't wake up like that.  Normal people don't wake
up professionally made up.  We should be deeply concerned about
 the person who does.  

        Body positive fashion is important to me because I struggled with my body for a long time. Most people probably find that social media and the fashion industry hurt their self-image.  These sources saturate our world with imaginary ideas about what people should and do look like.  This makes it difficult to embrace the beauty of a real unphotoshopped human.  In contrast, I found that pursuing fashion as an interest helped me develop a much healthier relationship with my body.  So let's talk about clothing, body image, and how, in theory, to make them play nice with each other.

 

Instagram has left us unable to appreciate Squidward's natural beauty.

        I am generally very open about the eating disorder I had in high school.  If you are close to me, I have probably told you this already.  If I never got around to mentioning this to you, Surprise! Admittedly, an eating disorder is kind of a shitty surprise.  Sorry about that.  I promise I'll provide a better surprise later. I have tried to be very open about the eating disorder to, in some small way, help reduce the shame and stigma around struggling with one.

        Toward the end of ninth grade, my health class assigned us to record everything we ate for a week and the nutrition facts.  For some reason I really wanted to seem 'healthy'.  So I adjusted my eating habits that week to try to model what I thought our health teacher would want to see.  From there, I very slowly but surely became fixated on what I ate and how much I exercised.  I thought I was just trying to be healthy at first.  But then I signed up for a school award that required a certain number of hours of personal fitness as an excuse to exercise obsessively.  Eventually, I would get very anxious if I could not get my full exercise routine in.  I remember watching a movie with my boyfriend after eating a concerningly large meal, and trying to sneak in ab exercises without him noticing.  He noticed.  I remember sitting in the car going to a holiday dinner and trying to sneak in exercises to offset the upcoming large meal without my family noticing.  They noticed.  I remember that I only give myself an apple and 125 calories of peanut butter for lunch.  Yes, I know exactly how many calories of peanut butter I allowed myself.   I never actually lost weight doing this.  I would have said that I lacked the self-control for a real eating disorder.  Still, the obsession with food, exercise, and not being able to pinch any fat on my stomach completely occupied my mind.

SURPRISE!  Cute baby pandas have come to lighten up the
rather heavy discussion of my screwed up body image.
Thank you baby pandas!

        My warped view of myself not only hurt me, but also those I cared about.  I was skinny, and if I was so insistent that I looked bad, what did that convey to my friends who were less skinny than I?  If I was so visibly appalled by body fat on myself, how could I possibly tolerate it in my boyfriend?  My negative view of myself spread like an illness, infecting those closest to me.

 

Baby elephant to the rescue!

        I cannot quite say what got me over it.  If I had to guess I would point to a few incidents that scared me out of continuing my obsessive behavior.  The first incident was during the winter of my senior year of high school.  I tried to make myself throw up, failed to do so, and then panicked.  When your reflection stares back at you from the bottom of a toilet bowl you suddenly become one of those girls.   You become one of the girls you thought only existed in after school TV specials because no real person would actually be that desperate to be thin.  I thought no real, rational, sane person, which I certainly felt I was, could be that desperate.  But now I was one of those girls.  I could no longer pretend I didn't have a problem.  I could no longer pretend that careful calorie control, followed by gorging on junk food because I was hungry from not eating, followed by neurotic exercising was just normal weight management.  This was the first time I actively tried to push back against my obsessive behavior.

 

This polar bear cubs can't read.  They don't know that we are talking about
an uncomfortable topic.  They just want to cuddle.

        In the spring of that year my health teacher described the symptoms of eating disorders to our class.  Even though I had scared myself out of traditional purging, my obsessive working out and eating habits still made me qualify as bulimic.  Bulimic is a loaded word.  It was scary to suddenly have that label. This was the second wake up call.  It got me to again push back against my obsessive behavior.  

       While it scared me to be labeled bulimic, the freshman fifteen scared me more than an eating disorder did.   Part of me still intended to "have more control over what I ate" when I got to college.  By more control I mean more disordered behavior.  I was a smart girl, I figured I could handle "control" without letting the food obsession get out of hand.  Because you know, thinking constantly about what I had or would eat didn't count as things getting out of hand already.

 

Baby hedgehog is happy to tell you that the heavy part is almost over

        Fortunately for me, the opposite happened when I got to college.  I just stopped caring.  This I attribute to the some of the girls on my freshman hall.  The girls on my hall freshman year were a bit obsessed with avoiding the freshman fifteen, perhaps even more so than I was.  It was their fixation on avoiding the freshman fifteen that gave me perspective.  Seeing how preoccupied they were with working out and with what they ate and with looking a certain way in fling tanks made me realize how ludicrous my behavior had been.  I didn't want to behave like the girls on my hall.  I didn’t want their lives, and I mostly stopped obsessing over being thin.

 

The girls on my hall made me realize how unhealthy I had been.
I do not intend to shame them, or Meghan Fox here for being
concerned with their appearance.  There is immense pressure
on women to look good.  It's hypocritical to shame women for trying
 to look good, when we also tell them that it is essential that they look pretty.

      In time I learned much healthier ways to take care of and think about my body. These helped me avoid relapsing.  I started taking group classes at the gym with the intention of becoming strong and athletic, not so much of becoming thin.  The classes did a few things for me.  They provided a very positive and encouraging environment for working out.  This released the stress that usually contributed to my body issues, without encouraging a fixation on getting thin.  The instructors had a variety of builds, from tiny and lean, to large and muscular, to distinctly chunky.  They showed me there were many ways other than just being thin to be powerful and healthy.

        I also learned how to dress myself in a way that complimented the things I liked about my body.  This brings me back to my discussion of fashion and body image.  I don't blame the fashion industry for my eating disorder.  I think I always considered models to be unrealistic and never particularly cared to look like them.  I'ld say my eating disorder rose out of my personality.  I was a perfectionist, very competitive, very controlling, and not getting into the colleges I wanted to.  I was basically a perfect storm for an eating disorder.  But many people, likely including the girls on my hall, feel compelled to go to unhealthy ends to meet the impossible standards portrayed by entertainment, fashion, and social media.

        I found a way to love my body through fashion.  In trying to dress nicely, I learned to focus on things I liked about myself as opposed to things I didn't.  I like to think of clothing as self-expression.  Part of self-expression is deciding for yourself what counts as pretty or cool or interesting.  When I started decided for myself what looks good, I became much more indifferent to external beauty standards.

 

My beauty standard = Looking like a dinosaur

        One does not just learn to think positively about themselves overnight.  I still struggle with my body image at times, particularly when people around me complain about their bodies, or when I get mistaken for a fourteen-year-old, or when I get overwhelmed at school.  I still have many of the habits I picked up during my eating disorder.  Some are harmless, like a taste for spicy food (spicy food is supposedly an appetite suppressant).  Some are less harmless, like a tendency to pinch my stomach.  So I still need to be kind to myself to keep unhealthy thoughts from creeping back up on me.  I have found setting fitness goals, such as being able to lift a certain amount of weight or stretch in a certain way, instead of setting weight or clothing size goals has helped me focus on what my body can do as opposed to how it looks.

 

Obviously I need to grow a beard so people stop saying I look 14

         I have found that dressing to focus on my favorite features, keeps me from fixating on what I don't like.  The ideal body is a completely made up thing.  Thin bodies or thick bodies or squiggly bodies are just a passing trend.  In a few years a new body type will come into style, and then everyone will have to scramble to make their bodies fit, or look like they fit the new ideal.  It is a pointless marathon—one you cannot win.  The clothing industry is perfectly happy to keep changing the ideal so that you keep needing to buy new clothing to fit it.  You will feel much better about yourself if the fashion industry can't tell you that the body you worked so hard to get to fit an old ideal is no longer considered beautiful.  If you create your own ideal no one can take that away from you.  Focus on what you like about yourself.  You don’t even need to focus on physical traits, mental and emotional ones deserve love too.  If you are in the habit of only seeing the worst in yourself, it will take time to unlearn this behavior.  Every time you fixate on a trait you don't like, remind yourself of one you do.  In time you can train yourself to see the good in you first.  Dressing to play up your best traits, or to fit your own ideal will help with this immensely.

 

We all know dinosaurs were the original hotties

         While fashion has created a minefield of insecurity and screwed up body images, it can also create a space for self-expression and self-love.  Next week I will discuss how to dress yourself in a way that encourages the self-love and self-expression most fashion experts only pretend to believe in.  If you are feeling bad about how you look, I can guarantee that you are not alone.   Don't feel ashamed of your insecurities, we all wrestle with them.  When I opened up about my insecurities and eating issues, I found many other people, both male and female, who struggled with the same issues.  Some people who opened up to me had much more severe disorders than I, some had much milder symptoms.  But, all of our experiences were valid.  Now we can help each other avoid falling into old habits.  We all got past our disorders.  We are all far more than our disorders. If you feel like you need someone to talk to, I am happy to listen, that's part of the reason I wrote this. I promise you, it gets better.

On Physicsing while Female

        This blog is called Food Fashion Physics for a reason.  I have an interest in food and in fashion, and while I primarily discuss those things here, my first love is physics.  I am pursuing a PhD in Physics.  I qualify as that peculiar creature some people call a "smart girl".  In fact I would even say I am a rather smart girl, one who very much values and partially defines herself by her intelligence.

        You may have heard that there are not terribly many women in Physics or other STEM fields for that matter.  This is what makes me a peculiar creature.  Many people, including us rare female physicists have long wondered why we are so rare. This lack of women remains a great problem for STEM fields.

Where are the female scientists?  They probably are not hiding
in the Schrodinger equation.

        I have heard many proposed explanations for the lack of women, but there is one in particular I want to focus on today.  Many claim that women do not go into STEM fields because they are taught that science is unfeminine.  I cannot speak for all female physicists, but I can say that I and other female scientists I asked were either not actively aware of this message, or never much cared about it.  Maybe that's why we pursued physics.  Perhaps there are legions of potential female scientists and engineers who abandoned a future in science because they believed it was an unfeminine pursuit.  In truth, the lack of women in STEM fields is driven by forces more complicated, nuanced, and subtle than this or any single factor.  But the lack of women in science is not the purpose of this post.  What I wish to discuss instead are the ways in which women in science absorb the message that science is unfeminine.  For years I thought the message either didn't exist, or that no woman who actually pursued science cared about it.  What I have come to learn is that many of us did unknowingly absorb the message that science is unfeminine, but in a very different way than the women who never pursued science did.

        For most of my recent life I have described myself as a "girl who does not get along with other girls."  Pursuing physics means I spent most of my time around the men in my classes.  This never bothered me because I was more comfortable around men than women.  I felt special to be one of two female physicists in my graduating class of 30 physics students.  I was proud to see myself as one of few trail blazing women.  This isn't to say I was without female friends.  I was friendly with other STEM girls, mostly fellow "girls who do not get along with other girls."  Most of us felt some degree of discomfort, or difficulty connecting with "typical girls."  One friend went so far to say that she would not take math classes with too many girls in them because that indicated they were too easy for her.

Yea...most of my friends are dudes

         I have another friend, a social scientist, who was much more comfortable around women than my other female friends, and was in fact quite feminine.  She once complained that most female role models or strong female characters she saw growing up had abandoned their femininity as if it were a shackle holding them back.  This upset her because she grew up believing she couldn't be strong without rejecting the femininity that was a key part of her identity.  I didn't know what to say to her at the time.  It seemed perfectly obvious to me that the strong female characters had to reject acting feminine in order to succeed.  This conflicted with the fact that I considered my friend to be a very intelligent person who also only ever wore skirts and dresses.  I didn't think much of this incident until a few years later when someone asked me why I thought there were so few women in physics.

This basically sums up the outlook we learned

        Many of us were not so tormented by this choice as my friend was.  If you could only be smart or feminine; strong or feminine; unique, ambitious, useful, valuable or feminine; the choice was obvious for us smart girls.  We were smart first and girls second.  No one explicitly told us that traditional femininity was in direct conflict with being ambitious or useful.  Yet when we only hear about powerful, successful women who rose above the expected behavior of their gender to succeed, it is easy to view traditional female traits and behaviors as incompatible with success.  From there we would start to link femininity to vapidity and weakness.

       To anyone who knew me when I was young, the fact that I blog about fashion must be quite shocking.  Growing up, I hated shopping, had little interest in clothing, and generally resented any attempt to make me presentable that required effort.  I did not hold the people who enjoyed these things in high esteem either.  They were being traditionally feminine, which as I saw, meant they were being shallow, they were being mindless conformists, they were not being smart.  I wasn't quite a tomboy, I wasn't athletic enough, but I certainly identified with them more than with other girls.

My idea of being fashionable circa age 14.
Notice I rocked the strong brow before it became popular.

         I remember watching Cheaper by the Dozen 2 when I was about 11.  This movie would have been entirely forgettable if I hadn't been very upset by one scene in it.  One of the daughters in the movie, Sarah, was a tomboy, the character I most readily identified with.  She develops a crush on a boy and covertly tries to steal makeup so she can wear it and look pretty for this boy.  I didn't care about the stealing.  It was the fact that she wanted to wear makeup to impress a boy that bothered me.  To my 11 year old self, make up was what girly girls who cared too much about their appearance wore.  This character wearing makeup felt like a personal betrayal.  She had turned coat.  It felt like she was giving up her entire unique tomboy persona, her true self, to impress some unworthy boy.  Smart or unfeminine women "learning to be feminine" to attract a man is a terrible and painfully common movie trope.  However, it simply never occurred to me that this tomboy who wanted to wear makeup could do so without giving up everything that made her special and valuable.

Sarah from Cheaper by the Dozen before she turned coat

BETRAYAL!

      About a year later, my closest friend at the time whom we will call Kelley, started hanging out with the preppy girls.  This was the friend that I had beheaded barbie dolls with, that I had mocked the preppy girls and played video games and dreaded puberty with, and now she was hanging out with the very girls we had disdained for their girliness.  This time the betrayal was much more personal.  Kelley had changed.  My best friend in the whole world was willing to give up the things I liked about her for something as utterly lacking in value or purpose as being feminine.   As far as I could tell we could never again perform our 'surgeries' on Barbies, nor do any of the things we had once enjoyed together.  I did not take this well and the friendship quickly unraveled.

This both shows what we did to barbie dolls and acts as a visual analogy of
what became of our friendship after Kelley started hanging out with the preppy girls

         These stories should give you a picture of the view of femininity I and many smart girls like myself carried around as we grew up.  Knowing I grew up with the view that femininity is just some useless thing that gets in the way of being smart or strong, you can imagine how confusing it was for me to develop an interest in my appearance and in fashion.  I was a creative person and had many creative interests.  The interest in fashion grew out of that creativity, yet  I was so nervous about people knowing about this interest.  I feared that it would show that I had changed, or had given up that fundamental, driven, intelligent part of myself in exchange for an air headed fascination with a topic as shallow as fashion.  I avoided allowing people to think this by always emphasizing that my interest in fashion was purely a creative outlet;  a form of self expression that I approached rather intellectually.  I would say I respected people who put thought and skill into how they presented themselves, not those who followed whatever the media told them was pretty.  All of this was, and is still true about my view of fashion.  I only felt I needed to qualify and justify my interest in fashion because I feared I would fall into the trap of traditional femininity if I didn't.  I could not risk anyone thinking that my traditionally feminine interest was anything short of an intellectual one.

This is my prom dress, evidence of my early fashion interest.
 I made it out of duct tape and old physics homework.
This pretty much sums me up.

          About midway through college I realized I had not compromised my ambition or intelligence or strength by baking or wearing high heels and skirts.  As the only person many of my male friends felt comfortable talking with about personal issues, I began to appreciate how traditionally feminine characteristics such as empathy and patience could actually make a person quite powerful.  I learned that not only can women be smart and pretty or strong and feminine, but that these is strength in femininity itself.  I began to realize that there was something very sexist in the notion that intelligence was the antithesis of femininity and beauty.  There was something wrong with the idea that a woman can be great and powerful but only if she acts like a man.

        Men are not the only ones who must overcome their own sexism.  Women, smart women, smart women like me who "didn't get along with other women" must overcome our own sexism too.  This can be particularly difficult.  I spent so long rebelling against gender roles and resenting the social pressure to be feminine. This makes it difficult to continue trying to redefine gender roles and simultaneously say that the very femininity I rebelled against is valuable.  I am still trying to perfect this, and admittedly still get strangely angry when I see a woman being basic, and still feel more on edge around people I perceive as girly.  I still worry that my male peers will not view me as an equal if I try too hard to look nice.  While I am still working these things out, I'll at least say traditionally feminine traits have long been undervalued.  We miss out on so much feminine women can bring to the table when we tell them that only masculine traits are relevant to success.  My hope is to achieve a world in which there is no smart-pretty dichotomy, where you can accept or reject elements of masculinity or femininity without your perceived intelligence being jeopardized.

Ugg boots fill me with illogical rage.

        To destroy this dichotomy, let's tell our children stories of great women of history.  Many rejected their femininity, many embraced it, and many found it utterly unrelated to their ability to change the world.  Their stories can show us that there are many ways to be a smart woman.  Let's stop making TV shows like the Big Bang Theory in which the intelligence of a female character is inversely proportional to how attractive she is.  Let's teach young women that smart can be sexy, but that they have so much more to offer the world than just being sexy.  Let's teach them that the way they present themselves has nothing to do with their intelligence. And please, whether directly or indirectly, through characters, movie tropes, or even who you choose to ask for help on your math homework, let's stop telling girls that intelligence is unfeminine.  I know many very brilliant, very logical women, who are also rather girly.  These people are not intelligent in lieu of their femininity, their intelligence is part of their femininity .

Stop telling me that all female scientists look like this.

Some of us look like this,

but some of us look like this.  There are many ways to look
like a scientist.

        My freshman year of college I sat in an honors electromagnetism classroom full of mostly male students.  The professor had yet to arrive.  As we waited, a cockroach entered the front of the room and scurried across the floor.  The room was silent, and all attention turned to the offending cockroach.  Someone suggested we should kill it, but no one in the room full of men moved to do what was supposedly a man's job.  A heavy silence set in again.  I stood up and approached the front of the room.  My brazenly feminine bright red five inch heels clicked loudly, shattering the quiet as I approached the tiny beast.  Delicately, I put the toe of my platform shoe down over the cockroach.  The crunching sound reverberated through the room.  I wiped my shoe off, sat back down, and waited for lecture to start.  Three years later people still remember the crunch.  I could not have done this without the red shoes.  This incident came to represent how I balanced masculine and feminine traits inside of me.  Only by valuing both masculine and feminine features can we achieve great things--like crushing a cockroach.
   

These are my red shoes.  I wear them to crush roaches and
the patriarchy.

The Good, the Bad, the Smoothie: Ranking of West Philly Smoothies

        If you read my best pizza or best hot chocolate in West Philly posts you might be starting to suspect I spend all of my time sampling food from as many places as possible.  I wouldn't say all of my time, but I do do this quite a bit.  As a result I have one last set of rankings for you.  In my pizza post I said we had monthly pizza nights.  Really they were pizza and smoothie nights.  We needed something we could pretend was healthy to balance all of the pizza.

        Similar to the process we used for pizzas, four to ten judges tried five or six smoothies in a single night.  The judges voted on which smoothie to try from each smoothie vendor using a menu identified by a number.  This avoided biasing their responses in favor of or against places they expected to have better or worse smoothies.  A smoothie was defined as a blended beverage that is composed primarily of fruit, or fruit and yogurt, or is specifically labeled as a smoothie or lassi.  A lassi is an Indian yogurt based drink and a close relative of the smoothie.   Ice cream based drinks such as milkshakes did not count as smoothies.  Slushies did not count as smoothies either,  not that those contain anything resembling fruit anyway.   Smoothies were rated on a scale of 1 to 10 based on taste and texture.  We tried about 31 smoothies in search of the best one.  Below are the  'fruits' of months of arduous smoothie sampling labor.

Top Five Smoothies

5. Pumpkin Chai Smoothie from Kaffa Crossing (4423 Chestnut)

You don't need to stoop to this level.
You have other options

I don't know how many times I need to expound the glories of Kaffa Crossing to convince you guys to visit it for yourselves.  Among other things, they make very good and very interesting smoothies.  Most of their smoothies include cinnamon, honey, spices, raisins or some combination of the above, which makes them stand out from other smoothie vendors. The pumpkin chai smoothie contains pumpkin, chai, cinnamon, nutmeg, and banana.  Drink it, and satisfy your pumpkin spice craving without fear of becoming basic. 

3 (Tied). The Peaches and Cream Lassi from Mood Cafe (4618 Baltimore)

Lassi all day everyday

Accidental sexual implications in the name aside, the Peaches and Cream Lassi from Mood Cafe is just one of perhaps 100 lassis offered by this fine establishment.  Yes, 100 flavors of lassi.  Most of us are lucky to find 3 flavors in your typical Indian restaurant.  If you are wondering, a lassi is an Indian yogurt based drink, close enough to a smoothie to be called one.  Generally they only come in mango, sweet, and salty flavors (the salty lassi will be relevant later).  Mood Cafe offering so many flavors and executing them so well is a big deal.  If you are looking specifically for lassi, this is probably the best you can get anywhere in Philly.

3(Tied). The World Cafe Live Smoothie from OCF Coffee House (2930 Chestnut)

CAUTION: This is not a smoothie
Do not drink!

Don't get confused.  This smoothie is named for the World Cafe Live but served at OCF Coffee House. I am pretty sure the smoothies doesn't actually taste like the World Cafe Live, but I can't guarantee that.  I have never licked the World Cafe Live building.  The smoothie contains pineapple, banana, arugula, and orange juice.  The arugula was the unexpected ingredient that made this smoothie particularly pleasant.  It introduced just a bit of kick to balance the sweetness of the smoothie.

2. Passion Fruit Smoothie from Ochatto (3618 Chestnut)

Look at Ochatto, sneaking around and
pretending to be a different restaurant.

Ochatto offers many flavors of smoothies.  They also give you the unique option of picking the sweetness of your smoothie.  We picked the low sugar option.  I highly suggest this option because it allowed us to enjoy the tartness of the passion fruit, and continue to pretend that we were drinking something healthy.  On an odd note Ochatto used to be called Chattime.  You may find it easier to learn about Ochatto under its former alias Chattime.

1. Pina Colada Smoothie from Mediterranean Cafe (3409 Walnut)

=UNSTOPPABLE

This was a very unexpected winner given the number of fine smoothie establishments in West Philly, and the fact that Mediterranean Cafe is part of a food court next to CVS.  Maybe pineapple and coconut are just an unbeatable combo.  Whatever the reason for its victory, this smoothie did win fair and square.  It taught us all not to judge a book by its cover, nor a smoothie by its presence in a food court cafe.

Honorable Mention

These fruits are heroically going forth to  provide
you with excellent smoothie

Peanut Butter Banana Smoothie from Surf City Squeeze (30th Street Station)

This is a rather self explanatory smoothie; it was a well made cup of banana peanut buttery goodness. This smoothie made the top five in the taste category but failed to make the overall top five.

Fruit Carts

There are many fruit carts, at least four, in University City that sell pureed fruity goodness.  They are surprisingly hard to track down for smoothie night testing, so we were not able to sample them all. But there are many, and their number is growing.  So I encourage any other  lover of smoothies to give these fruit carts a proper investigation.

Something to eat when you want to feel impressive

Brown Sugar Bakery (219 S 52nd) and Hibiscus Cafe (4907 Catherine)

Brown Sugar Bakery and Hibiscus Cafe both offer distinctive ingredients, such as spices or irish moss if you are hoping to sound impressive with your food choices, and flavor combination that I have not found elsewhere.  They did not do too well up against other smoothies, but we might have just picked the wrong flavors.  They are still worth exploring for something different.  By something different I mean paying the cashier through a bullet proof glass window.

Dishonorable Mention

It is difficult to make a bad smoothie.  In fact on average the smoothies we tried were enjoyable.  These places however put in the extra effort into making their smoothies extra bad.

3. Kale and Pineapple Smoothie from Satellite Cafe

A place to go to discuss undercuts and anarchist theory
Not a place to go to drink smoothies

You might remember the Satellite Cafe from my hot chocolate post.  Not only do they make hot chocolate that only a self hating hipster could enjoy, they also make smoothies that only people too cool to have taste buds would seek out.  We should have known it would be bad when kale was in the name of the smoothie.  In their notes one judge wrote, "I DON'T LIKE KALE."  Okay, that judge was me, I don't like kale, but the other judges disliked this smoothie too.  They felt it tasted too bland or too strongly of banana to be enjoyable.

2. Durian Smoothie from Saigon Pho & Cafe

Just look at the durian.
It clearly has no intention of being eaten

I admit, we cannot entirely blame Saigon on this one.  Durian is a horribly smelly fruit.  It would be silly to expect it to taste good.  Of course we did, and paid dearly for our foolishness.  Saigon is still somewhat responsible because they did put this on their menu.  Someone there must have thought it was good enough to sell.  I disagree.  

1. Salty Lassi from Tandoor India

This is a salt lassi.
You can understand what inspired some of
the more unconventional flavor comparisons.

We were not prepared for the salty lassi.  The taste is meant to be sweet and salty, which our uncultured palletes did not take kindly to in a smoothie type drink.  Some judges thought it resembled alfredo sauce.  Another judge said it tasted like a worse version of jizz.  After one judge pointed this out, a few simply refused to taste it at all.  It was that bad.  This reaction was not solely the result of our unfamiliarity with salty lassi.  Our resident lassi experts confirmed that Tandoor India supplied a rather poor beverage, even for salty lassi standards.

The official ranking and scores

1. Pina Colada Smoothie from Mediterranean Cafe (Taste 8.8, Texture 7.4)

2. Passion Fruit Smoothie from Ochatto (Taste 8.29, Texture 7.14)

3. Peaches and Cream Lassi from Mood Cafe (Taste 7.5, Texture 7.17)

3. World Cafe Live Smoothie from OCF Coffee House (Taste 8, Texture 6.67)

5. Fresh Fruit Cart on 35th and Market (Taste 7.4, Texture 7.2)

6. Pumpkin Chai Smoothie from Kaffa Crossing (Taste 7.63, Texture 6.71)

7. Banana Peanut Butter Smoothie from Surf City Squeeze (Taste 7.5, Texture 6.75)

8. Mango Lassi from Desi Chaat House (Taste 7.13, Texture 6.75)

9. Papaya Smoothie from Brown Sugar Bakery (Taste 7.2, Texture 6.6)

10. Peach Smoothie from Joe's Cafe (Taste 7, Texture 6.75)

10. Strawberry Lassi from New Delhi (Taste 7.38, Texture 6.38)

12. Mango Lassi from Sitar India (Taste 6.38, Texture 6.57)

13. Heidi Ho Cafe (Taste 7.2, Texture 6.2)

14. Kaleatta Smoothie from Honeygrow (Taste 6.71, Texture 6.33)

15. Sweet Lassi from Desi Village (Taste 6.33, Texture 6.67)

16. Super Pomegranate Smoothie from Ben and Jerry's (Taste 6.86, Texture 5.86)

17. Mango Lassi from Kabobeesh (Taste 6.5, Texture 6.13)

17. Mango Lime Smoothie from Currito Burritos (Taste 6.5, Texture 6.13)

17. Tropical Smoothie from Saigon Cuisie (Taste 7.38, Texture 5.25)

20. Strawberry Banana Smoothie from Wawa (Taste 6.17, Texture 6.33)

21. Peanut Punch Smoothie from Hibiscus Cafe (Taste 6.6, Texture 5.6)

22. Pineapple Mango Smoothie from Fresh Fruit Salad Cart on 36th and Spruce (Taste 5.4, Texture 6.2)

23. Mango Pineapple Smoothie from Saxby's (Taste 5.67, Texture 5.67)

24. Ashley Smoothie from Milk and Honey Market (Taste 5.86, Texture 5.29)

25. Avocado Smoothie from Sankee (Taste 6.2, Texture 4.8) 

26. Tropical Paradise Smoothie from Pottruck (Taste 5.67, Texture 4.67)

27. Orange Mango Smoothie from Starbucks (Taste 5.13, Texture 5)

28. Mango, Tumeric and Cardamom Smoothie from Bliss Juices and Icecream/ Manakeesh (Taste 4.75, Texture 4.25)

29. Kale Pineapple Smoothie from Satellite Cafe (Taste 4, Texture 4.2)

30. Durian Smoothie from Saigon Pho & Cafe (Taste 4.25, Texture 3.63)

31. Salty Lassi from Tandoor India (Taste 1.5, Texture 4.33)

        After nine months and 31 smoothies here we are.  As with the best pizzas, the best smoothies came from some rather unexpected places.  Fortunately most smoothies are enjoyable, so you can try smoothies reasonably far down on the list before regretting your life decisions.  I found that the smoothie flavor can have a bigger impact on how good the smoothie is than the establishment selling the smoothie.  So look for places with interesting menus, and give the places that fared worse the benefit of the doubt.  These establishments might be capable of making good normal flavored smoothies.  Oh, and don't get a smoothie with a fruit flavor you already expect to be awful (like Durian).  Now go my fruit loving minions, go with this newfound knowledge and explore the smoothie goodness that West Philly has to offer!