In a media culture, we not only judge strangers by how they look but by the images of how they look. So we want attractive pictures of our heroes and repulsive images of our enemies.
Virginia PostrelRead
Though designed as a mere convenience, clothing sizes establish an unintended norm, an ideal from which deviations seem like flaws. There's nothing like a trip to the dressing room to convince a woman - fat, thin, or in between - that she's a freak.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Clothing sizes create unrealistic standards that lead people to feel inadequate about their bodies.
In this quote, Virginia Postrel highlights the problematic nature of clothing sizes as social constructs that impose an idealized body image. This standard creates a culture where individuals, especially women, are made to feel abnormal or flawed based on how their bodies compare to these arbitrary sizes, resulting in negative self-image and body dissatisfaction.
Themes
ClothingSizesBody ImageNormsSociety
In practice
Example use cases
In a discussion about body positivity, this quote could be used to demonstrate the impact of societal standards on self-esteem.
More from Virginia Postrel
All quotes →Glamour doesn’t just happen, people don’t wake up in the morning glamorous.
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With its fluctuating forms and needless decoration, fashion epitomizes the supposedly unproductive waste that inspired 20th-century technocrats to dream of central planning. It exists for no good reason. But that's practically a definition of art.
Virginia PostrelRead
A world of few choices, whether in jeans or mates, is a world in which individual differences become sources of alienation, unhappiness, even self-loathing. If no jeans fit, you'll feel uncomfortable or inferior. If no housing developments reflect your taste for unique architecture, you'll write screeds against philistine mass culture.
Virginia PostrelRead
Most of us cluster somewhere in the middle of most statistical distributions. But there are lots of bell curves, and pretty much everyone is on a tail of at least one of them. We may collect strange memorabilia or read esoteric books, hold unusual religious beliefs or wear odd-sized shoes, suffer rare diseases or enjoy obscure movies.
Virginia PostrelRead
'Frankenstein' did not invent the fear of science; the novel found its audience because it dramatized anxieties that already existed. Although popular entertainment can, over the long run, shape public perceptions, it becomes popular in the first place only if it addresses preexisting hopes, fears, and fascinations.
Virginia PostrelRead
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