Clothing As A Metaphor For Identity

Throughout time clothing has been an important part of individual’s lives often reflecting one’s culture and personality. People use clothing to express themselves and to help others see who they are. One particular group of people that uses dress as a way to express who they are and how they feel are black women. In the seventies black people were finally allowed to attend mostly white universities, although this was a huge step forward, black women did not feel like they fit in. Black women and men decided to turn to clothing and their appearance in order to find a sense of self in a world surrounded by whites. Tanisha Ford presented “Liberated Threads: Black Women, Style, and the Global Politics of Soul” explaining why dress matters to black

Some of the specific observations made by Morris in the article ,"The Year We Obsessed Over Identity," that I find relevant to my own life- what I have read, what I watch, what I notice in the culture around me is that society continues to look at women as weak individuals. At the beginning pf the article, the character played by Anne Hathaway is shown as weak when she starts to think that without her marriage problems and that without her husband she wouldn’t be the successful women she is at that moment. "And weren't the problems in her marriage a direct result of her being a succesfulwoman- she was there but never quite present. (pg.1) People are or can also be said to have been afraid of change. Yet, when it came to Obama winning the

The case of representations, that was written by Kevin Williamson, is a reply to Ta-Nehisi Coates. The author evaluates the issue of the representation in his own fashion. He points out the racial discriminations that the African Americans faced. Also, he describes the decades of slavery and the dark times that scattered all over the African Americans for centuries; and they after effects are still seen in the years that have passed by and predicaments have never disappeared from the American society and the case of representations will perhaps remain on the books of American history for many years.

     Identity is one of the main questions throughout all of our readings, because it is hard for people to accept who they are in society. Accepting their identity as a minority with little if any freedoms

Clothing protects, decorates, describes and gives the first impression of a person. It acts as an external symbol of

Another aspect of the veil is the identity value, many women from different countries affirmed they feel that the veil is part of them; it is so important for them that “many women […] feel self-conscious, vulnerable, and even naked when they first walked on a public street without the veil […] as if they were making a display of themselves” – paragraph 22

Stuart Hall defines identity as an ‘already accomplished fact, which the new cultural practices then represent’. We should think instead of ‘identity as a ‘production’ which is never complete, always in process, and always constituted within, not outside, representation’ (Hall 1994 p.392). An individual’s sense of belonging to a particular group, thinking, feelings and behaviour can also be referred to as identity. One’s cultural image can construct identity; such features as hair, skin tone and height. History shapes our identity.

One source once stated, “By masking the discomfort, of being pre-judged” (Mora 40). People should examine their culture in order to better understand how it affects their identity and perceptions. In order to understand one’s cultural identity, he or she needs to understand what the term means. According to one source, cultural identity can be defined as “We all have unique identities that we develop within our cultures, but these identities are not fixed or static” (Trumbull and Pacheco 10). Various aspects of a person’s life that may determine his or her cultural identity music, community, family, ethnicity, relationships, religion, clothing, and food. After analyzing several texts, the reader recognizes that four important

Ernest Hemingway’s Hills Like White Elephant is about a couple, the American and a female named Jig debating about an operation Jig should have. Throughout the story, Jig is distant, the American is rational. Although the story never explicitly states what it is that the couple is arguing, if you really think about it, you’d realize that the tough situation where they are trying to make a decision, keeping their unborn child or having an abortion based on several different suggestions described. The reader must interpret their dialogue and body language to infer their backgrounds and their attitudes with respect to the situation at hand, and their attitudes toward one another. What the American thinks is best solution to their pregnancy,

There are many methods of execution that have been used throughout the years. The most popular have been lethal injection, electrocution, and hanging. The lethal injection is the newest method of execution, and quickly became the most popular one. In 1982 the United States became the first country to use the lethal injection to carry out capital punishment. Lethal injection machine exist, and they were used by several states once, but now most states now opt to perform the injections manually due to the fear of mechanical failure. Electrocution was a popular form of capital punishment in 1880’s. In 1889, William Kemmler was sentenced to death, in Auburn Prison's electric chair, first in the country. Hanging was the primary method of execution

During our life we construct many different identities of who we want to portray ourselves as to the rest of society; fashion plays a vital role in generating who we are. With the ideas from Storry and Childs they state that “the way that we dress can either serve to confirm or to subvert various facets of our identities, such as our gender,

The Question of Identity – “The Islamic Identity is taken to mean the way of life of the Muslim, a comprehensive set of beliefs, practices, and ideologies as derived from the Quran and the example of Muhammad (BPUH). Islamic identity is that which separates us from non-Muslims. Robust Islamic Identity is also what

The world has become modern and global. Identification of the self is a complicated, though, an important problem of every individual. Self- identity is based on inner values and reflections on culture, politics and social interactions. The main point is that people label themselves to any particular group in the society (Worchel etc., 1998). According to Ferguson: “Identity commonly refers to which it makes, or is thought to make

“BEFOR I CAN TALK TO YOU, PEOPLE SHOW THEIR SEX, AGE, CALSS, POSITION, WITH WHAT THEY ARE WEARING. ALL THIS IS REGISTERED UNCONCIOSLY“ Those words said by Alison Lurie in the language of clothes (1992), reflect perfectly the main point of my research. The society we are now living is an extremely conscious society regarding body image and the way we are presented to the exterior. We found an obsessive trend on wanting to look like celebrities by having certain items or looks and in relation to that a fear of not being percepted the tight way. This is where we found relation to how clothes are part of a conversation we haven 't started and are a form of expression. As there will be explained further on, we use clothes as a sign of our identity,as a way of representing ourselves and stand out from the crowd and also influence on how we appear in front of others making them (clothes) a huge part of our non verbal communication. This essay will discuss the ideas behind self -expression and the role of clothes has changed in that mater thought time.

The question is how do these issues affect self-identity? It is certain that people could choose what to do or wear, but what influenced these decisions?