The people against bows becoming a trendy fashion accessory has annoyed me sooo much lately. Saw a tiktok that was like “if you get uncomfortable with us saying wearing bows infantilizes women and supports the patriarchy, it just means you’re uncomfortable with us pointing out you’ve been engaging in a harmful trend/behavior 😌” aaaaaAAAAAAH people online are allergic to nuance
Like it’s a complex issue. We can’t boil down one fashion accessory to “pure moral and correct” or “bad evil and reprehensible”. Some people wear bows because they like the fashion, some are trying to reclaim their femininity without feeling shame (like wearing a hair bow to an otherwise masculine job), some like them because they remind them of their childhood. It’s weird to claim that women only wear bows as an effect of the patriarchy, because if all men disappeared tomorrow do we really think all women would stop wearing them? I saw people in the comments of these tiktoks against the bow trend comparing them to makeup, relating those who claim to wear bows just for fun to women who claim they wear makeup for themself and not for men, and implying both groups of people are lying to themselves. Again it’s not that simple, there are plenty of women who really do enjoy self expression through makeup. And historically makeup, like bows, was worn by both men and women. Have these been tools of the patriarchy to control women as time went on? Yes. But we also can’t boil them down as *only* being tools of subjugation, and thus things to dismantle entirely. So yeah, think critically about the trends you engage in, but also just let women have fun.
As someone who’s been into fashion for ages and likes historical fashion: this take is particularly absurd since bows have been a part of women’s (and sometimes men’s!) fashion for literally centuries. Bows have only more *recently* been phased out of women’s fashion. You can look back at young women in the 1940s and 1950s still rocking hair bows (and according to some images, whose authenticity I can’t verify, wearing your bow in specific ways could be used to signal whether one was single and looking, single and not looking, taken, etc.,)
Bows being ~immature~ and girlish is NEW.
i am very fortunately Not Aware of this Bow Discourse
but just putting this out there, in case anyone thinks of bows as only for girly girls
Images of men rocking bows? Here’s my adorkable addition:
This dude is THIRTY-FUCKIN’-TWO and never wears a normal tie. Only the bow. And he fucking SLAYS in it.
