Does one’s clothing influence our perceptions?
Would you assume a woman wearing designer fabric more competent than one wearing traditional clothes? Would you perceive a man wearing a dhoti-kurta any less than a man wearing a suit?
Stereotypes are parasitic by nature. It lives on you and just sucks the life out of you. Even if we are told clothes are unrelated to competence and warned not to let clothes influence our judgment of competence still we tend to make numerous presumptions about people merely based on their physical appearances.
We all have an equal amount of freedom to choose our opinions, taste, styles etc. One’s concern about their clothing style should not concern anyone else. Of course, not to forget that the style one chooses should be within the scope of what’s socially acceptable. Offensive clothing is always a big-no. We can always express ourselves without being indecent to anyone else.
First impressions are significant but that doesn't truly define one’s personality fairly. We ought to get to know one other to discover the real person we are. Appearances might be deceiving. ‘Rich’ clothing style doesn’t necessarily mean rich person or person with a rich mentality. People have dynamic tastes and styles which they like to express in their own way. So there are many unseen insides!
There is much more to a person than what they choose to wear. A healthy society would go for a person on the basis of their personality rather than what they choose to wear. If one is prejudiced, he may miss out being in the company with the good personalities.
At the end of the day, we should be able to wear whatever we wish to. It can be trend-inspired or not. So let us not judge a book by it’s cover.
For some ‘a pair of torn jeans’ are just a fashion statement while for others it is a compulsion. So,
The next time you happen to judge a person for their weird/ fabulous/ bizzarie fashion sense, kindly re-think!
0 Comments