Monday, August 13, 2001- The Michigan Daily - 5 What it feels like for a girl According to a recent study I've pants are written right there on the just made up, the number one tags. Imagine that! The tags actually fear among men ages five to tell you how big the pants are. What a 87 is to get stuck clothes shopping beautiful system. with a woman. 96 percent of those The tags on women's pants offer surveyed were "terrified" by the no such information. No, that would thought of standing outside the fitting make things much room all day, amidst heaps of rejected too easy. Instead, outfits, trying to convince Ms. X. that women's pants are she is not, in fact, "fat." Most organized accord- expressed contempt for women's ing to "size." shopping habits, calling nine hours These "sizes" - "way too long" to obsess over a single . generally odd or pair of jeans. even numbers - While I am usually the first to xy are determined by criticize members of my gender for a panel of blind being absurd (e.g. when they pur- AUBREY chimpanzees in posely yank out their eyebrows with HENRETTY Saskatchewan. tweezers, participate in beauty pag- N i R OT 1. There's no guar- eants or go on the cabbage soup diet), antee that two I draw the line at clothes shopping. pairs of pants of the same style, Sorry, guys, but I'm gonna have to labeled with the same number and side with the ladies on this one. Peo- sold in the same store will be the ple who design and produce women's same size. clothing are - and I say this without While we're on the subject of size, hesitation, apology or clarification - I feel I should include a sidebar on a sadistic bunch of crackheads who the cultural abomination that is Size live only to cause others misery. If it Zero. Size Zero? Call me old fash- only takes nine hours to find an ioned, but I always thought of "zero" acceptable pair of jeans these people as being without size; it seems a poor created, I call that an accomplish- choice to call anything containing a ment. zipper. A more accurate description Shopping for women's clothes is would be: "Garment That Fits Snugly not at all like shopping for men's on a Barbie Doll." ButI digress. clothes. Trying on women's clothes is the For example, if you're a guy who worst. And by "the worst," I mean, knows his waist measurement in inch- "so horrific, it defies description. But es, it'll take you about ten seconds to I'll do my best." Because fashion find a pair of pants that fit. Why? designers have this crazy idea that Because the waist and inseam meas- women are supposed to have wide urements of each individual pair of hips, slim waists and ample chests, the thick-waisted, small-chested among us are doomed to a series of humiliations. Garments pinch, sag and stretch in all the wrong places under fluorescent lights that make us look like dead water buffalo. You'd scream and throw denim, too. I'm not saying men should feel sorry for women, suck it up and clothes shop with us. (Heavens, no. Personally, I hate shopping for clothes with myself and would never subject my male loved ones to this kind of hell.) All I ask is that they lay off the ridicule. Believe me, boys, your mun- dane teasing pales in comparison to the mock-feat enjoyed by the clothing we discard. And until you've squeezed your wide feet into a pair of pointy dress shoes, we don't want to hear it from you. This would be a great time for me to get preachy, to boldly challenge women to defy socially defined dress codes, to mention the pair of men's cargo pants I ended up buying this weekend. Ideally, I'd also toss in a line about accepting yourself the way you are, even if that means giving the metaphorical finger to the fashion industry. But I won't insult your intel- ligence; I'll just remind you to laugh at yourself whenever possible (i.e. often). It won't make your pants fit any better, but it will make flinging them at your shopping buddy easier for both of you to take. -Aubrey Henretty does not readfashion magazines. Ever She can be reached via e-mail at ahenrett@umich.edu. LOOKING FOR AN INTERESTING EXTRACURRICULAR ACTIVITY TO FILL YOUR TIME THIS FALLV COME WRITE FOR THE DAILY'S EDITORIAL PAGE IN SEPTEMBER! THE BOONDOCKS BY AARON MCGRUDER The true progressive Iname my column "The Progres- sive Pen." What exactly does that mean? Without utilizing any type. of American dictionary, let me attempt to explain what it means to me. A progressive does not lean to the left or right. He or she is neither liber- al nor conservative, not necessarily socialist, communist, capitalist or oth- erwise. When speaking of what truly makes one a progressive, we must abandon all politically identifying jar- gon. A progressive does not exist in a Western context or in an Eastern con- text or in a Democratic or Republican context. Progressiveness exists in only a human context. It goes hand in hand with the authentic make-up of the intellectual. It is a state of mind that sees no national or political alle- giances, it is not nationalistic, nor is it against nationalism. The ethnicity or race of the subject of the work of the progressive is of no consequence. This is why we have almost no pro- gressives in America. Since just about everything is racialized (especially in our two-party system), progressive activism becomes bankrupt when it refuses to also point the finger at those corrupt individuals who happen to come from disadvantaged back- grounds. In a democratic culture, progres- siveness must be by definition a minority movement. If the majority of people in a society were progressives, what would they be active against? Their own fraudulent majority rule? In a dictatorship, progressiveness is usually, if not always, a majority movement, though many times quiet or silent. It is a movement that strives to speak some type of truth to power, precisely the reason those in power are usually vehemently opposed to it. It forces powerful individuals to uncover that which has made them powerful. In most cases, the success of pro- gressive activism existing power structures. Its suc- AMER G. cess brings those ZAHR who have power to center stage PR uRESi\E precisely when FENRi they wish to be behind closed doors. Progressives "get it." They hear a story, educate themselves and become active because they "get it." "Getting it," however, is a rare occurrence in American society. We have few stand- out progressives who fall into this cat- egory - people who see and criticize corruption without giving heed to who the corrupt is. Among them are people like Edward Said, Norman Finkelstein, Noam Chomsky and Christopher Hitchens. Almost no politicians fall into this category and the closest facsimiles of progressive- ness on Capitol Hill are people like David Bonior and Cynthia McKinney. Progressives are targeted. They are a threat to most societies because they call for complete reexaminations of status quos. They call for power to be put in check. Recently, Christopher Hitchens published a book entitled "The Trial of Henry Kissinger," basi- cally outlining a case for the prosecu- tion in a war crimes trial against the former secretary of state. I can only imagine the amount of death threats he has received. We have some pro- gressive institutions in our world, though many of them, like the UN for example, have fallen prey to power, basically becoming a mouthpiece for the foreign policy of the United States. Another such institution would be the UN war crimes tribunal that is currently hearing the case of Slo- bodon Milosevic. This is of course an important first step, but the true test of the court will be if it also prose- cutes others who have committed similar acts, even if they come from the powerful elite, i.e. the Western world. The progressiveness of the court may very well be tested in the coming years as leaders like Henry Kissinger, Ariel Sharon and others are now being pursued, if only prelimi- narily, by individual prosecutors. Finally progressiveness is not, as it is most times seen, an extremist movement. It is, rather, extremely moderate. Many times what it calls for may seem extreme, however, since it seeks to de-corrupt power, to re- institute true democracy and to pre- vent suffering no matter what clothes the victim wears. - This isAmer Zahrs last columnfor the summer He can be reached via e-mailatzahmg@umich.edu. NE Hi V40 ,S Y 4 sj t z f:, t 5 ti Tt 705 YOO ., ~1 C5 MV I 15e WiSI555