transformation of self

Transformation of Self

Marie Martin

Louisiana Tech University

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Before entering Cultural Perspectives I honestly didn’t expect there to be the

amount of diversity that there was. Diversity just isn’t separated by different

cultures, but for example, in American culture there are different cultures within.

Judging comes naturally to people, and with me it was no exception. Walking down

the street I would look at people’s appearances, and judge them based on that. But,

as I learned more and more in this class I began to understand why they wore what

they did. People have many theories on why they dress. Some theories we learned in

class were the immodesty theory, modesty theory, and adornment theories are just

a few of the reasons why some people dress like they do. I feel like when I put

myself in one of these categories, I would fit in more with the adornment theory,

because when I actually do dress up nice, I want to display what I’m wearing to

express myself. But, now that I understand why people dress differently, I won’t be

as judgmental. Especially in different countries, there are many reasons they dress

differently than what our country is used to. Cultural values, innovations,

economics, and government are the main reasons there is so much diversity in dress

around the world. Depending on how strong their cultural values are, or where they

stand economically, will all have a factor in how they dress. Countries that have

stronger cultural values will dress more traditional to their roots, while if a country

is poor economically, you won’t see a lot of high-end clothing worn. Once I began to

understand this I knew that people dress the way they do for either very specific

reasons (culture), or simply because they have no other choice (economically).

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But, there are still cultural ideals, and standards that people want to obtain.

People dress in diverse ways to also obtain the body image that they want. Within

our own culture and any other culture, no one has the same body type as the other,

so people have to dress to fit their body. Also, with different social classes there is a

huge diversity in dress. If you’re in upper classes dress will be more of a way to

display your wealth, while in the working class, family is what you value the most.

Everyone has different values, and once I began to understand why, it helped me

understand better why people ultimately dress the way that they do. Religious

cultures also have different ways they dress. Whether it is sacred dress, or profane it

still is an important to their way of life. In one of our classes we learned about all of

the different types of religions, and how that affects the way one dresses. This was

interesting to me, because one religion such as Christianity, when broken up into

Catholicism, Baptist, Protestantism, Puritans, and Amish, the dress is different. This

made me look at the way I use appearance to understand others in a whole new

light. We can all believe in one thing, but have different outlooks on the way we

should dress is one of the main reasons we shouldn’t automatically judge them,

because they are expressing who they are through their religion.

People can express themselves, not only through religion, but also through

self-expression, or to fit in. Self-expression is a big deal to a lot of people, but so is

fitting into society. These psychological values play a part in every single person in

some way. Whether it’s purely to stand out, or to fit in, people want society to think

of them in a specific way. Even though people’s values are different, they still want

to have something that makes them ultimately fit in with some group in society. No

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one wants to exactly look like the people beside him or her, because then who are

we as an individual? If every single one of us dressed the same, then how could we

communicate who we are culturally, economically, or as a person? Diversity through

appearance helps all individuals get a taste of the different cultures out there, and

instead of looking at one in a cruel way because they look different, we should look

at them with wonder because they came from a totally different background from

us, giving us all different types of cultures.

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