Fashion Critic Metes Out Faux-Science Smackdown!

Oh, linky blogosphere, how I love thee!

I was just starting to browse through Atoms Arranged Meaningwise by Rachel McKinney - which I found via Scientiae's blogroll - when her most recent post sent me shooting off to Threadbared. Rachel notes:

And I know we're supposed to be good little serious philosophers and clothes aren't supposed to be the sort of thing worth thinking too hard about, but that's just the kind of fucked-up masculinist logic that got us into this mess in the first place, right?

I suspect Isis would agree!

Then the pitch for Threadbared:

Threadbared is a blog by two junior faculty ladies with teaching and research interests in the politics of fashion and beauty. They are pretty much spot-on about everything, particularly representations of race and class.

Intrigued, I jumped. Oh, it's delicious. Hijab Health is tres delish. You've no doubt heard the news reports about how hijab-wearing women are going to fall over from vitamin D deficiency? Whatever else you think of the politics of the hijab, this argument isn't particularly compelling. To wit:

And, as someone who lives in the Midwest, wears a knee-length puffy coat with a hood, scarf, sunglasses (for the glare from the snow), and sunscreen even on cloudy days, and is otherwise regularly deprived of sunlight during the winter (and especially since I'm in the office all day anyway), I'm not sure why this study and its reception should single out hijabis in the first place for being at particular risk, except to reiterate the tired argument that hijab is bad for women with the "objective" authority of parascientific expertise.

Mmmm...now this is my kinda fashion blog! Thank you, Rachel, for the intro!

More like this

Nadia El-Awady, who you'll recall as a science writer in Egypt who helped chronicle the revolution from Tahrir Square (she's also organizing this year's World Conference of Science Journalists in Doha), tried an experiment: I experimented last week. I took off my hijab - the headscarf many Muslim…
Scientiae's April Carnival is now up - actually has been up for a few days while I've been off having migraines. Peggy has done an excellent job with many thought-provoking submissions. I particularly like Mrs. Whatsit's ponderings on what it what it means to "have the balls". And I positively…
Who knew wearing paisley would be so controversial? A screen-grab of Rachel Ray from the Dunkin' Donuts commercial that's causing such a fuss amongst some conservatives. I don't often write about politics on this blog (at least politics not associated with science policy & education), but I'…
The hijab and niqab worn by some Muslim women have hit the news lately, especially after France's ban on the veil worn by some Muslim women (niqab) went into effect, and after death threats against a British imam who held that wearing hijab (a scarf covering the hair) was a woman's choice (he also…

Am I blind or are there no comments allowed on that blog? Blah.

The vitamin D / hijab connection is obviously full of BS, but that's only because in fact an enormous percentage of us are actually D deficient anyways, particularly those with darker skin coloring and those at higher latitudes. Some of the recent data to come out on that is scary.

Threadbared used to be a site about terrible knitting pattern photoshoots. It was awesome but eventually died.
http://www.threadbared.com/
You got my hopes up... WAAAAAAH

By embertine (not verified) on 08 Apr 2009 #permalink

Thanks for the lovely linkage! We're thrilled that the scientists have discovered Threadbared (sadly, no, not the wacky knitting pattern archive), especially since one of us (me) also teaches an undergraduate course on feminist science studies. So double yah!

Also, to iltc, yes, we disabled comments because we got a spate of derogatory comments some time ago (August, I think, when some libertarian blog linked to us), and we decided that we just did not have the time and energy to respond to either thoughtful OR hateful comments. We *are* still junior faculty ladies, and thus by definition, maniacally pressed for both (time and energy, not comments of any nature)!