Principles of the Christian Life II
Principles of the Christian Life II, is obviously the follow up course for Principles of the Christian Life I. Although the first class covered a lot of ground, this class had a much broader range than the first class. This class brought us such topics as; gender distinct clothing, biological lessons on the growth process of a woman's hair, along with the biblical arguments for women not to cut their hair. In addition, we learned about contemporary Christian music, adornment, and alcohol and the Christian; just to name a few topics.
Below I have attached a discussion board from week two of our class. The discussion was in regards to today's fashions in clothing. The discussion stemmed from an article in the New York Times. I have copied the article, along with a link on the left column of this page, if you would like to better appreciate the discussion board.
Below I have attached a discussion board from week two of our class. The discussion was in regards to today's fashions in clothing. The discussion stemmed from an article in the New York Times. I have copied the article, along with a link on the left column of this page, if you would like to better appreciate the discussion board.
Click here for original New York Times Article
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GBS Discussion Board about article
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It’s All a Blur to Them
“I’VE heard that in Australia, men are wearing tights,” Chuong Pham said. Tights for men, he acknowledged, may be extreme. But Mr. Pham, 28, an engineer in Manhattan, thought nothing of combining stalk-slim jeans with a sweatshirt pinched from his mom and sexily sheared à la “Flash dance.” Raking his fingers through a sheaf of hair that tumbled in waves past his collarbone, Mr. Pham said: “There is a whole transition of men getting into women’s wear. It used to be that the people who did it were just the edgier ones. Now it’s much more common.” Common enough that Mr. Pham and his forward-thinking cohort — urban Americans, mostly in their 20s — are revising standard notions of gender-appropriate dressing, tweaking codes, upending conventions and making hash of ancient norms. “My generation is more outside the box than the generation before me,” said Brandon Dailey, 26, a hairstylist in Manhattan. “Our minds are more open to different things, and that sometimes means mixing it up in what we wear.” He may never put on a skirt, he allowed, but sees nothing amiss in working “a long drapey shirt with really tight pants.” Audrey Reynolds, an acquaintance, was engaging in a bit of gender play herself. Ms. Reynolds, 25, who wore a slouchy biker jacket and beat-up clog boots, insisted: “Every line should be unisex. A good piece of clothing is a good piece of clothing no matter who was meant to wear it in the first place.” At one time, such artfully calibrated ambiguity might have been the expression of a renegade mind. Today it seems scarcely more subversive than wearing black, just the latest countercultural gesture to be tugged into the mainstream. The look is androgynous, for sure — but with a difference. During the 1970s, arguably the last time sartorial gender blending was as pervasive in the culture, it grew in part from the kind of feminist thinking that suggested girls play with Lego sets and boys play with dolls. “Now we have something new,” said Diane Ehrensaft, a psychologist in Oakland, who writes about gender. That something is not necessarily about one’s politics or sexual orientation or, she added pointedly, “about one’s core identity as a male or female.” What Dr. Ehrensaft has dubbed “gender fluidity” remains in her view a form of rebellion. It suggests, she said, that “younger people no longer accept the standard boxes. They won’t be bound by boys having to wear this or girls wearing that. I think there is a peer culture in which that kind of gender blurring is not only acceptable but cool.” Women have been incorporating trousers, biker jackets and combat boots into their wardrobes since Amelia Earhart swapped her pearls for a flight suit. But increasingly, it is men who are making unabashed forays into mom’s closet, some for fashion’s sake, others for fit. A few may be taking their style cues from Pete Wentz, the emo rocker who demonstrates on YouTube how to slick on eyeliner; or Adam Lambert, the “American Idol” runner-up, who has made sooty eyes and blue-black nails his fashion insignia. Others fall back on Johnny Depp. “I came here with an idea,” Dyllan White said as he inspected his reflection at Mudhoney, a unisex hair salon in the East Village. Mr. White, 22, who is studying art therapy, wanted “something up and back, something ‘Cry-Baby,’ ” he said. He settled on a modified pompadour that recalled Mr. Depp in the 1990 John Waters movie of that name. “I feel fine about it, like a guy,” he said of his haircut. “It’s universal. It’s awesome.” To Sharon Graubard, a senior executive with Stylesight, a trend forecasting firm in New York, Mr. White’s thinking points to a sea change. “In the streets I see young couples dressing almost alike, wearing slicked hair, peacoats, straight jeans or those longer T-shirts that are almost like a dress,” she said. Such a willful melding of men’s and women’s garb represents, she said, “a kind of evening of the playing field.” Mingling men’s and women’s clothing, others argue, is like waving a flag of neutrality. “It’s a way of breaking down sexualized relationships, of getting people to relax,” said Piper Marshall, 24, who is an assistant art curator at the Swiss Institute in Manhattan. “I work with lots of male artists,” she added. “It’s important to find a common ground.” Humberto Leon, an owner of Opening Ceremony, the vanguard boutique in Lower Manhattan, is one of a growing number of merchants catering to that mind-set. Lately Mr. Leon has been mingling men’s and women’s clothing with marked success. Even angora cat-print cardigans, part of a unisex line designed by Chloë Sevigny, “flew out of the store,” he said, snapped up by men and women alike. So entrenched are the latest forms of gender blending that mainstream purveyors of hip, including Urban Outfitters and American Apparel, are offering clothing and jewelry meant to be worn by either sex. American Apparel has no fewer than 724 unisex items — hoodies, cardigans, blazers and bow ties, among them — on its Web site, simply because, as Marsha Brady, the company’s creative director, put it, “that’s the way people wear clothes.” At a jazz club in downtown Manhattan last week, Bettina Chin and Michelle Wang drove home the point, wearing severely tailored evening ensembles that perfectly echoed each other. “I like a mannish look at night,” Ms. Chin explained as she flicked back her cuffs. Some marketers have been quick to interpret that sort of ambiguity. Fall advertisements for Burberry show a succession of lanky, pallid men and women wearing what seem to be interchangeable coats. A model for Rolex is tricked out in an Earhart-inspired leather jacket, aviator cap and goggles. Gender neutrality has gained traction on the runways as well. Rei Kawakubo of Comme des Garçons and Yohji Yamamoto jettisoned gender codes long ago. More recently, designers as influential as Rick Owens and Alexander Wang have made their mark with draped T-shirts and, in Mr. Owens’s case, dresses and high-heeled shoes for men. In London, Christopher Kane lent his spring 2010 collection some swagger by inviting the model Jenny Shimizu, a standard-bearer of female androgyny, to saunter down his runway wearing a man-tailored suit. “Today the more successful designers are the ones that try to bridge the gap between the sexes rather than drive a wedge between them,” said Karlo Steel, a partner in Atelier, a progressive men’s store in downtown Manhattan that also draws a female clientele. “Right now fashion’s pendulum seems to be swinging in that direction.” Skeptics argue nonetheless that gender blending is bound to remain a marginal trend. “It’s something you need to be young to do well,” said Harold Koda, the curator in charge of the Costume Institute at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. “To carry it off, you need the physique of an adolescent boy. As long as the young are the primary audience, it’s not going be economically sustained.” Still, gender-neutral dressing has made sufficiently formidable inroads that some suggest it has a robust future. “Obviously androgyny may not play in Peoria,” said Dr. Ehrensaft, the psychologist. “But norms are shifting.” In her clinical practice, working mostly with teenagers and elementary school children, Dr. Ehrensaft said she routinely witnesses “a kind of gender fashion parade.” “Kids, even little kids, are experimenting across gender lines. Boys are wearing My Little Pony T-shirts, just because they like them. Sometimes they like to dress in the girls’ section because the shirts are cooler.” Adults have long dictated the way young people dress, Dr. Ehrensaft said. “But now the young are giving us a different dictation.” By RUTH LA FERLA Published: November 18, 2009 |
W2 Assignment: Discussion Forum 2 (Spring 2012)
Read the following NY Times article, and answer the following 3 questions: 1. What would you say is the driving force behind these fashions? What are they reacting against? 2. What are these fashions seeking to communicate? 3. What direction are these fashions heading? Chuck Chapman 2/8/2012 12:46 PM Hands down the driving force behind these fashions is "rebellion" as not only the writer of the article has identified, but history testifies to as well. But what is being rebelled against? In the 1950's was a group of youths who rebelled against "the norm." A lot of these youth went by the title of "greasers" with their slick backed hair, leather jackets, and a new kind of music called "rock and roll." This trend of rebellion continued into the 1960's with drug experimentation, freedom, and love. The 1970's were a very unique time for the youth of that day exploring their individuality only to mainly wind up the same as everyone else. The last decade I will touch on is the 1980's as to the fact I believe it pertains most to our provided article from the New York Times. In the 80's the youth tired of "the norm" did pretty much the same things that our provided article is referring to. Men in the 1980's experimented with make-up, big hair, and spandex. On the other side of the coin women wore business suits, ties, and cut their hair short. So my answer to the question of “what would you say is the driving force behind these fashions? What are they reacting against” is simple; it was the same in the 80's as it is today. The driving force is a spirit of rebellion to "the norm," and the fashion markets are more than happy to jump on the cash flow train of success. What are these fashions seeking to communicate? I believe they are an expression of one's inner anguish. In a sense they communicate to the world "you don't understand me, no one does." We live in a fallen world and you can't find your place in a world that was not meant for you. So those who have not meet Christ are left in their torment daily, with a voice in their head that screams "you don't understand me." What direction are these fashions heading? I believe this is the simplest question yet. My response is that they are leading to the next fashion rebellion. History has a way of repeating itself. This is why I have mentioned the 1980's. After the 80's the rebellion against the norm died down for a season only to awaken again within a new generation. The youth of today do not realize that this rebellion statement that they are making against the world has already been done by their parents or possibly even their grandparents. One day they will look back at the old photo album and say to themselves "what was I thinking." At the same time the next generation will rise from their slumber only to shock their current generation. But, at what cost will that come? The more drastic these outburst become, the further our planet gets away morally from the one whom truly does understand us. In conclusion somewhere along the line of these mentioned generation gaps, there were individuals who held the line. We ourselves are responsible to currently hold the line. Ken 2/9/2012 7:41 PM Chuck, I believe that for many of them it is the "showing my individuality" by following their peers. For some I agree that it is an expression of lostness or facelessness that is being expressed. Could it be an expression of not knowing where they belong? Chuck Chapman 2/10/2012 12:01 PM Ken, I couldn't agree more! As I mentioned in my post, that is basically what happened in the seventies. And you are right on in your assessment; it is an expression of lost-ness and not knowing where they belong. For example: growing up my brother wore sleeveless shirts and his ball cap backwards in succession so did I. Later in life my brother and I started hanging out with a former president to a biker gang called "The Iron Horsemen." Eventually I found myself with biker boots and a leather jacket with no bike. Later in life I moved to Florida and fell in with some country boys and before long I felt I had found my spot in life which lead to getting married in my cowboy hat. It was only after an encounter with Jesus that I found my true identity in addition to knowing where I belong. Although I still keep my hat close. :) Chad 2/9/2012 10:29 PM Good post Chuck. I couldn't help but to think about the 80's. A lot of the rock bands would wear makeup, big hair, and of course a lot of their music was about rebelling. Chuck Chapman 2/10/2012 12:03 PM Ah... The Big-Hair Eighties. I will never forget that. Wait I forget I have forgot a lot of that decade due to my checkered past. :) Lol |