“Yes means yes, and no means no – whatever we wear, wherever we go!”
These words have been chanted by feminists and their allies for decades. I’ve never doubted they described the way things should be, but I sometimes wondered if they described the way things are.
In other words, does the way a woman dress affect her chances of facing sexual or street harassment? A researched answer proved surprisingly hard to find.
Anecdotal evidence seems to support the feminist viewpoint. If you look, for example, at maps of reported incidents of street harassment, you sometimes find annotations about what women were wearing. Often, the women doing the reporting note that they were dressed in a sweat suit or a T-shirt and jeans. At times, they sound surprised, as though they expected to be untroubled in such clothes.
If they were surprised, they would hardly be alone. A web search quickly locates studies that show that a majority of both men and women believe a woman is in greater danger of harassment if she is wearing revealing clothing. In some countries, this belief can be strengthened by the association of such clothing with Western decadence and immorality, but it seems a world-wide assumption that few people care to examine.
But is the assumption true? That is harder to answer, although perhaps it would be easier if more academic research was open access. Probably not, however, given that few search results even sound as though they are relevant to the question, regardless of whether they are freely available for reading.
In fact, after searching for half an hour, I found only one accessible, relevant paper: Theresa M. Beiner’s “Sexy Dressing Revisited: Does Target Dress Play a Part in Sexual Harassment Cases?” There may be more, but it is well-worth summarizing (and reading in full if you’ve followed me this far).
Beiner begins by noting that American rules of evidence prohibit discussing how a woman dresses or acts in sexual harassment cases unless its use outweighs the danger of harm to the victim or is likely to incite prejudice. That may not sound very satisfactory, but, in practice, this means that such evidence is almost never introduced.
The two exceptions Beiner notes are extremes: in one, a victim wore a sign implying she would give blow jobs, and encouraged men to leave impressions of their hands in paint upon her back and buttocks, and, in another, a woman offered private lingerie displays. However, according to Beiner, “even in cases in which the evidence of the target’s dress was admitted, its impact was minimal in persuading trial judges that the plaintiff welcomed the harassment.”
What these practices suggest is that the American legal system (which is hardly a center of radicalism) is generally unconvinced that how a woman dresses or acts is relevant to sexual harassment – and, after all, those with experience with such cases should have a better idea than the majority of us.
However, the most interesting part of Beiner’s article is the last third. There, Beiner establishes a reason to believe that rapists and sexual harassers are on a continuum of behavior and personality, and turns to studies of rapists for insight into harassers.
According to the studies that Beiner cites, what rapists look for in victims is not revealing clothing at all. Instead, “rapists look for signs of passiveness and submissiveness.” Furthermore, not only can men accurately detect passiveness and submissiveness, but tend to regard attractive women as less submissive – and, while attraction is not synonymous with any particular style of dress, the two do have some connection. It might even be that revealingly dressed women intimidate rapists and harassers.
By contrast, passiveness and submissiveness, “studies suggest, are more likely to coincide with more body-concealing clothing.” Sexual harassment, she suggests, “appears to be triggered by power imbalances – the kind of imbalances that might well be triggered by target submissiveness.”
In other words, so far as clothing plays any role in who is targeted, it might actually be that concealing clothing is more dangerous.
As for why people are so quick to believe the opposite, Beiner offers two possible reasons. Both men and women, she says, may want to believe in a just world, where nothing happens to someone unless they deserve it. Possibly, too, they want to blame the victims so they can sustain an illusion of control. They would prefer to believe that if they don’t do certain things or go to certain areas, they will be safe.
“Sexy Dressing” is not definitive, but it does provide a logical argument about who is likely to be harassed. I’d need more convincing that concealing clothing might be dangerous, but, thanks to Beiner, I’m reasonably confident that revealing clothing is not a factor in harassment.
Off the Wall 
Hi there! First time reader here… first I want to express what a relief it is to know that there are men out there who take our issues seriously! Thank you.
Now regarding your post… What about street harassment? A rapist may be intimidated by a scantily clad women (because he reacts to her as being less passive), but what about guys who whistle at a woman in tight jeans, or dirtbags who masturbate to women in bikinis on the beach, or guys who refuse to stare at anything but a girl’s chest if she’s showing a bit of cleavage.
While that treatment isn’t even close to the horrors experienced during rape, it still creates a hostile environment where a woman has to fear for her safety because some dude can’t deal with seeing her body in revealing clothing.
Would guys who act that way around women do the same if they saw the same woman in sweats? I doubt it.
I’m not saying that the revealing clothing is cause to accept this type of behavior – quite the contrary – but I do think that it somehow (maybe subconsciously?) makes some men think that they have a right to react in an unsavory manner.
I hope this made sense.
The conventional wisdom is that revealing clothing makes a woman more vulnerable to street harassment, just as you say. However, as I mention in the post, women report being catcalls even when wearing bulky clothing. Moreover if the analogy of catcallers to rapists hold true, then perhaps they would intimidated by the apparent confidence of a woman in revealing clothing.
However, perhaps the analogy doesn’t hold. I would guess that it’s easier to catcall, especially in a group, than to contemplate rape. Also, while women in bulky clothing are harassed, perhaps they are harassed less than they otherwise would be. It’s hard to say, because the matter hasn’t been studied very thoroughly, and what evidence exists suggests that our culturally-sanctioned explanations (where you are, and what you wear) aren’t reliable.
From personal experience (and shared experience of others) I would say that revealing clothing makes a woman more vulnerable to street harassment. I do think, however, that if a guy is going to rape someone he doesn’t care what she’s wearing – the thing that makes a guy a rapist is not necessarily the thing that makes him want to harass women on the street. I know men who have harassed women in a variety of ways and they don’t even realize they are doing it (for example staring is a form of creepy harassment that some men don’t take into account), but that doesn’t mean they’re rapey.
When I was younger I used to wear revealing clothing. I was insecure and felt that if I showed my body off I’d get more attention. I was constantly being hit on by creepy dudes and always ended up putting on a sweater or crossing my arms over my chest because that wasn’t the kind of attention I was looking for. Now that I’m older and more secure in my own skin I take my safety and comfort into consideration when dressing to go out. It’s not fair that I have to do this, but until men can stop looking at women as objects and start treating them as they would want to be treated, I’m going to have to be on top of my game and protect myself and so are other self-aware women.
Of course no amount of clothing is going to stop a rapist if he wants to rape. I was raped when wearing a pair of jeans and a zipped up hoodie. A friend of mine was raped in sweats. Another was raped as a child. The desire to rape comes from a deep-seeded character flaw and general emotional and psychological f*%$ed up-ness. What a woman wears has no bearing on a man’s decision to rape.
I think the most important thing to take away from the study I mention is that what you wear really doesn’t have any influence on those who rape or harass.
The study does suggest that the appearance of confidence might be a deterrent, but I think a lot more work would be needed to be done to establish that. Personally, I have doubts, but, as I mentioned in the posting, there doesn’t seem a lot of research on the whole subject.