what makes you feel powerful?
Right now there is an installation at Nashville International Airport called “Trappings”. It’s a project that “activates dialogue about the complicated landscape of power and its relationship to personal identity by asking women to respond to the question: what do you wear that makes you feel powerful?”
Of course you have to be a ticketed passenger to see the exhibit, but you can see some of the photos and quotations on the website at
Two Girls Working.
I love looking at these real women talking about what makes them comfortable and proud and free. I know The Little Red-Haired Girl definitely has items in her wardrobe that make her feel powerful — for me it definitely depends on where I am. Lately I just want to blend in and fade into the backgroud, but it’s hard when I am surrounded by perky blonde sorority girls. So instead I have to dress in the clothes that are most comfortable for me, like my cargo pants and fleece vest. I feel like, “If I can’t look like you then I should at least look as much as possible like me. And I am someone who comes from a different place, a place where people don’t look like you, and that’s ok.” Sometimes, though, I just stick my headphones in and walk fast with my head down.
*update*: If you go to the Two Girls Working link, and hit the “last” link, you get to a group of dykes, which is cool. Also, I think I went to college with one of those women…