My friend Amy came over for dinner last night and was telling me about the Women’s March that she attended in Austin, Texas with her 10-year-old daughter and her daughter’s friends.  Not surprisingly for Austin, there were a number of partially naked women with “My Body, My Choice” painted on their chests and backs.  The kids were gawking (in the innocent way that kids do) because bare breasts are totally taboo here in the United States.  Of course, that was part of the statement … they shouldn’t be.  Breasts don’t always need to be sexualized, and women can show them if they want.

I completely agree with that.  But I also think it’s natural for us to want to be noticed for our attractiveness (or even sexiness) … biological imperative and all that.  I’m a fairly modest person by nature, so my version of sexiness is a form-fitting dress like the printed column dress I’m wearing above from Preen by Thornton Bregazzi that I got from Shopbop (http://www.shopbop.com), and not necessarily showing a lot of skin.

But whatever your version of sexy, I don’t think it’s anti-feminist to dress to be attractive.  I think women are sometimes concerned that we have to de-sexualize ourselves in order to be on an equal playing field, but I think it’s just the opposite … understanding our sexuality and wearing it with confidence gives us an advantage, kind of like those free throw distractions in basketball.

I think the important thing is that sexiness can’t be all that a woman is about.  To continue the basketball analogy, she has to be able to dribble and dunk too.  What I think undermines feminism are those situations where sexiness is the only thing.  Then, women become objects, and ones that can be too easily tossed aside at that.  Women have to be playing for something else besides sex for sexiness to be empowering.

Let’s face it … women in our society are going to be judged for how they look.  Being confident in and proud of how you present yourself helps take away the power that other people have to judge so that we women can focus on what really matters … that we are strong and independent and, while looking better, can do everything a man can do.