Essay about Clothing and Gender in Virginia Woolfs Orlando

Clothing and Gender in Virginia Woolfs Orlando In her novel Orlando, Virginia Woolf tells the story of a man who one night mysteriously becomes a woman. By shrouding Orlandos actual gender change in a mysterious religious rite, we readers are pressured to not question the actual mechanics of the change but rather to focus on its consequences. In doing this, we are invited to answer one of the fundamental questions of our lives, a question that we so often ignore because it seems so very basic - what is a man? What is a woman? And how do we distinguish between the two? It seems that in ordinary life, we are most likely to distinguish between a man and a woman by clothing. This is more difficult to do in the present day, in which†¦show more content†¦Perhaps the Turkish trousers, which she had hitherto worn had done something to distract her thoughts; and the gypsy women, except in one or two important particulars, differ very little from the gipsy men. (153) Clearly, it is much easier for a sex change to take place in an androgynous culture such as the one Orlando is leaving - by an androgynous culture, I mean a culture in which there is little difference between the roles of women and men - than in a culture like the English one to which she is returning, in which a much stricter set of rules govern social interaction. This is why the attempts of Orlando to pass (to borrow the term used by the transgender community) as a woman are so amusing. Socialized as a man, Orlando at first has no idea how to be a woman. The symbolic value of clothing, however, extends well beyond its use to differentiate the genders. Clothing in itself - pants, shirts, dresses, and the like - has in this novel little symbolic value other than to tell male from female. But jewelry also plays a significant role here - and it is in the jewelry that Orlando wears that she is truly able to pass for a member of the nobility. We must recall that she undergoes two transformations during the novel. The first, from male to female, is quite obvious. The second is a bit more subtle - it is the transformation from a member of the nobility to something resembling a commoner. (Of course, it seems that Orlando never officially leaves theShow MoreRelatedGender Inequality By Virginia Woolf s Orlando Essay1179 Words   |  5 Pages Virginia Woolf’s Orlando offers a pointed critique of gender inequality through its usage and portrayal of androgyny and fashion. The common perception of gender is threefold; people define gender t hrough physical difference, behavior, and a visual perception of sex. Gender is inherently unstable because it is dependent more upon an onlookers’ reality than scientific difference. 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