it's always because of what i'm wearing.

[00:00:00]I've been told what to wear my entire life and it's not just me, it's everybody. I lived in three countries so far, in the US, Japan, and India and I've experienced three distinct rules of clothing that I'm allowed to wear and the consequences that associate with it.

[00:00:16]And recently I've had this experience where a random person on Instagram basically screenshotted my picture and said that my clothing was not appropriate occasion for the TPO and it led to so much more than just a discussion of what I wore in that place.

[00:00:30]I'll talk about this later in the video, but let's talk about outfit this week.

[00:00:34]So the initial concept of what you are allowed to wear and what you're not came in middle school for me when I moved from the US to Japan and I got into a private middle school for the first time. In some cases, you can wear uniform type of clothes as long as it fits the school's rule, but for me I wore a uniform that was specific to the school that I went to. That was the first time that I encountered this meaning outside of what you're just wearing, like what you're just seeing visually. When I was in the school, teachers would often tell us, "Oh, you cannot do anything that is inappropriate when you're wearing the uniform because you're basically a walking brand of the school. It means that when you do something, people see the logo that you're carrying with you and that could become a perception to other people that oh, the people that are in this school are like this." Like you associate an institution with a person because of what you're wearing and that concept was genuinely new to me and also absurd that you could be carrying this whole brand just by living your life. Another thing that I wanted to specifically mention is that a lot of girls, for example, were not allowed to wear pants until for me at my school, last year of high school.

[00:01:45]So when I was about to graduate, it became okay for girls to wear pants, but before that, skirts were the only option that girls had to wear. And obviously that has a lot of consequences in terms of the diversity of clothing and also diversity of perception of what girls should look like if that ever exists.

[00:02:04]But also, I realized that girls wearing skirts as a uniform is a form of fetishization to especially in international contexts. And I realized that when I was out in the city, probably in the US, probably in Japan, I don't remember where, but when you look at billboards or when you even look at like posters that are pasted on the car or something, you would see animated characters wearing uniforms that are kind of like seducing in a way. Like I feel like people know this as like a common sense that uniforms could be a victim of fetishization. Middle school girls, high school girls get harassed.

[00:02:43]It is claimed that over 90% of them is sexually harassed more than once during their life in school. So, middle school, high school, elementary school even, etc. And that has to do with us being seen as a vulnerable thing. So, like a good victim for weird men to attack us and harass us because the uniform tells them that we're vulnerable and we're young and we have nothing that we can protect us. These certain attires not only made the school capable of controlling our actions in a way to pressure us to not do anything because we're carrying the brand, but also people that are not related to the institution at all can also utilize a uniform as a signal that this person or these people are very vulnerable that it might be easier to harass them or see them as a symbol of fetishization in a way. And there are a lot of songs in Japan that are connected to these fetishization. For example, there's a song called My Skirt Got Caught on Monday. It's clearly talking about uniforms. Like girl a girl wearing a uniform gets her skirt caught on Monday.

[00:03:54]And this song resonated with me so much because I've also experienced getting my skirt caught um when I was in middle school. It was like 6 months after I came back to Japan. I still wasn't used to public transportation at all and I was in this rush hour where all the people are on a train to go back home from work. I got off the train at my nearest station and I realized that my skirt was like ripped off um in the middle and that was it. And the song resonated with me so much. Like it didn't make me feel happy, obviously. It just made me feel so scared that this was a normal thing that people with uniforms experience.

[00:04:33]And this is also like a thing about connection. The mutual experiences that you could get just by wearing a uniform.

[00:04:39]This was absurd to me that in return of your own identity disappearing because of a uniform, there's this concept that gets added up. Like, oh, this girl could have experienced the same thing as I did because she's also wearing a uniform.

[00:04:52]And I feel disgusted every time I see those like billboards or like animated girls that are wearing impossibly short skirt uniforms. And I'm not saying that wearing short skirts are bad. It's problematic that people outside of the community is fetishizing those outfits as something that you could find seducing and you could do stuff with it.

[00:05:14]Like, that's not true. And people can wear like short skirts without you putting an extra no meaning to it. And I find it most absurd because students should be wearing uniforms because it's safe. Because it's good for them. For example, there's a data that says wearing uniforms can mentally give students a break to like not think about what you have to wear every day. So, that gives them more attention on academics. But, it's no longer about safety anymore because we all have this mutual experience of being harassed because we're wearing uniforms. It's how they're being seen as vulnerable being just by what they're wearing. I feel like I'm kind of getting off topic, but that was the initial experience that I figured that clothing, what you wear, could be tied to what you're allowed to experience or what other people are allowed to do to you or how you are supposed to behave because you're carrying something heavier than just the clothes that you're wearing. I think in the US it was more of like it signals like what work you do in your life or the economic status that comes with it.

[00:06:17]And I feel like there was also a lot of distinct differences in what you wear based on the states you go to. And I think what I've experienced at least was very casual and it didn't affect me a lot in a way, but I'm also aware that there's still a lot of discussions on blaming what a girl wore when she was being harassed or something like that, which is so stupid. I'm not going to get deep into that because I personally don't have any experiences like this in the US. I have more in Japan. So, I would love to know more about perspectives from different countries. But in the US, I think I was happy with the relationship I had with clothes and I learned how to enjoy fashion in the US because of the big thrifting culture, especially in San Francisco. I loved thrifting so much. But there are more problems to it and yeah, we'll talk about it later. I think in India I learned a specific pattern of the difference between what you are allowed to wear because of safety reasons or cultural values versus what people feel pleasant to look at. So, for example, this friend that I had uh once told me that clothes with laces, you are not supposed to wear that in India because it's supposed to be worn in private context. So, wearing it on cafes, restaurants, it would be inappropriate.

[00:07:29]And I had a lot of clothes with laces.

[00:07:31]So, if you've seen one of my reels, I think you can see that more than half of the times I wear something with laces on.

[00:07:38]So, just avoiding laces meant that I had to change my almost entire wardrobe. So, I didn't very much follow that rule. I'm so sorry about that. Well, I'm not sorry. But, yeah, my friend told me that, which was very memorable to me.

[00:07:52]Every time I post something on real on Instagram, Tik Tok, I would certainly get at least one comment saying, "You should cover up." Or, "You should not be wearing revealing clothes in India. It's dangerous." And for me personally, I might have been lucky, but I've never experienced anything dangerous because of what I wore. And concluding from all experiences that I had in Japan and the US and India, that there is a distinct pattern between what you should be wearing because of safety or cultural reasons versus people telling you that, "Oh, you shouldn't wear this. You should do blah blah blah." Because it's just more pleasant for them to see people behaving in a way that they're used to see. So, for example, woman wearing revealing clothes, people are not used to seeing girls wearing whatever they want. People are used to seeing girls cover up. And so, when you see somebody that is wearing revealing clothes in certain context, you'd be like, "Oh, you shouldn't be wearing that. Like, nobody does that." In reality, it's not about safety. It's not about culture. It's more about what you're used to seeing and what you're comfortable seeing because of that repeated experience.

[00:08:54]Ever since I realized the difference between them, I think I became more comfortable in choosing what I want to wear. I was more able to choose what I want to wear based on my values instead of what people tell me to wear. And yes, of course, there are some occasions, like if you go to a temple, for example, you are supposed to cover up because this is a distinct values that you should be respecting if you're visiting that place. There are different occasions where you should be careful of what you wear because you respect that culture versus some occasions where people just tell you what to wear because they're not comfortable seeing you that, and that's their problem.

[00:09:28]Like, that's not your problem because it's just about what they're being used to seeing, if that makes sense. But, this is just my thought on how I decide what to wear in a certain country or culture. For me, I go to different countries every semester for school. If I change my wardrobe every single time I go to a different country, I won't sustain myself, both financially but also mentally because some of the clothes that I might buy because I'm going to a certain country, it's not going to represent who I am or it's not going to align with what I like. That is out of the perception of what you're allowed to wear culturally. It's about you kind of minimizing your identity to fit in. And that's a whole different concept. I feel more free once I realized that. And people that asks me why I wear revealing clothes or body images that are based on what I wear, I think I'm allowed to do whatever I want, wear whatever I want. People have no right to tell you how you should look.

[00:10:22]And it's not just about fashion, it's about how you look in your body as well, like your body image, like people tell you you're skinny, you're fat. Like that's just your opinion. And people's beauty standards changes a lot. So, yeah. It's just endless to talk about these things. And yeah, just because I showed the photo, there was this incident a few weeks ago that happened between my video that I posted of me wearing revealing clothes in Taj Mahal.

[00:10:47]And then a girl basically posted my picture saying that I was inappropriate to be wearing these types of attires and this occasion. And there were a lot of comments in Japanese saying that oh, it's an embarrassment as a Japanese to be doing these kind of things. Or sometimes they were like, oh, she could have been like harassed. And like you can't blame the person that did it because she was wearing this. And it was getting too far. But my perspective on this was that I did talk to a lot of people including the locals that are living in India or just people that are also working as a tour guide in Taj Mahal. My takeaway was that because I didn't go to the mosque, which does have the clear dress requirements. And I did communicate with people beforehand that it would be okay to wear these kind of outfits. So, for me, that was the comfortable clothes that I wore. It all comes down to you taking responsibility of what you wear, and it's none of your business if it makes people uncomfortable. There's a clear difference between you making people uncomfortable versus you actually violating the culture, and it's kind of hard to draw the line between them. But, I think it's important to know that those two concepts exist when you are ever stuck in a situation where you're like, "Oh, was it just my attire that was my fault, or was it actually this person's fault for doing this thing?"

[00:11:59]But, people do inappropriate things to you because they feel uncomfortable seeing you. It does not make sense that people do things to you just because they're uncomfortable just seeing you there, but that's the reality right now, which is very problematic. When people tell you what to wear, what you cannot wear, you should be thinking about what you actually want to wear, and whether the person that's telling you this is saying that out of their own conformity or values versus an actual religious or cultural beliefs that you should be following. Again, this is a very personal opinion, and for me, I don't really have cultural rule in terms of what I should be wearing. There's almost always just conformity. If you have different perspectives on this, I would love to know that, but I just wanted to address it because I think problems about clothes and what you can wear is almost always connected with what people are allowed to do to you, and it takes away from you the freedom to wear whatever you want to. And I think there's a beauty in fashion that you're allowed to express yourself, your identity through the clothing that you like, and that people could just stop you from doing that just because it doesn't align with what they're used to seeing. I'm realizing that I'm becoming too repetitive, and also I have a flight to catch. I hope I could get deeper into this in the future, um, but if you have any comments on what I've just said, I would be more than delighted to know them. So, let me know in the comments, and I'll see you on the next video. Bye.