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No, I Am Not “Dressing for Myself” During a Pandemic
Clothes are about more than just feeling good, white feminists
The last thing you should have to worry about when a loved one is hospitalized is how you look when you show up to be at that person’s bedside. And yet.
Not long ago, I rushed back to the Bronx for a medical emergency. It was/is the kind of emergency that upends the table where your lifeplans lay. All of your precious objects clatter or shatter on the floor below. The best you can do is watch your feet while working around the wreckage.
Each day for too long, my sister has dressed in the best casualwear she has, put on three plain face masks, fixed her hair, and lugged bags to the hospital filled with freshly cooked meals, changes of clothes, blankets, bottles of water, and phone chargers. She’s spoken politely to doctors and nurses and social workers through the frustrating opacity of the medical system. She has done her own research to keep up with the conversations around her. She code-switches to her white voice on phone calls with people who can help.
Before my sister leaves home, she does a complex calculus that will approximate how healthcare staff will respond to her based on her appearance. She knows if she shows up with her curly hair tamed and well-conditioned, the nurses will comment on how lucky her partner is to have her. They will respond more precisely to questions about procedures and medications and transfers. If she wears her hair underneath a hat, the guards at the front desk will regard her with suspicion and withhold vital bits of information, like whether there has been a covid outbreak in the unit she is trying to visit. If she must wear a hat, she will smile extra hard with her eyes so that staff hopefully know she is not to be feared or barred from the premises.
Each day, she gets up and tries her best to be as inoffensive as possible so that she can continue to support her partner.
She is not dressing for herself.
