Wearing Slacks

I went outside in slacks for the first time today since I was in my mid-teens (roughly ten years). I'm going to call the slacks pants from here on in, because I'm American. We call slacks pants, and what the British call pants we call underwear. The only person in America I've ever heard refer to pants as slacks was my grandmother, who was born in 1917.

So anyway. I recently got some money, and I spent part of it on clothes. I found some really cheap clothing stores online, so I bought two pairs of pants, four shirts, and two shrugs (kinda like a shawl, but with sleeves, and it goes down just about to my knees). I tried them on, almost all of them fit well, I was comfortable in them. So today I ventured outside in them for the first time. I'm kind of journaling my feelings about that experience here, in real time, I just walked through the door, sat down, and started writing.

I was worried about how people would react, I've been living here for like two years and no one has seen me in pants, I've always been in abayas. When I first gave up pants to "be more modest" I wore long-ish skirts, but I've been wearing abayas and other long dresses exclusively for the last 5 years. I didn't know how the people who have gotten to know me casually (like my regular bus drivers and the employees at the small shops I visit frequently) in the last two years would react to seeing me break from my normal dress code.

I took the local bus (smaller than a city bus and has a much more limited route) to downtown. I went to a little cafe, the comic book store, and the post office, before returning home. I noticed that I felt much more confident and assertive. I was much more decisive, I knew what I wanted and I didn't feel shy or timid about asking for it. I wasn't as apologetic as normal, and I didn't care what people thought as much.

None of my casual acquaintances said anything about my change in attire, although the guy at the comic book store did mention that I'm "not an immigrant" while having a conversation about government benefits. But people who didn't know me seemed to find me much more approachable and less scary. They didn't make an effort to be as far away from me as possible on the sidewalk or stand a meter away from me while waiting for the walk sign at the intersection like they usually do. An elderly guy on the bus asked if I could read the terms on his "free milk" coupon to him because he didn't have his reading glasses.

It's hard to say how much of this was because of the change in confidence that I have that allowed me to pick my own wardrobe as opposed to the change in wardrobe itself. But overall, it was a good experience. I've read the studies about how women who wear hijab say they feel more empowered. I wonder whether I actually felt empowered in an abaya, or whether being feared made me feel like I had some level of control over people.

I thought I liked being feared. I guess that was probably because it was the only control I felt I had in my life. But now I have control of my own destiny, and that feels much better. I'm not scared of interacting with people anymore, and they don't seem as scared of interacting with me. Also, I just realized this was the first time in a long time I went outside without at any point being afraid that someone was going to shoot me. 

I didn't feel like these clothes need to come off for me to be free once I got through the door like I did in my abayas. In fact, I'm still wearing them, the only thing I took off was the shrug. I'm at ease.