But the point of this is that there are a lot of constraints on a particular person’s dress, that she* herself probably doesn’t break down all the time and that onlookers certainly can’t. Do you know if the ‘suit’ wants to break into management, or if her family and friends growing up repeatedly told her she was lazy and ugly unless she dressed like that**, or if she’s trans and doesn’t want to dress just like she did when she presented as a gender that wasn’t hers, or if she’s found that unless she dresses immaculately (by mainstream definitions) no one takes her disabled non-white self seriously? Or some combination of the above or something else entirely?

This post is intended to illustrate why you can’t know that, not unless you are her. Hence, extending the list of acceptable geek outfits to include non-mainstream eyeshadow colour choices isn’t really where this post is going.

* Pronoun chosen because we’re talking about women here. But people who use different pronouns also have to negotiate this.

** Social norms aren’t always enforced subtly.

I think that “Clothing and grooming as geek interest” and “Grooming for fun” are probably instantly recognized and welcomed by other geeks as acceptably geeky, and very distinct from “Grooming for status”.

Possibly “Quirky grooming” helps with combining being geeky and groomed? For example, there’s only one woman in the Krav Maga self-defence classes I go to, and she’s always immaculately and elaborately made-up, but no-one takes her fighting ability any less seriously for it; there’s nothing about metallic green eyeshadow, for example, that diminishes her obvious skills at several fighting styles.

The objection to using “spoons” I’ve seen is by people who explicitly affirm that they don’t identify as disabled, but still want to use spoons as a metaphor for their energy budget. I didn’t mean to imply that you couldn’t identify as disabled by virtue of exhaustion due to these factors and I’m really sorry it came across that way, I can see the ambiguoity.

I meant to say that if you don’t identify as disabled, disabled people protest about the use of “spoons” by you, even if encountering energy budget problem like those given. I didn’t mean to say that energy budget problems like those can’t be disabling for some people.

A note in general (not aimed at Erik in particular): references to “having spoons”, “saving spoons”, “managing spoons” etc are specific to the way disabled people managed their energy budget given both additional difficulties society places on them by being inaccessible and any energy demands from their impairment. It’s not a term for abled people’s hassles with their energy budget due to over-commitment, caretaking, shift work, etc.

Also, for anyone who (like me) didn’t catch the “spoons” reference, it’s here: http://www.butyoudontlooksick.com/articles/personal-essays/the-spoon-theory-written-by-christine-miserandino/

There’s a reason I’m wearing a microphone in my little avatar; I’m trying to reclaim the way my disability forces me to dress as something that’s about grooming and choice. Just as my glasses (adaptive technology I use 100% of my waking hours) are stylish and hip, I’ve been trying to turn the microphone that I wear about 50% of my waking hours into part of my personal style. It’s not easy, though.

Freelancing is hard, but at least it lets me opt out of the grooming minefield. It’s nice to be able to spend that mental energy on, like, WORK.

My default is “Grooming to get things done” (or “utilitarian” clothing) which is linked in my mind to “clothing that I can afford or already have so that I don’t have to buy new clothes”. However, “utilitarian” clothing is also linked to “Grooming as a marker of striving to fit in” (conformity), which, in geek communities, is conforming to not wearing suits (which is ironically perceived as “grooming as rejection of the mainstream” for geeks). An example of the no-suit geek uniform being oppressive is when I run out of clean regular laundry but I have some clean business-like clothes hanging in the closet (for interviews and other special occasions) and I have to decide between looking like a suit (bad only because it makes you look non-geek and I’m already female); wearing the other non-preferred irregular clothing (too small, uncomfortable, etc.); and considering (re)wearing the unwashed clothing items.