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Life

21st Feb 2018

There are worse things in the world than Jennifer Lawrence being cold on a roof

Jade Hayden

jennifer lawrence dress

The other day, Jennifer Lawrence wore a black Versace dress for a photocall.

She posed alongside her Red Sparrow co-stars on a rooftop in front of the London Eye and then went about her day.

Afterwards though, the photo received much criticism online mainly due to what Lawrence was wearing (a dress with a thigh-high slit up the side) and what her male co-stars were wearing (trousers, jackets, and scarves).

Some called the photo depressing, others thought it looked awkward and a bit ridiculous, and many said that they felt bad for the actress who they assumed had been forced to wear what she was wearing for the purpose of promoting the movie.

The mild outrage on social media seemed to spin out of control almost immediately, and although many of those criticising the photo did so in a tongue-in-cheek sort of way suggesting that Lawrence simply looked a bit out of place, others went further.

Statements like: ‘You’d think she’d put more clothes on,’ ‘it’s February,’ and ‘poor girl,’ became more frequent than those simply wondering whether or not Lawrence was totally comfortable in the situation.

As we now know, she was completely comfortable, but the feeling that a grown woman was being talked down to by a load of people who thought they had her best interests at heart but were really just judging her for having her legs out on the side of the Thames remained.

In most cases, it was more ‘tut-tutting at women in skimpy outfits in winter’ than it was ‘a genuine concern.’

Lawrence said herself that she was “offended” by the controversy that had been built around the dress.

In a Facebook post shared earlier today, she wrote:

“This is sexist, this is ridiculous, this is not feminism.

“Overreacting about everything someone says or does, creating controversy over silly innocuous things such as what I choose to wear or not wear, is not moving us forward.”

The actress also added that people needed to “get a grip” and that seeing as she was wearing Versace, she would have gladly “stood in the snow for that dress.”

But Lawrence wasn’t just mad that people took issue with her wearing a somewhat revealing dress while all the guys dressed up in coats and scarves.

“It’s creating silly distractions from real issues,” she said. And in fairness to her, it was, whether intentionally or not.

The original tweets that pointed out the differences between Lawrence’s and her co-stars’ outfits mentioned that the photocall revealed the inequalities that already exist between men and women in Hollywood.

And while fashion and what people choose to wear (or don’t wear) can be political, representative, and revealing in its own way, in this case it didn’t really point to anything.

The inequalities that exist between men and women in Hollywood – and elsewhere – have already been revealed through Harvey Weinstein, Louis CK, and Dustin Hoffman.

The entire #MeToo movement has proven that glaring disparities exist between what men assume they can take and what women are expected to give.

Add this to the gender pay gap, a lack of representation for women of colour in the media, and all the other very much less than ideal things that women in that industry have had to put up with over the years, and suddenly, we don’t need a Versace dress to reveal gender inequality to us at all.

Partly because it doesn’t – as Lawrence said, it’s just a dress she chose to wear – but also because all of the horrible things that women have to endure are revealing in themselves.

We’re talking about them, we’re sharing our secrets, and we’re calling out all the bullshit that we all had to put up with at one time or another.

These inequalities are being revealed by us, not by a revealing dress.

And at the end of the day, Lawrence is right too – you would stand in the snow for it.