E-Oh PhotoWorks: "Frivolous Femininity"

I did "Dressember" last year and had a ball.

It's a fashion challenge started by a friend-of-a-friend in Southern California, (where going bare-legged during the winter solstice is no biggie...) the goal being to wear dresses every day for a month.

Since I'm a bit of a dress fiend during a regular month, it seemed like a natural choice to jump on the bandwagon with my friends, posting pictures occasionally and getting to see what the other girls were coming up with on a daily basis.

Honestly though? At times I worried that the whole thing came across as shallow. When we can? We try to avoid shallow.

When I found out that this year, Dressember was partnering with International Justice Mission, (a human rights agency working to fight slavery & sex trafficking) I was super excited, then scared, then excited again.

My feelings have flip flopped throughout. Dressember's founder- (Blythe Hill) addressed my hangups a little bit the other day- that some people are finding the connection between girls in dresses & international social justice issues a hard sell.

But here's why it's not:

Beauty is valuable. We're wired to think that if you can't define it, put it in your bank account, or hang it on the wall in a walnut frame, it's somehow of lesser value. But a life void of sunsets, Christmas lights, and trips to the Grand Canyon would be a bleak one indeed. Beauty is a good thing. One that motivates us, inspires us to create, and sometimes to be better people.

Authentic femininity is a concept totally at odds with the slick, sexualized, pre-packaged womanhood that gets sold to American consumers year round. We're lost for words on what it means to be a woman. The idea that femininity has to do with sexual value is very close to a given in our culture. A priest in my college once said that women are forced to choose "Seduction" or "Production" as their M.O. for identity. There's very little room to define yourself outside those two options.

There are clear and discernible links between pornography, prostitution and sex trafficking. You can look it up for yourself, but some info to get you started can be found in this article, and this video. People justify porn's harmlessness by arguing for the freedom of a consenting well-paid women to do what she wants with her body. But the reality is that your casual viewer knows nothing about the situation of the woman (or man) they find themselves observing, and how they came to be in front of that camera.

Is putting more girls in dresses going to stop porn addiction, international slavery and sex trafficking? Definitely not.

But I really think that men and women making choices that deliberately celebrate beauty, femininity and creativity can only create positive and healthy change in our culture, and in the climate worldwide. Putting yourself forward as a an example of beauty: highly flawed, un-airbrushed, and fully clothed, is scary. Very scary. But it's a push-back against the idea that femininity is frivolous, or somehow for sale.

All that to say: Dressember 2013 starts today! It's not too late to participate, or if dresses just aren't your thing, follow on social media, donate to ISJ and support the (literally) hundreds of women participating.

Here's a video of founder Blythe Hill talking about the partnership with ISJ: