A Woman In Paris Was Denied Entry To A Museum For Wearing A Dress With A Plunging Neckline. Because Having A Cleavage Makes It Hard To Appreciate Art?
Paris – the city of lights, the fashion capital of the world, the land of art culture and magnanimity. It is a place where one dreams of going in search of love, life and all the jazz, that we’ve grown up seeing in movies and reading about in books. From the Eifel Tower to the remarkable and historic museums, Paris is said to be rich in lifestyle and literature, art and history. And while all that may still hold up in theory, in reality the matters seem to be a little different. Turns out all the adoration we had for it being the city to experience and experiment life in, is all but a facade or possibly a privilege extended only to people without breasts. Or at least at a certain Musée d’Orsay art museum in Paris.
We say this after a woman, now identified as ‘To’ shared with the world, how the museum Musée d’Orsay, was petty and narrow minded enough to deny entry to a guest who was sporting a ‘short dress’. Apparently to make the cut of entering a museum and appreciating art can only be done when one’s breasts are carefully tucked away before you can really take in the art.
What was even more irksome was the fact that the very museum that had several nudes, bare chested sculptures and other semi-nude artifacts on display, suddenly had quite a big problem with a woman’s cleavage. Clearly the museum had more than just art ad display that day. #hypocrisy101
The Musée d’Orsay, a museum which is apparently happy to display many bare breasts in its permanent collection, shamed this young woman at the entrance and told her she couldn’t come in because her neckline was too revealing. Unbelievable https://t.co/behcr0kDu9
— Katy Lee (@kjalee) September 10, 2020
Furious, surprised and all too disturbed by what had just happened, the woman took to her Twitter account to share the incident with the world, and like a can of worms, people started pouring in their thoughts, calling out their double standards, hypocrisy and provincial thinking that still withheld a woman from entering and appreciating art, all because they didn’t approve of her choice of clothes. She wrote, “I’m not just my breasts, I’m not just a body, your double standards shouldn’t be an obstacle to my right of access to culture and knowledge.”
The woman upon sharing her experience, also talked about how despite asking for a reasonable explanation for a denial to enter, she was just condemned by being told it was against the rules. Later, after she had to put a jacket on to enter, she shared how she saw various women wearing revealing clothes and halter neck tops who could be considered just as revealing, “but they were all skinny, with very small breasts.” Seems like it wasn’t just the clothes but also the body type that seemed to have offended the staff. Making them go from clothes to body-shamers in less than a second.
Also Read : This Comedian Was Shamed For Her Weight But She Wasn’t Having It. Why Do Confident Women Rattle Us?
https://twitter.com/jasonbreed1970/status/1304181489794535424
Ugh what the heck. It’s one of my favourite art museums. I’m appalled they’d be so ridiculous
— Moniza Hossain (@moniza_hossain) September 10, 2020
https://twitter.com/CeliaMonde/status/1303683935214481408
A user that stood in her support shared, “The Musée d’Orsay, a museum which is apparently happy to display many bare breasts in its permanent collection, shamed this young woman at the entrance and told her she couldn’t come in because her neckline was too revealing. Unbelievable”. While another one commented, “Personally @jeavnne you looked stunning in that outfit – women shouldn’t be made to feel ashamed on how they look – empowerment is feeling strong and proud about being yourself no matter what.”
And while it has already been established a time too many, that a woman’s accessibility to something must not be defined by what she wears, it is incidents like these that make it even more important to address the persistent sexism in our society. A woman is not her boobs, not her cleavage, not the length of her dress and definitely not less than an equal in the society.
While the Museum that found itself plum in the middle of trouble has apologized to the woman for their uncalled for, discriminatory and objectifying actions, we hope it would have a similar effect on people with that kind of mentality, who still like to control women. Because last we checked, one can try, but they’ll only fail. This will go down in history for stupidity but will probably not make it to an exhibit.
