The document discusses how taking a cultural perspectives course transformed the author's views on diversity and dress. Through the course, the author learned about different theories explaining why people dress in certain ways, such as to express cultural values, economic circumstances, religious beliefs, and for self-expression. The author used to judge people based on appearances but now understands there are complex reasons for diverse styles of dress related to culture, values, religion, social class, and psychology. Diversity in dress helps communicate individual and cultural identities.

1. Martin 1
Transformation of Self
Marie Martin
Louisiana Tech University

2. Martin 2
Before entering Cultural Perspectives I honestly didn’t expect there to be the
amount of diversity that there was. Diversity just isn’t separated by different
cultures, but for example, in American culture there are different cultures within.
Judging comes naturally to people, and with me it was no exception. Walking down
the street I would look at people’s appearances, and judge them based on that. But,
as I learned more and more in this class I began to understand why they wore what
they did. People have many theories on why they dress. Some theories we learned in
class were the immodesty theory, modesty theory, and adornment theories are just
a few of the reasons why some people dress like they do. I feel like when I put
myself in one of these categories, I would fit in more with the adornment theory,
because when I actually do dress up nice, I want to display what I’m wearing to
express myself. But, now that I understand why people dress differently, I won’t be
as judgmental. Especially in different countries, there are many reasons they dress
differently than what our country is used to. Cultural values, innovations,
economics, and government are the main reasons there is so much diversity in dress
around the world. Depending on how strong their cultural values are, or where they
stand economically, will all have a factor in how they dress. Countries that have
stronger cultural values will dress more traditional to their roots, while if a country
is poor economically, you won’t see a lot of high-end clothing worn. Once I began to
understand this I knew that people dress the way they do for either very specific
reasons (culture), or simply because they have no other choice (economically).

3. Martin 3
But, there are still cultural ideals, and standards that people want to obtain.
People dress in diverse ways to also obtain the body image that they want. Within
our own culture and any other culture, no one has the same body type as the other,
so people have to dress to fit their body. Also, with different social classes there is a
huge diversity in dress. If you’re in upper classes dress will be more of a way to
display your wealth, while in the working class, family is what you value the most.
Everyone has different values, and once I began to understand why, it helped me
understand better why people ultimately dress the way that they do. Religious
cultures also have different ways they dress. Whether it is sacred dress, or profane it
still is an important to their way of life. In one of our classes we learned about all of
the different types of religions, and how that affects the way one dresses. This was
interesting to me, because one religion such as Christianity, when broken up into
Catholicism, Baptist, Protestantism, Puritans, and Amish, the dress is different. This
made me look at the way I use appearance to understand others in a whole new
light. We can all believe in one thing, but have different outlooks on the way we
should dress is one of the main reasons we shouldn’t automatically judge them,
because they are expressing who they are through their religion.
People can express themselves, not only through religion, but also through
self-expression, or to fit in. Self-expression is a big deal to a lot of people, but so is
fitting into society. These psychological values play a part in every single person in
some way. Whether it’s purely to stand out, or to fit in, people want society to think
of them in a specific way. Even though people’s values are different, they still want
to have something that makes them ultimately fit in with some group in society. No

4. Martin 4
one wants to exactly look like the people beside him or her, because then who are
we as an individual? If every single one of us dressed the same, then how could we
communicate who we are culturally, economically, or as a person? Diversity through
appearance helps all individuals get a taste of the different cultures out there, and
instead of looking at one in a cruel way because they look different, we should look
at them with wonder because they came from a totally different background from
us, giving us all different types of cultures.