Should Hollywood Consider This Alternative to the All-Black #MeToo Dress Code?

Word that many attendees are planning to wear black evening dresses on the Golden Globes red carpet next month to express their solidarity with the #MeToo movement and to protest what is being called “industry misconduct” is certainly welcome news, not only because the more attention given this issue the better but also we love it when beautiful clothes shout truth to power.

No doubt this inky ocean will make a powerful statement, but black frocks, though undeniably elegant and almost uniformly flattering (well, unless you are 13 years old like Millie Bobby Brown, can look a little gloomy and grave en masse. So consider this modest proposal: Why not celebrate the strength and courage of those brave women who are speaking up and speaking out by donning the signature colors of the suffrage movement?

More than a century ago, our fierce sisters who fought so hard to win the right to vote (and just ask Roy Moore what we can do when we exercise our franchise) had their own preferred palette, and it was suffused with symbolism.

In Britain, the suffragists favored purple, meant to represent courage; white, for purity of purpose; and green, for renewal and strength.

In America, the green was swapped out for yellow, or even a burst of optimistic gold. These colors were integral to the struggle, marking the solidarity of the wearers and offering a visual united front to the wider world.

According to a 1997 discussion from a site called Humanities and Social Sciences Online (oh, the things you can find on the Internet!): “[I]n Wisconsin, the ‘suffrage regalia’ of a yellow tunic with black bordering, to be worn over a white ‘shirtwaist’ (blouse) and long black skirt, could be purchased complete with ‘cockaded chapeau’ for $3.95 in a Milwaukee department store . . . AND the ‘suffrage kit’ included a round-trip ticket to Chicago for the NAWSA parade to picket the 1915 Republican convention, where the women followed a borrowed elephant burdened with a plank—the ‘missing suffrage plank’ from the GOP platform.”

No need for Elisabeth Moss to slip into a snowy shirtwaist or Saoirse Ronan to sport a cockaded chapeau—though it would be fun! And they needn’t drag a stuffed elephant with them on the red carpet to get their point across. But wouldn’t it be lovely if these talented contenders considered donning the hues of our beloved foremothers? Not just an homage but a living legacy!

Still, whatever they decide, whether they show up in black or suffrage colors, or ignore the whole business and rock the carpet in turquoise and orange spangles, let us remember the words that Elizabeth Cady Stanton, militant fighter for women’s rights, offered more than 100 years ago: “The best protection any woman can have . . . is courage.”