One
example is well illustrated in Cell
Block 4 - showing female prisoners outside their cells under the watchful
eye of the wardress, herself mackintoshed. Club Foyer>Chillout Room>Correction
To an enthusiast it seems strange at first to think that wearing a mackintosh might be thought to be 'deameaning'. But there are perhaps two interesting areas in which a mackintosh is not worn voluntarily, and where being made to wear one falls under such an uncongenial description.
One
example is well illustrated in Cell
Block 4 - showing female prisoners outside their cells under the watchful
eye of the wardress, herself mackintoshed.
For these prisoners there could well be a number of demeaning and even uncomfortable aspects to the mackintosh they are wearing. Firstly it is fawn and decidedly not very fashionable. It is also the main part of a uniform - and there is nothing worse for a girl than another girl wearing the same clothes. She instantly loses her individuality.
It is to be expected that the prisoners would be obliged to wear a rubber-lined matching souwester when working outside - whatever the weather - and again that is something they would almost certainly find 'demeaning'.
The mackintosh itself will be rubber-lined and tightly buttoned and belted. What she wears underneath will probably be limited, so all her intimate places will be in continuous close proximity to the rubber. Unless she is peculiarly blessed, this will be a matter of real distaste to her, not to say distress, and the thought that others will know this despised experience is being forced on her will be a potent source of embarrasment.
As she struggles in her mackintosh through the different ordeals of the prison day she will also, almost certainly, find herself alternately too hot and too cold! And there may well be other hidden discomforts she has to endure, legacies perhaps from 'minor infractions' of days past, which are best left to the imagination...
Finally, in an institution of this kind, there would be a daily routine covering intimate matters of dress and function that are ordinarily treated as strictly private. The mackintosh uniform would play a central role in these daily humiliations. For example the day uniform would probably be hung in a separate changing hall somewhat distant from the cells. Reveille each morning would then see the prisoners having to remove their nightwear before proceeding to the ablution block, and after that to the changing hall where they would dress as required for the day's activities. - All this under close supervision.
This is one way in which the wearing of a mackintosh might be 'demeaning'.
The other area of mackintosh wearing which is/was frequently seen as demeaning concerns school uniforms and childhood experiences of being made to 'dress up properly' for school and other activities, especially for some reason by the mother. (One driver in this activity appears on the evidence to be excitement on the mother's part.)
School uniform lists for a whole generation often required the wearing of rubberised mackintoshes - and often souwesters/hoods in the same materials - and it certainly seems as though some children at least found this regulation a strange mixture of the demeaning and the exciting.
Those who took riding lessons also encountered the discipline of the obligatory riding mac where wetness, protection, rubber, discipline, smartness etc come together in a potent cocktail, one that clearly influenced both wearers and those who made them wear them in very interesting ways.
Is the wearing of a mackintosh intrinsically demeaning? Hardly, one would have thought. And yet the thought might bear some consideration. Maybe when you wear one you are at some level exulting in a species of self-humiliation? Maybe when you see one you are at some level taking pleasure in someone else's subjugation?
MacJames
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