“Real Women Have Bodies”: A mysterious occurrence has caused physical women to fade into simple oracles in this world, with some opting to remain current by sewing themselves into the fabric of garments. As her new lover begins to fade into the air, a boutique salesgirl romances the daughter of a big clothing supplier, resulting in a quick, bittersweet affair. A strong commentary on body image and the intrusion of the fashion industry, which encourages and capitalizes on the “existential crises” brought on by unrealistic and ephemeral beauty standards, appears amid the narrator’s emotional breakdown. The story has a layer of fascinating immediacy beneath which flows a very scary idea, told from the point of view of a young woman whose name we never learn. The imagery is as stunning as the message, which is unapologetically cruel. Machado utilized this story to say something controversial: persons who do not dress femininely as ladies are invisible to the world, thus they are removed from the title. Dresses are a symbol of womanhood, thus their souls would cling to it because it represented who they have been: a female.
No one understands how the epidemic spreads or how the women are afflicted, but those who are infected eventually deteriorate from real bodies to nearly invisible skin. When our protagonist originally interacts with these women, she notices that:
“…the room is full of women. Women like the one in the viral video, see-through and glowing faintly, like afterthoughts.”
The meaning of the decayed woman can be interpreted in a variety of ways. They appear to be pushed into obscurity in part by a society that appreciates them only when they are associated with items of beauty. In part, it seems to be an incomprehension that is worsened by the tragic boredom of the women it affects. Generally, it appears that women are doomed, which leads me to believe that this is a metaphor for America’s rape myths and acceptance of misogyny.