Why are society's restrictions on men's appearance never mentioned?

[Cattleprod]

I've seen and participated in a number of discussions over the past year or so, on mumsnet and real life, which have focussed on stereotypical expectations of womens and girls appearance based on gender. The overwhelming sea of pink in girls clothes shops, shaving/waxing various body parts, 'princess' type slogans, cosmetic surgery, length of skirts, high heels, styles of underwear, that sort of thing.

The point always comes up that it is unfair that so much value and judgement is placed on a woman's physical appearance, and of course it is terrible that anybody should be judged on physical or aesthetic aspects that they haven't chosen themselves, or have had forced on them by situation or society.

But it got me thinking, that although a lot of the unwritten expectations related to appearance, and the perhaps more sinister ones (eg. she was wearing a short skirt so was asking to be molested) relate to women, far more of the overt expectations, those that invite comment and even punishment, that I have come across have been applied to men and boys.

From the rule at my school that a boy's hair must not reach his collar, to the expectation in many offices that a man must wear a suit and tie, have short hair and be clean shaven, to my little boy being laughed at when I put a plain clip in his hair to keep it out of his eyes. Men just aren't as free to look different from 'the norm'. Any man that ventures out in a skirt, or lipstick, high heels, a pashmina etc. is likely to be met with incredulous stares and unpleasant comments, and in extreme cases, violence. Yet these are things that we as women can wear freely, safe in the knowledge that we can also choose to wear traditional mens clothing largely without derogotary comments (as Sandi Toksvig and many other women often do).

So, aside from obviously wanting to stamp out appearance-based prejudice that still exists as mentioned above, does there not seem to be the space or inclination for us as women to celebrate the fact that we do generally have more freedom than men to dress as we wish? I know there are boundaries set by religion, occupation, local society etc., but it is always the negative aspects of the spectrum of female appearance choices that are discussed, never the positive.

"As to the happiness thing, I always wonder if that's not because we expect more?"

Yes, we expect more and have the leisure to ask ourselves the question now. I would hazard a guess that if you are struggling to make ends meet, working physically hard all day, when every simple task was hard work, wondering if you were 'happy' would have been a fairly pointless and meaningless exersise. As long as you were well, fed and housed and no-one was actively hurting you or threatening you, I suspect you's have been 'happy'.

And I'm not sure how feminists are selfish. Unless men have been 'selfish' all these years. We are trying to get a bit of what men have always grabbed for themselves. There might be casualties of this but I don't know any feminist mothers who would agree that those casualties are their children. Nor would their children I would suggest. Mine don't for sure.

Agree with that Orm. I think also, if you knew that you had a good chance of dying in childbirth, just being alive would be qualification enough to be happy.

Incidentally, IIRC, Louis Braille was blinded in his father's carpentry shop when he was a child ... most people have had to have their children either cared for by others, or underfoot in dangerous situations, thoughout history. I'm thinking daycare is perhaps not the Big Bad here!

Surely not, bronze?

Yes, rates of "happiness" often tend to be higher in countries where people have less in terms of material possessions, money etc.

We're no happier now than we were 50 years ago, that is a fact - and taking everything into account - labour saving devices, more leisure time, increased choices, plus all the rights and protections women now have ( and absolutely right that we have those rights) we are in fact less happy - I'm trying to work out why - I can only come up with one theory - maybe women preferred having less to think about and worry about, maybe we were happier when life was simpler - and I don't mean that in a derogatory way at all.

carmina, you're just on a wind up on these threads, aren't you? I seem to remember seeing you admitting as much on another thread.

A 'fact'? How can something so subjective be a fact?

ImCon- no need to be sarcastic with me when I was replying to CB with something that is so obvious I'm struggling to understand why they can't understand it.

carmina, I don't know (and of course, neither can you) if 'we' were happier 50 years ago or not. But even if I only look at my generation and my mum's, there is an obvious trend.

My generation worry. We're worried about never being able to get/pay off a mortgage and we're worried about our careers, and we're worried about childcare, and we're worried about how on earth we'll pay for university for our children when they get there. So if you ask us, we do feel the pressure.

But, ask any of us how we feel in comparison to our mothers, and it's another story. Yes, in a way it was easier for them - houses were more affordable and it was perhaps easier to afford to be a SAHM. But most of us are sad for our mums because they ended up knowing they'd lost out somewhere and feeling rotten about it. I wouldn't be in my mum's shoes for a million dollars, it makes me shudder to think about what she got out of her life.

Bronze I didn't think IC was being sarcastic (well not at you anyway!)

Apologies, bronze, it wasn't meant as sarcasm at all.

It was a little funnyism, that's all because I totally agree with you about the obviousness. No malice was intended at anyone, especially you.

Thanks for your understanding, Blackduck (and that's meant in a spirit of friendliness too).

S'ok I've had my coffee now. Sorry

Slight retraction: possible a little bit of malice directed at the men of yore....

I'm sure a lot of women did have their children with them while they were working, because their children were working too. Whatever the pros and cons of extended schools and private child care, they are preferable to children working down a coal mine, under mechanical weaving equipment or up a chimney.

There is statistical evidence to prove that people were happier in the 50's than they are now - of course people could be lying when answering researchers questions ( although I'm not sure why they'd do that ) - there is evidence out there to back up what I'm saying - how else would I know?

carmina, that's like saying there is statistical evidence that God existed in the Middle Ages, because people claimed He did.

Do you not see the logical flaw here?

I do understand what you're getting at and I agree it's important, but you can't ever 'prove' how happy people are.

There is a link between how content people consider themselves to be and relative wealth. So people tend to be happy if there aren't big differences between how wealthy people are in society. There are bigger divides between rich and poor now than there were in the 1950s.

I suspect people also perceived themselves as happier because there had just been a war, and that was their point of reference for how bad things could be. Life probably does seem quite rosy if you are no longer being bombed.

But I don't think marriage and women's position in society had much to do with happiness levels. Single women as a group are much happier than married women as a group. Marriage makes men happier, not women.

These surveys are also very very dependent on things like how the questions were phrased and the way they were asked, also whether they asked a comparable sample of people in the 1950s and the 2000s (e.g. if the surveys were done by telephone, did that exclude poorer people who were not on the phone network in those days?)

Not to mention cultural norms and what people tend to understand 'happiness' to mean, e.g. does it mean contented and satisfied, or fulfilled, or positively joyful, or does it just mean 'not unhappy'? You will find different definitions are the norm depending on the time period and location/culture the people you ask are living in.

I agree Milly - and I think that makes a lot of sense in the context of what you said about children down mines. If we could bring back a woman from 1870 who told us she considered herself and her family happy, but she and her children worked down a mine and could expect to die before the age of 35, I don't think we'd be content to say 'well, if you say you're happy I'm sure it's all fine'!

The statistics I quoted yesterday were from this report

I'm not talking about the 1890's when of course lives were harder.

More money has not made us any happier - so the opportunity to have a fantastically paid career ( thanks to feminism ) has not really paid off.

I don't think having the opportunity to have better jobs has given a lot of women more money; it has given women money of their own, which has made a lot of women happier.

It has also taken pressure off men. It certainly made a big difference to DH, when he was having operations as a consequence of being disabled, that I had an income. My grandmother was the sole breadwinner for decades after my grandfather had an industrial accident. The whole family would have had a terrible time if she hadn't had an income.

And the consequences of having whole lifetimes of not being in paid employment are now being felt by a whole generation of elderly women, many of whom are living in poverty - that is how the state rewarded SAHMs. Having more money does make a difference to your happiness if you are below the poverty line.

I'm happy that I don't need the signature of my father or husband to get a mortgage. I'm happy that medical schools don't have a maximum quota on female students. I'm happy that job adverts don't contain two salary levels - one for men and one for women for the same role.

Perhaps the unhappiness is in part due to the fact that whilst we have made a lot of progress outside of the home, in the home the biggest changes have been in technology rather than in attitudes. When a couple work both work full time the woman is still, in the majority of cases, doing the greater share of the housework and childcare. Washing machines and dishwashers and microwaves have cut the time required to do the work, but it is still unequally shared.