If everyone was gender-non-conforming...

[lionelduty]

On these boards we seem to think that being GNC in various ways is great (I hate how gendered kids' clothes, toys, etc are and hate that I feel weird buying my son pink or flowery clothes).

It's also stated quite often that most people can 'tell' if someone's a natal male or female just by looking, but I've genuinely seen people I honestly am unsure about (and plenty of transmen on TV that I would have had no idea weren't born male).

Would life actually be better if we couldn't tell anyone's sex from how they presented? We actually would need to ask pronouns and in single-sex spaces wouldn't be sure if someone wasn't 'supposed' to be there. Do we actually need some sort of gendered shorthand to function as a society or would there be some sort of freedom in removing it?

(Just my idle thoughts but interested in people's views)

My dog can certainly distinguish women from men - I doubt it's by appearance.

Sorry to bring up something said a while back, but with animal rescue a female is often needed as street or stray dogs are abused often and usually by men so they don’t trust a male rescuer.

The wear what you want suggestion is not actually supporting fetishised cross dressing or trying to pass as a woman in wigs and stuffed bras though. It means don't feel forced to wear the grey suit and tie, or blue jeans and brown jumper. If that means a dress a la Kurt Cobain then do it. It's not going to work in a investment bank in the city though is it? Look how spectacularly out of place Phil Bunce looks. He's not non conforming. He's so conforming he's parodying women.

• It often feels that there is the qualification that "as long as it's practical, comfortable and not frivolous" .

TBH I think that's your perception - there have been many threads fondly remembering the peacock musicians of our younger days, for instance. Everyone should be able to wear clothing that's practical, comfortable and/or beautiful, frivolous, as suits their mood and purpose.

Also, for people saying they’ve never seen a trans woman who passed.. observation bias. You’re unlikely to know if someone is stealth trans and passes.

It's funny how so very few of them in the public eye do though, don't you think?

BH I think that's your perception - there have been many threads fondly remembering the peacock musicians of our younger days, for instance

Yes, men applauded for wearing clothes and make up- whilst women are patronised for mindlessly performing femininity.

I think you made your own point there Lass. Performers were mindful of there performance.

I don't think there's an issue with femininity as our culture understands it. It's when those particular formulas for dress and so on are used as markers of inner reality, and insisted upon - either for women or those that think they are women when they aren't.

I agree that there shouldn't need to be an equally oppressive lurch to an opposite extreme where everything associated with femininity is eschewed completely.

Freedom looks much more like women retaining the specific rights and spaces etc. that are neccesary for our sex, and dressing however we please, appropriate to the occasion - if we don't like make up and fancy hair and heels, ok. If we do, fair enough. But each of us is free to examine and make our choice without the censure of what a woman 'should look like'.

Today I'm fully made up, I have glitter in my hair and I was in knee high black heeled boots. Very much a version of our culture's femininity. Tomorrow I may well be in combats without a scrap on my face. I'm still a woman on both days.

Floral has it: we can be free to dress how we want, and if we want we can do what’s now called performing femininity; but it would be much healthier if that didn’t carry meanings - whether those meanings are “this = woman” or “this = I want sex”.

lionelduty Chef's sex didn't detract from the cooking but was a major topic for discussion between the lessons 😁

On a side note I was trying to think of a culture in which the sexes did not adopt different clothes or hair etc....Amazon Indians?

Amazon Indians most certainly do adopt different clothes for males and females -- I've been there, and I have Indian ancestors. And the gender roles are very clearly defined. For instance, when I travelled in that area I was 19 years old and I was with two friends, a couple. The locals (we were on a boat that went upriver) could not fathom that I as a young woman was travelling without a father or brother. And they were very eager to fix me up with a husband. They would question me for hours as to why, why, why. Girls are married off at a very young age and a single woman alone in the world was just not possible.
I've been thinking along the lines of Maoist China as well, as the only culture I can think of that applied a uniform dress code. And that was stipulated from above, it did not grow organically within the culture.
I think it is safe to say that humans like very much to be able to tell at first glance which sex a person is.
And "wear whatever you want" is all very well for kids, but I personally think that "dress appropriately for the situation" is better for adults. I don't think it's OK for instance for Western women to go to a conservative area of India, where all the local women wear saris or salwar kameez, and walk around in spaghetti straps and mini skirts. And I believe that if there is a dress code you should try to adapt to it.

I've been thinking along the lines of Maoist China as well, as the only culture I can think of that applied a uniform dress code

The Khmer Rouge also did it.

It is absolutely not the case that anyone can wear whatever they want. The British state has spent hundreds of thousands of pounds on prosecuting and imprisoning Stephen Gough, the Naked Rambler. Just because he is comfortable with wearing hiking boots and a sunhat and nothing else, does not mean that other people are or should be comfortable with his clothing choices.

I guess we're taking it as a given when talking about clothing that it actually exists...and in the context of the OP Mr Gough's idiosyncratic choice isn't exactly 'gender neutral' and obfuscatory as to his sex!

'Gender neutral' clothes wouldn't necessarily mean identical overalls though. It could mean everyone dressing idiosyncratically, everything from DMs to feather boas, but no garments that men are more likely to wear than women and vice versa. So you wouldn't be able to assume someone's sex from their clothes.

Gender neutral clothes means women wearing men’s clothes.

If you think about it the way our gender rules for clothing work is that there are few things that women cannot wear but certain things that men never do. I was thinking about how our gender rules for clothes have changed in the last century, and it seems to me that it's not purely a superficial change. In the 19th century the masculine sphere was almost the whole active world. Men had politics, art, education, the professions, freedom of movement, sport. Women had the domestic, childcare, and the sexual. Women moved into the public sphere and took some of men's clothes as they did, started wearing the trousers symbolically as well as to be able to cycle and run and climb. So our current gender clothing rules allow women all the comfortable and practical garments as well as the skirts and heels and makeup. Men either aren't allowed or are afraid of expressing sexiness, silliness, frivolity and sensuality so the clothes that express these qualities remain women's clothes.

Gender neutral clothes means women wearing men’s clothes

Yes.

as well as to be able to cycle and run and climb

Gosh - I must have imagined doing all those things- given that apparently one can't do them wearing a skirt.

“Men either aren't allowed or are afraid of expressing sexiness, silliness, frivolity and sensuality so the clothes that express these qualities remain women's clothes.”

Since when have men (collectively) denied themselves anything they wanted?

“Men either aren't allowed or are afraid of expressing sexiness, silliness, frivolity and sensuality so the clothes that express these qualities remain women's clothes.”

Better tell my ex that! www.google.co.uk/amp/s/www.mirror.co.uk/3am/celebrity-news/gq-awards-john-legend-richard-13199759.amp

More and more men and women are now feeling safer and more confident to express themselves.

as well as to be able to cycle and run and climb
^
Gosh - I must have imagined doing all those things- given that apparently one can't do them wearing a skirt.^

Harder, though not impossible, in 19th c/early 20th women's clothes which was the context. (Personally I'm a big fan of a full calf-length skirt in summer, but not with petticoats!)

A bit of a tangent, but I've just remembered I heard something on the radio a few weeks ago re early women mountain walkers. Apparently some would ditch their skirts once out of civilisation, and retrieve them on the descent, with a few mishaps if they were obliged to use a different route down. Also some women who re-enacted Dorothy Wordsworth and her companions ascending Scafell Pike noted how wearing bonnets changed their perception of the landscape.

Well testosterone changes the body in many ways - hence why transwomen have a hard time removing the effects but transmen easily pass as men.

Humanity's survival is dependent on procreation. We can identify sex immediately. Given modern medicine and giving people artificial testosterone does not really alter that imo.

Point taken Lass and I think skirts also got shorter to give women more physical freedom.

I was wondering how we would get into the situation OP was talking about. What I was thinking is that mens and womens clothes get more similar as their lives get more similar. So if our lives were equal would we be unable to tell anyone's sex from how they presented?

I don't think so because if you look at situations where women's and men's clothes are functionally identical - say you look at people cycling or when you see old couples rambling in fleeces and boots - you can still tell their gender from their clothes, by shape or colour. Women will wear leggings or tshirts with particular neck shapes. A woman's fleece might be pink or floral. It's difficult to define exactly because it's subject to fashion but it's always there, and I think it would still be there even if we had non-gendered lives and non-gendered clothes.

There's no need for differences in colour or neck shape though. There is a need for clothes which are sexed - different body shapes. At the moment, quite a few (not all) women's clothes which should be functionally identical to the men's equivalent are just a bit less functional.

Ive been pondering another difference in clothing conventions during this thread. Why are clothes, in particular women's clothes, often ageist? Why does the expression 'mutton dressed as lamb' (only, afaik, applied to women) exist?

Well, there is the MAMIL stereotype that has a lot of truth...