Do any of you dress etc 'gender free' or have tried to in the past?

[SoulofanAggron]

I'm going a bit more 'gender free' in my look. Did try it once years ago for a couple of years. Have any of you tried it/done it?

I know a lot of women have quite a 'gender free' look anyway.

Clothes such as skirts, dresses etc are stereotypically feminine in themselves.

Can you elaborate? What do you mean by "stereotypically feminine in themselves"

There have been and there are still societies where men wear, well, skirts and dresses. They just have different names.

I'm not sure I get what you mean to say.

Trousers haven't been gender free for decades now.
Women have worn trousers for ages. And some are very "feminine", as the stereotype would have us believe.

What is gender-free, I've read the thread but don't understand. Generally the average person on the street would look at an outfit and think it was either a man's outfit or a woman's outfit surely?

I wear some unisex clothes (DH and I have some fleece jumpers that are identical except in size) but if I buy trousers I buy ones cut for the female body. What would neutral look like?

Sorry but you're just rehashing what actual feminists already did, and they managed to do it while centering women instead of erasing them.

I haven't come out as a lesbian.
I haven't given up men.
I don't feel fat or frumpy or ugly.
I don't see myself as a saint or a paragon.

I just don't wear 'feminine' clothing or make up.

Nope, I only ever wear ballgowns. Pink ones. Like princess peach.

@BeyondsConstantBangingHeadache

Nope, I only ever wear ballgowns. Pink ones. Like princess peach.

DH and I are the same size (even shoe size) so we share quite a few clothes, he draws the line at my taffeta ballgowns though

DD can usually be found wearing a princess dress while yielding a nerf gun and pretending to kill baddies, what does that make her?

Hi all, this is OP with an update.

I lasted just a few months again.

I stopped because I felt extremely frumpy and fugly.

Now I no longer own a pair of trousers- it's usual for me not to ever wear them.

I have a few pretty floral or pink dresses (charity shop but I think they're nice) and that's pretty much all my outer wear.

I'm small busted with central obesity so I tend to go for men's clothes - they fit better, plus I find they tend to be of better/stronger material and more long lasting. I wear what I feel comfortable in, not as a statement

Blimey what a lot of time to spend thinking about clothes, femininity and your 'look'. That seems hugely pointless to me and very much in line with old fashioned stereotypes of a woman. Wear things that are comfortable. Wear what you like. Don't bother labelling it. Stop labouring it and catch up with the rest of us in rejecting generalisations about women (beyond factual biology). By your definition I've always dressed gender free. So what?

Blimey what a lot of time to spend thinking about clothes, femininity and your 'look'.

@literalviolence It's not about a look, obviously. A lot of radical feminists such as Sheila Jeffreys think we should try and be gender free in what we wear etc. It's deep and ideological for them as it's an outward sign of women's role in society.

OP.went into some details about her previous 'looks' and which boxes they fit into. I often wear the same as my DH but cut for a female figure so perhaps I, like many others, are already dressing in a gender free way. To be properly free, which is probably the right sort of free if one wants to say no to expectations which arise from stereotypical expectations, wear what's comfortable. Don't think you can never wear a summer dress for example, if that's what's comfortable for you in the heat. Always having to wear clothes which look like different shaped mens clothes is not free really.

Hi OP,

I did wonder why this old thread had popped up, but see that you have returned, hence the bump!

I have noticed as I have got older (I've got nearly 10 years on you) I care less about what is 'expected' of me because I am female and do what I like within reason.

There seemed to be a lot of 'society says I should' 'this branch of feminism says I should' earlier in the thread but I can tell you that it is very freeing to not try to bend to someone else's rules.

Dress in a way that makes you feel comfortable, both physically and mentally. That's it. Who cares whether it is or isn't bowing to a stereotype? Probably no one except you!

People can read for instance Jeffries' Beauty and Misogyny if they don't believe me that a lot of radical feminists see it as an issue.

I can see that my post might have come across as a bit abrasive, but what I was trying to say was that you seem to be putting a lot of emotional energy into something that the people who you pass on the street won't even register.

It's not that I don't believe you - I don't doubt that some radical feminists see it as an issue - it's just that now I am a middle aged hag I'm not so bothered about how people I don't know view me based on my appearance. So if some rad fems dislike women wearing make up or appearing feminine, why would I let that inform my choices?

Equally, if following a set of rules laid down by a group you feel part or aspire to be more like of makes you feel better, then do that!

I wish I could edit, copy / pasting always trips me up!

'a group you feel part of or aspire to be more like' of

I was told quite seriously that I must be a transman as I always wear jeans! The person who told me stated that women shouldn't wear trousers unless they wanted to be seen as male. WTAF?

I use crutches and rarely use a bag so jeans are the only item of clothing with enough pockets to carry my medication, asthma pump, purse and phone at the minimum.

I buy women's jeans as I have wide hips and chunky thighs. There's definitely no mistaking my very female body and apart from the jeans I don't wear what's considered male clothing.

But even if you DID wear what would be considered 'male' clothing, so what?

I never realised how lucky I was growing up in the 1980s, when clothes were just clothes and men wore make up if they felt like it. How the hell have we ended up back to a rigid 'girls wear this, boys wear that' in the 2020s??

Clothes are just a wrapping. They keep
you warm and decent. They have nothing to do with your sex, despite the gender woo brigade trying to pretend that donning a dress and high heels somehow magically makes a bloke into a woman.
It beats me why anyone wastes so
much time on it. I live in t shirts, warm fleeces and trousers, as they’re practical for the Scottish climate. That doesn’t make me “masculine” or “gender neutral”, they are just my bloody clothes, ffs.

No idea what this is supposed to mean. Obviously if you have a female body, you dress to accommodate it.

I realise that this was a theme of the second wave but personally, I am deeply suspicious of anything that ends up treating male-as-default, even when the intention was good.

I don’t see the things stereotypically associated with femininity as lesser than things that are unisex (and let’s face it, most unisex stuff is male-coded, hence ‘nonbinary AFABs’ idealising double mastectomy’)

Personally, I have found a lot of joy in a sort of monstrous exaggeration of femininity - one that men actually seem to find quite scary, think Dolly Parton or Joan Collins!

Day to day I mostly live in paint splattered sweat pants (from the men’s section because the pockets are better) but I can only do slobby shut in or Barbara Cartland’s protege. Nothing in between.

I don't like the way "unisex" or "nonbinary" (if female) tends to mean looking more masculine. One of the advantages of being female is having more flexibility in how you dress/ make up/ hair styles.
I'd like to see men have the same flexibility without it then being assumed that they are "trans". Looking androgenous often just means women have short hair and wear trousers whilst blokes change um... nothing

Snap. I'd forgotten all those lovely men's M&S cardies. So soft.

And DMs (before they became world class prats). They didn’t make ‘women’s’ ones when I were a lass…

Had to google gender free clothing to see what was meant. Never been a fan of pink, I've never dressed in an overly gendered way but I have done the long hair thing. Grew up in the time when very short skirts made you a tart as did tons of make up (know as slap). "Nice" girls went for a natural look.

I wear what I'm comfortable in - trousers in winter and skirts or dresses only when it it very hot. Dont use make up or paint my nails. Hair is now shorter than dhs has been at times. If other women want to do things differently that's their choice - but if they whine about being broke I might point out the waste of money. I have no fucks left to give to clothing choices, as log as people wear some.