Do you think men should be allowed to wear skirts?

[ciarafoley97]

This was brought up by an article I read in the DailyMail (www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-8847579/Straight-married-father-three-reveals-hes-worn-skirts-high-heels-day-four-years.html)

Some would say the fact that people think it's ridiculous for men to wear feminine clothing but the reverse isn't true is because the patriarchy sees women as being inferior to men. Therefore in a true gender egalitarian society, clothes would have no gender.

What about dating prospects? Would you date a man who wore skirts/high heels?

@DidoLamenting

Calling two trans widows with experience of AGP "armchair psychologists" is naive as well as insulting

I have no idea which posters you are referring to. I meant the general tendency on here to diagnose AGP. I wasn't referring to a particular post or poster so calm down. There is such a tendency on here to take everything personally.

As I said earlier in the thread, when one has been similarly gaslit, and one sees the national press being used to gaslight other women, and then women here join in, it becomes quite difficult to "calm down".

One unhappy side effect of spending years supporting the female victims of AGP is that it gives you an AGP-dar.

And an inability to "calm down" in the face of this sort of bollocks is extremely useful in motivating trans widows to support each other, and hopefully to raise the consciousness of other women on this issue.

Dido that's because we bundle multiple related questions in that one verb 'can'.

Most people interpret the question as asking whether a skirt ought to be a neutral, non-sexualised garment. We're in hypothetical future preferred utopia when we're answering this question.

The 'but' comes in because people recognise that we've yet to achieve the desexualisation of the skirt in the public consciousness.

I'm all for men wearing generic skirts in normal, everyday contexts, because this is how the skirt loses its "female" connotation; that's how we get to the world where everyone can choose a skirt or trousers as they please.

Highly-sexualised skirts are a different matter.

By the same token, a man who wears granny pants because they're comfy is not the same as a man who wears arse-floss because it gives him a boner and justifies it to himself by saying it's comfy.

Allowed??

Of course, yes. Should it be considered socially acceptable for them to wear female-coded highly sexualised garments in public, non-sexualised contexts? Debatable.

I'm not really understanding why it's ok for women to wear skirts in public non-sexualised contexts if they're so highly sexualised but not ok for men to do so.

jennie it matters because orgasm is a powerful conditioning tool.

It's really hard to maintain a socially appropriate level of revulsion for the degradation of women when you're going home and wanking over it every night. Regardless of whether you like to see yourself as fucker or fuckee.

I am partial to a man in a Kilt I must say.

I had this theory once that the world would be a much better place if everyone over the age of 11 was required to wear a ball gown, in all situations. Even doing sport or going to war.

I still think I was on to something.

I'm all for men wearing generic skirts in normal, everyday contexts, because this is how the skirt loses its "female" connotation; that's how we get to the world where everyone can choose a skirt or trousers as they please

Quaggers commented
However, I thin the reality is that a majority of people like to have some level of differentiation of fashion for men and women. Maybe they don't really care what that entails, at least in a principled sort of way, but they like there to be a difference

I agree with her comment. I don't think I do want that differentiation to go. I think Quaggers is probably right that a majority of people don't.

Oh and btw the many posts on here referring to kilts are missing the point entirely and have got it the wrong way round. Kilts started off as a male garment and were appropriated as suitable for girls and women, for example the girls' uniform in private schools and competitors in Scottish country dancing.

Alas, we would rapidly end up with different styles of ballgown to signal one's sex. And those men who preferred the style worn by women on the pull or the game would be viewed with suspicion by some.

Such is masculinity. It's quite depressing, really.

Kilts started off as a male garment and were appropriated as suitable for girls and women

High heels as well. Originally cavalry, then became fashionable for the class of men who weren't fighting on horses but didn't have to worry about impractical footwear, then crossed over as fashionable for women, then dropped by men as too feminine.

artsandculture.google.com/story/the-high-life-a-history-of-men-in-heels/iQJCgMgwSKV5Kw

I stopped wearing heels after an extended holiday in 2014. I came home, looked at them and thought "I'm not putting my feet in those things again". Figured if I can't project authority at work without a pair of mini-stilts making me taller I've got no business doing my job.

@TyroTerf

Alas, we would rapidly end up with different styles of ballgown to signal one's sex. And those men who preferred the style worn by women on the pull or the game would be viewed with suspicion by some.

Such is masculinity. It's quite depressing, really.

Is there a particular style of clothing worn by "women on the pull or the game" ?

And as for it being viewed with suspicion by some- presumably you mean by you and people like you?

Exactly. Slut shaming women for clothing choices isn't feminist. As is judging sex workers.

Klaus Hargreaves works a leather skirt pretty damn hard

Oh my god i love klaus...its the eyeliner

And robert sheehan

There is no law against it now. Most men are incredibly boring in their clothing choices and afraid of what other men think of them.

I have not read this but to say in the Pacific islands men am have always worn skirts.. anyhow I have probably missed the point entirely but there you go!

It's really hard to maintain a socially appropriate level of revulsion for the degradation of women when you're going home and wanking over it every night.

Very well said

OP not come back? Huh.

Not rtft so sorry if this has already been pointed out. The women in France wearing trousers thing was a Paris only, 200 year old law and it was completely unenforced. It was just one of those old daft laws that hadn't been repealed.

I spent a summer in France, partially in Paris in 2005. Wore trousers plenty

I think it's quite disingenuous to pretend that there aren't certain styles associated with certain social roles and contexts.

Of course women tailor their look to the social context. I'm quite staggered that anyone would try to deny that, to be honest. I mean, if you wear the exact same outfit to do the shopping, slob about at home, attend weddings, and go clubbing with the express hope of finding a sexual partner, then that's fine, but most people do vary it at least a little bit.

Completely agree tyro.

I think it all goes to show that it's nothing to do with the specific item of clothing per se. It's solely to do with whether or not the item is associated in that culture with one sex or the other or both.

Where something is societally associated with the female sex and proscribed for the male (so not kilts for Scottish men), a sexual fetish among some males in that culture seems almost inevitably to result - god knows why but there we go (Goosefoot once posted some interesting psychological stuff about imprinting, I vaguely recall)

Yes a very few men will publicly taboo-break for the non-sexual fashion hell of it. They are almost invariably pop stars or celeb figures with plenty of social status and room to manoeuvre socially in this way, not Mike in Accounts. And for all we know, they get a buzz out of it too.

@Respectabitch

Klaus Hargreaves works a leather skirt pretty damn hard.

A definite yes from me

@jennie0412

*I'm aware that some men wear them in order to get a sexual kick out of it precisely because they are women's garments.

But if we normalise the wearing of them for any man at any time, those men wouldn't get the same kick out of wearing skirts.

Doubtless they'll move on to nappies or furry costumes or something, but still. We can't construct all our sartorial rules around men's strange perversions.*

I don't understand this. Why would it matter what men (or anyone) get their 'sexual kick' from, as long as it's not illegal?
It's none of anyone's business except their own and (if involving another person) the other persons/people.

Jennie, if those men are getting their sexual kicks by wearing the clothes in public, then they are involving all the rest of us in their kink. On one level, as long as I don't know about it, it's none of my business and I don't really care that much. I know that various people in what is bizarrely called the "kink community" would disagree with me because they would argue that it is unethical to involve other people in you getting your rocks off without their consent; but if I literally don't know about it and it's all in someone's mind, I think there is a bit of a grey area there, I personally am not bothered by it, though I can understand the POV of someone who is.

For me the line is crossed when it's obvious that the reason people are wearing specific garments in public, is in order to draw the attention of their fellow citizens to their fetish, as that attention enhances that fetish. That's where I agree with kinkster's consent concept.

For example a couple of years ago there were a couple of blokes walking down my local high street, one dressed in a dark, conservative business suit and the other one in the most disturbing, ridiculous kiddie outfit - white t shirt, pink shorts, pink ankle socks, white plimsoles and hair tied in bunches with pink ribbons. They were obviously acting out their kink in public and the shocked, amused or disgusted looks they got from other people in the street were clearly part of the boner for them. That's unacceptable IMO.

They were using their fellow citizens as props in their sex game. It was the first time I properly understood the kinkster consent argument: none of us strolling down that street had consented to participate in their fetish play; there was something very intrusive about these men inflicting their disturbing fetish on the rest of the world. Keep it in the bedroom.

Women, on the other hand weren't legally allowed to wear trousers in France till 2013.

I’ve lived most of my life in jeans, and worked in France before 2000, and I’ve never heard of this.

@Antibles

Completely agree tyro.

I think it all goes to show that it's nothing to do with the specific item of clothing per se. It's solely to do with whether or not the item is associated in that culture with one sex or the other or both.

Where something is societally associated with the female sex and proscribed for the male (so not kilts for Scottish men), a sexual fetish among some males in that culture seems almost inevitably to result - god knows why but there we go (Goosefoot once posted some interesting psychological stuff about imprinting, I vaguely recall)

Yes a very few men will publicly taboo-break for the non-sexual fashion hell of it. They are almost invariably pop stars or celeb figures with plenty of social status and room to manoeuvre socially in this way, not Mike in Accounts. And for all we know, they get a buzz out of it too.

That's simply reinforcing the point that the "oh, men can wear anything, I don't care" is a meaningless mantra.

You acknowledge that the Harry Styles are few; they are doing so for reasons of self- publicity and are in a rarefied position which transcends any social opprobrium. "Mike in accounts" hasn't any of the privileges Harry Styles has and given the level of suspension there will be as to his motives (as shown on here) there isn't much incentive for Mike in accounts to break the taboo.

And so far as the Harry Styles I doubt very much they want the taboo to be broken either. It's a pretty easy and safe way of being viewed as edgy/ original/ groundbreaking.

I think it's quite disingenuous to pretend that there aren't certain styles associated with certain social roles and contexts

I wasn't pretending there isn't. It was your choice of language which surprised me- "women on the pull or on the game" Sounds more MRA than feminist.