Policing Men's Clothes

[MalagaNights]

There's an interesting debate going on twitter between many of the GC feminists I follow and Sarah Phillimore and Helen Pluckrose.

It seems to hit on some of the themes we've been involved in discussing on here previously. Particularly linked to the man in a dress at Genspect.

https://x.com/SVPhillimore/status/1748983536785190951?s=20

Helen Pluckrose states somewhere that there is a a streak of authoritarianism in GC feminism. With some wanting to control what men can wear.

Sarah and Helen seem to be saying you can't legislate for this which I actually don't think anyone is arguing for. They're arguing with a straw man I think.

But what I think they're missing is the societal shift that has socially accepted men in women's clothes has allowed many men permission to have their fetish publicly celebrated.

We could turn that around with a change in social attitude. E.g many companies have now allowed men to wear the women's uniform at work. They don't have to allow this. We could return to men and women's uniforms including practical options for both.

We could openly discuss and express our discomfort about men who do this is usually sexual, instead of pretending it's just fashion. Everyone used to know this about cross dressing and that's why it was done privately.

Then we hit on the tricky issue how do we discriminate between men who are AGP and men who like exploring fashion?

Helen Pluckrose is arguing it's not usually sexual and if you are uncomfortable deal with your own feelings.

We could ensure that where men still insist on performing feminity we at least don't have to listen to why they're so brave and their 'story' to self discovery, as has been happening in work places.

I actually think the 'it's just clothes' ' let's abolish gender' stance of some feminists has led to this opportunity for men to queer the boundaries and bring their sexual fetish into every day life. I think we're discovering that some of the boundaries we had around the sexes, performed a role which we've thrown away.

I agree with Sarah that we can't legislate for this. But we never had legislation on clothing we just had socially acceptable rules which change over time with common consent.

Anyway, it's very heated over on twitter and I think we've actually reached a point of having to address this issue. How do we deal with men who get a sexual thrill from wearing women's clothes. Once we've all agreed they're men. Then what?

This is a good quote from Amy on twitter:

.Disgust is democratic, free, available, and what’s more, it’s an involuntary human instinct we’ve been using for centuries for social control of toxic behaviors that are harmful to healthy community relationships.

Sorry meant Amy E Sousa:
https://x.com/KnownHeretic/status/1749455053537395023?s=20

50 yr old women in braless crop tops (mostly).

Yet 50 year old men feel happy enough to sit around shirtless. Why shouldn't women feel likewise free to choose comfort over the shame and self-conciousness feeling of someone seeing the shape of her nipples through her top? I do think the men should likewise wear some fabric over their nipples/torso.

Problem is: the bloke wearing a blouse, pencil skirt, high heels and lipstick but says he's a bloke.
Do we think that is great and to be celebrated?

I don't think anyone - male or female - should wear high heels. They're harmful for feet. I don't see that it's worse for a man to hobble himself in this way than for a woman, though.

A blouse is just a shirt, only usually the type of shirt that's closer to the body and has ruffles or other decorations.

I loathe men being shirtless in public.

I feel very differently about women in high heels at work and men in high heels at work though.
Yes both equally uncomfortable but sending very different signals.

She says:
If a man comes in public wearing womanhood as a fetish, I’m simply not going to hide the revulsion it makes me feel.

But what if he enjoys being looked at with revulsion?

There is no way to react to these men which isn't giving them exactly what they want.

@MalagaNights

It's the sense of judgement we've lost - as so often in this thread, while I don't agree with you to the letter, I do think you make some excellent thought-provoking points. And it is so important to be able to discuss these things without discussion becoming a slanging match between two polarising sides.

We are being fiercely, aggressively encouraged to lose our sense of judgement, to ignore our critical faculties, to enter into civilised intelligent discourse about any and all of the issues surrounding trans rights and women's rights.

This world you’re all imagining where everyone police’s everyone’s clothes sounds incredibly dull and repressive, lol.

“No one is choosing to wear Roman togas or crinoline dresses and we'd think they were weird if they did.”

There are a whole load of people whose hobby is researching, making and wearing historical fashions. It’s a subset of dress making.

Is it just coincidence we have lots of men wanting to dress like women and zero wanting to dress like medieval Knights or could there be a reason?

There are plenty of people who dress as knights and hit each other with swords on a weekend too.

Some posters seem to be suggesting there's nothing between "celebrating" a man who wears stereotypically female clothing and publicly shaming him. Most of us are British here though! Surely the obvious solution is to treat him the same as we would anything else making a clothing choice we thought unwise - be outwardly polite while inwardly tutting.

I don't think they want revulsion I think they want validation, and compliance. And to be treated as very brave and special.

But who the fuck cares what they want.

Don't play their game be honest about how you feel.

Yes all those togas and knights in the supermarket and at work conferences...

Or not.

I'd be quite happy if men dressing as women was a niche weekend hobby for groups of people who opt in.

Shall we all agree to that?

Yes this would be the most British solution 😁.

I have a admit I'm very drawn to 1950s era films and would quite like it if we all went back to wearing tweed suits and hats(and falling in love on trains).

Is it too late for a hat comeback?

Grayson Perry has said that people staring at him as though he's a pervert and shouting abuse is part of the thrill.

For him, part of the appeal of cross-dressing is the sexual kick. “Humiliation is a massive turn-on,” he says. “One of the things it’s ruined for me is that I’m no longer the anonymous pervert walking down the street. Before it was quite fun being the weirdo everyone stared at. Now I’m Grayson Perry. [The public] are not going to shout ‘fucking poof’, they’re more likely to say: ‘Oh, it’s Grayson Perry, mate, like on the TV’.”

https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2015/dec/14/grayson-perry-im-no-longer-the-anonymous-pervert-walking-down-the-street

By looking disgusted you are playing their game. I don't want to give them any sort of attention, because that's what they want. It only encourages them.

Just ignore them.

Well I wasn't suggesting shouting abuse at anyone on the street anyway.

I think in person ignoring or deliberately minimising interaction is the best approach. Whilst in general discussion expressing your distaste.
If that's what you feel.

See the Disney bloke example: no one should personally abuse him, but you may choose not to take your child to that shop, and express on social media that you feel it's inappropriate.

Funny how so much of this thread is based on demonstrably false claims - like that mens skirts aren’t on sale in mainstream shops. Zara being the specific example, but skirts marketed at men have been available from Zara for quite a few years now. Similarly ASOS appears to have quite a selection.

It took about thirty seconds to find this out. Unsure why the OP couldn’t similarly get the hang of some basic facts.

Please could you provide a link? I’ve done a search on the Zara website and I can’t find a single dress or skirt in the men’s clothing section. I must be looking in the wrong place.

You can buy anything online if you search hard enough.

But this argument that men are wearing skirts as if it's a normalised thing. Or becoming one is bullshit.
In 30 years at work I've never seen a man in a man's skirt once.
There is no fashion movement to normalise this.

But you've proved one thing for me @PlanetJanette pretending men wearing skirts is just fine and acceptable these days is a lie convenient to both GC feminists and TRAs.

It’s out of stock now so I can’t link and this is on the Zara app but here are the Google results too for “Zara men’s skirt”.

@MalagaNights i accept and believe you have never seen men wearing skirts for fashion. But I have, several times, like the long kilt-type ones shown here. I used to work in the music/entertainment industry and quite often young male fashion stylists would wear outfits like this. I linked to an article in GQ earlier in the thread about men’s skirts on fashion runways. No, they’re not a common sight admittedly, and are far more likely to be seen in some demographics than others (younger men, big cities with art/fashion scenes, men working in fashion) but there absolutely is a movement in the fashion industry at least to mainstream them. Like I said earlier, just because you personally haven’t experienced something doesn’t mean it isn’t true.

So one “skirt” which is essentially a kilt (traditional men’s clothing) and is no longer on sale anyway.

....yes and then the several others you can buy from ASOS, Urban Outfitters, Ragged Priest, Jaded, even Amazon, not to mention higher end designers like Rick Owens https://www.farfetch.com/ao/shopping/men/rick-owens/skirts-2/items.aspx

I love how you went from "Zara skirts for men don't exist!" to "OK it does exist but it's out of stock and only one item so it doesn't count"

That's a good look @TedMullins I wouldn't mind men wearing that at all! Or that catching on.

The point isn't that I don't believe you or that no one has ever sold a man's skirt, it's that it's so vanishingly rare that it can hardly be called a fashion movement.

Some people would really like it to be. And insist on grasping at straws to prove it is. Both GC feminists and TRAs it seems.

Encouraging public disapproval (shaming?) because you think someone's intentions might be 'sexual' is to appoint yourself the thought police.

Maybe they are sexual, maybe they aren't. You can't know. And to think you should have that right does seem authoritarian, Judge people on their actions.

And I speak as someone generally sympathetic to GC arguments.

I do think, Eco, that there should be more awareness and discussion of the different motivations.

Pup play, for example, would probably gather fewer tolerant smiles if people realised what they were looking at as the puppies perform for children at pride. I don’t think a parent who was into Pup play would have been happily entertaining children and welcoming them to their table. I think a parent would recognise how inappropriate it was. Indeed in the home environment it would be considered abusive to expose children to your sex life.

Men wearing sexualised women’s clothes, whether badly presented or not, should be recognised as sexual behaviour.

Men wearing boring women’s clothes, not so much.

The point is if/when men's skirts do catch on it'll be skirts like the one linked to made for a specific male look and sold to men.

The issue with GC feminists insisting it's great if men wear skirts in absence of this organic fashion movement taking hold is that if you take that stance you're faced with the men in women's pencil skirts and high heels.
Which is a different game.

What we have is both GC feminists and TRAs all saying it's great for men to wear skirts, both because it fits their agendas.
But in absence of the fashion movement happening or catching on, all we're actually getting is men in women's clothes which puts the feminists in an awkward position, of having to accept that and the reasons they're doing it unless they're very explicit about it.

Maybe the distinction we need is men should wear men's clothes. So skirts designed for men are ok but men in obvious women's clothes are not ok.

But the GC feminists don't want that they want an (imo) unattainable world of genderless clothes.
Which leaves you having to accept men in women's clothes, and all the reasons they'd want to cross that boundary.

Wearing clothes is an action.

I judge people on their clothing all the time. And make assumptions about what signals they are sending.

Men who wear women's clothes don't get to be an exception.

I think a man wanting to wear clothing that is specifically for women has a motive.

If they just liked skirts why not wear all the ones Men's Zara sells?

There is a reason.