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Showing results for tags 'fashion. gender'.
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I'm male, and I prefer to wear dresses and all manner of apparel typically deemed "feminine", or for women. Given my style of dress, nearly anyone who saw me would label me a crossdresser, and that's fine--I take no offense. However, I advocate that there's no such thing. Clothes are clothes. It doesn't matter who's wearing them. The concept of gender specific clothing is purely a learned, environmental phenomenon. You think it's part of our DNA to know that skirts are for women? Of course not. Everything that any culture believes about clothing, and which sex should wear what, is just due to what people grow up seeing and being told is normal. The fact is that there is no rationale whatsoever for any clothing being sex-specific. Take dresses for example. It's a dress. It's a one-piece thing with a skirt instead of pant legs. It knows no gender. What does it matter what it's covering? The only reason we have any concept of "dressing like a woman" or "dressing like a man" is because of what society tells us is normal. A Shyamalan The Village-esque isolation experiment could easily produce a generation of people believing that dresses are just for men. In my opinion, the only thing that could possibly qualify as truly crossdressing would be wearing a garment designed for a body part you don't have. I.e. support undergarments. That's it. (And even then, I don't care what people want to wear. Wear whatever makes you happy.) Other than that, I don't think clothing should have gender labels. Although I concede that adjectives such as masculine and feminine are useful in describing clothing, as well as other things, I submit that we steer away from this idea of "men's clothing" and "women's clothing." I also concede that it's still useful to have men's and women's departments in stores, as the fit of the clothes will be different, but what I'm advocating is that we throw out the idea that certain types, certain...genres, if you will, of clothing are just for one sex or the other. Thoughts? *EDIT* It occurred to me that my main post could be taken to imply that I am in favor of complete gender neutrality, possibly to the point of not acknowledging the differences between the sexes. This isn't the case at all. In fact, you'll never meet a bigger advocate for noticing, appreciating, and celebrating the differences between the sexes. Fair and equal treatment is the not the same thing as pretending that there are no differences. I am merely calling for the lifting of apparel taboos, and for people to realize that a man wearing a dress is not unnatural, nor does it automatically equate to or imply cosplaying as a woman. If a man is wearing a dress, then it's a man's dress. We should not have to call it "crossdressing," though I'll reiterate that I don't take offense to the term, either. Just wanted to clarify that. Cheerio.
