Essay

[Stu]

For one of my classes I teach at the university, I begin the course by asking my students to write an argumentative essay on any topic they like on a topical issue. It's a way of assessing their skills in composing English texts and their grammatical accuracy. I got a bit of a shock when a mature female student wrote an essay which might be relevant to this discussion. She apparently worked for a while in a fire department in a former Eastern European country as a station-based assistant and she stated that she was issued with a female uniform which was distinct from the men's. A couple of years after she joined, they abandoned the female uniform altogether and she was required to wear the same uniform as the guys. No problem. She left there and later obtained a job as a hotel receptionist in a small hotel, which had its own uniform of a blouse and skirt as all the receptionists were female. She was promoted to head receptionist and the hotel was later expanded and took on more receptionists, including their first male, who was to work night shifts only. The problem she had was that there was no uniform for him, and the suppliers didn't make a co-ordinating uniform with the woman's style, so he was basically allowed to wear a suit, shirt and tie of roughly the same colour as his female counterparts. Her thesis was that, when it comes to uniforms or corporate dress, the clothes should reflect the job and only the job, and should not take account of any irrelevant personal factors such as gender (as was the case with the fire service job). If, she postulated, a female fire service worker can, for the sake of uniformity and convenience, abandon the dress segregation of a separate female uniform - i.e. a female in a predominantly male occupation wearing masculine attire as they do in the military, then why is the reverse so unthinkable? Why can't a male receptionist wear the same uniform as his female colleagues? She extended that to other female-dominated uniformed occupations including nurses, and suggested that the underlying reason is that females can, and sometimes are actively encouraged, to copy males. The reverse, however, is far less acceptable because of the perceived lower status of femininity as compared to masculinity, and such a masculine to feminine shift would be thought of as demeaning for a male.

It was quite an interesting essay to read.

Stu

[crfriend]

Thanks for sharing that, Stu. I seem to recall having you mentioned it before, but the premise was never expounded upon.

Your student's thesis, sadly, rings true. I say sadly because there is a common perception in many cultures that the feminine is less valuable, and therefore inferior, to the masculine. One would hope that would not be the case in forward-looking societies, but old ideas tend to die hard.

One of the thoughts I have offered here is that by virtue of the style of apparel we choose to wear we refute the perception of feminine inferiority -- by choice, we are making a visible and forceful statement that our sisters are our equals and that they should be so treated, for by not treating them so we are diminishing all of humanity. The mere act of a man putting on a skirt has the power to speak volumes, especially once one brings the notion of equality into the argument, and that's an argument that more than a few guys here have put forward; once one thinks it through, if one does not come to the conclusion that we are all -- men and women -- equals then one hasn't likely really worked the thought all the way through and is being disingenuous.

Your student certainly provided ample examples of the phenomenon, and seems to have had some luck in driving the point home to her instructor. It is my hope that those of us here can bear those thoughts in mind when we put a skirt on (kilts do not apply in this specific instance) in the morning or before we go out.

[ethelthefrog]

An inspired thesis, and one I intend to deploy when I'm next having a conversation about why men can't wear skirts.

Thanks for sharing.


Paul.

[Grok]

Your student's thesis, sadly, rings true. I say sadly because there is a common perception in many cultures that the feminine is less valuable, and therefore inferior, to the masculine. One would hope that would not be the case in forward-looking societies, but old ideas tend to die hard.

If females are percieved as inferior, then it follows that female clothing is a badge of inferiority.

Realistically, to the extent that the sexes are different, we are comparing apples and oranges. If half the human race - women as a group - are dysfunctional, then the human race would have become extinct long ago.

A woman friend - who I think very highly of - gave me one of her old sweat shirts. It was an honor to wear it. That it did not fit like a man's sweat shirt was a constant reminder that it had been her's, a person I respect.

(I ended up donating the sweat shirt, as it apparently shrank in width, along with half of the old clothes in my closet).

[crfriend]

An inspired thesis, and one I intend to deploy when I'm next having a conversation about why men can't wear skirts.

At the risk of sounding like I'm arguing semantics, why not frame the argument in terms of won't rather than can't. There is precisely nothing codified in law in most western jurisdictions that prohibits men from wearing skirts, so that pretty much removes the rationale of can't and puts it on something else, and I suspect that something else is, first and foremost, won't.

Recall that equality, by its very nature, is transitive; if A is equal to B, therefore B must be equal to A. If one wants to argue equality, then one must grasp that point -- and it can be a sticky one sociologically.

With the above as a starting point, the argument can then be extended to the notions of "fashion freedom" (not a term I particularly like) and how one can appropriate elements of the other gender's (genders'?) attire for one's own, and this is where we likely start going down a rathole because at this point everything enters the realm of subjectivity and concrete logic falls apart.

[JohnH]

I saw a video about men getting nips and tucks on msnbc.com.

The surgeon made a blanket statement saying that a man "can't" wear makeup to hide bruises instead of using the word "won't".

I'm not advocating men disguising themselves as women, but I say there needs to be a loosening of the rigid constraints placed on men.

John

[ziggie]

Interesting discussion. I like the can't vs. won't distinction. I'm very reticent to wear a kilt around town and have, so far, not ventured out in a skirt of any other design. It certainly isn't that I "can't" as I have a job that is protected and no family who might be adversely affected by such an action. On the other hand I "wont" - yet - for a whole slew of reasons, none of which are really meaningful but all of which add up to not being willing to deal (again, yet) with the inevitable questions.

[crfriend]

The [msnbc.com] surgeon made a blanket statement saying that a man "can't" wear makeup to hide bruises instead of using the word "won't".

The surgeon confused the terms. The notion of can't is an explicit statement that the behaviour in question is prohibited by statute or is otherwise "punishable" by some means; won't means precisely that -- that someone will not engage in an otherwise permissible activity. To take it a step further, I will state that the msnbc personality was badly misinformed on the use of makeup -- lots of men have availed themselves of the use of same, albeit mostly in the realm of theatre or broadcasting. Recall, too, that quite possibly an American presidential election was swayed by the use of makeup (and, by connexion, lack of) on the candidates in a debate in 1960. Makeup is permissible for men, practical in certain circumstances, and virtually mandatory in a further subset.

I'm not advocating men disguising themselves as women, but I say there needs to be a loosening of the rigid constraints placed on men.

Indeed, but one should recall that there is a "tipping point" where confusion can begin to rear its head in folks who are not used to the notion.