Dress Code Problems

[STEVIE]

Effeminate wallet, sure is an oddity, but have you tried the simple question why?
I was told by a girl in my office that, if a guy favoured a particular drink, he had to be gay.
I took her up on the statement and she simply found that she could not justify her initial stance.
On a lot of occasions these assertions become "grounded" simply because they are never challenged.
Steve.

[Silhouette Legs]

Yeah there were 4 or 5 women all together agreeing that men shouldn't be carrying wallets. One's reason was because her father and brother had never carried wallets so she didn't expect other men to either and went on to say that she wouldn't dream of going out with a man who owned one but apparently "man-bags" which others seem to hate were alright.

The girl who did the runner from the man with the wallet, who's quite a stylish lady, said she'd sooner be seen with a man who carried his change in one of those transparent plastic bank bags than a wallet! We were chatting again the other day and I explained how when I was a young child I used to sit cross legged until my uncle one day told me off and I never did it again. You should have seen her face drop she looked absolutely mortified that even a small innocent boy, who didn't know any different, would dream of sitting in a position that is mostly favoured by females. We laughed about it later on and she admitted she hadn't realised she'd given me this look and joked that "I'd dead judgmental me!"

They had a big shock however when they discovered that about 90% of our male staff all had wallets and at one point I let them examine mine (a black leather square thing) only to be told that it was much too wide for their liking (it was nowhere near excessive) and they insisted I would be better off with a narrower one as to make it look "less like a purse." Oh yeah and putting spare change into a compartment with a zip on is "totally gay" and an even worse crime than owning the wallet in the first place! You really couldn't make it up.

There appears to be this notion within society that it's OK for a woman to have clothes and accessories similar to a man's but when male things are deemed to clash with women's then we're the ones expected to change, as if we didn't we would suddenly lose all our manliness and the world would obviously come to an end. I've experienced this with 'Walletgate' and it's the same with the current hatred of Speedos, men's brief underwear and several other things that will no doubt come to mind after I've posted this.

[crfriend]

Wallets are effeminate????????????

Well, that's a new one to me. I've carried a wallet for most of my life just to keep stuff more or less organized and have hidey-space for various "safety-nets" (like keys). (I'm also a big proponent of carrying them in forward pockets instead of rear ones -- for one, it's harder on pickpockets that way, and two, you're not sitting on the thing.)

I will admit to having taken to carrying a bag recently, but I've known that to be normal in Europe for decades and justify it that way. However, nobody has given me any flak for it probably for fear that I'd club them with it.

[crfriend]

Yeah there were 4 or 5 women all together agreeing that men shouldn't be carrying wallets. One's reason was because her father and brother had never carried wallets so she didn't expect other men to either and went on to say that she wouldn't dream of going out with a man who owned one but apparently "man-bags" which others seem to hate were alright.

That's a sample-size fault combined with a self-reinforcing group -- a setup for error is there ever was one. We can commit the same blunder here on this forum (self-reinforcement) but we also know that our sample size is vanishingly small given the general population.

They had a big shock however when they discovered that about 90% of our male staff all had wallets and at one point I let them examine mine (a black leather square thing) only to be told that it was much too wide for their liking (it was nowhere near excessive) and they insisted I would be better off with a narrower one as to make it look "less like a purse." Oh yeah and putting spare change into a compartment with a zip on is "totally gay" and an even worse crime than owning the wallet in the first place! You really couldn't make it up.

I seem to recall my grandfather carrying a change-purse for a good many years so the stuff wouldn't abrade the insides of his pockets. I've always just dumped coins in my pockets which may explain why the life-span of said pockets is pretty short.

[skirtyscot]

I will admit to having taken to carrying a bag recently, but I've known that to be normal in Europe for decades and justify it that way.

Ooh, that's brave, admitting to such un-american behaviour. Have you ever wondered if the real problem that your bosses perceived in you was that you secretly sympathised with the French?

[crfriend]

Ooh, that's brave, admitting to such un-american behaviour. Have you ever wondered if the real problem that your bosses perceived in you was that you secretly sympathised with the French?

I rather suspect that they haven't a clue on that notion. Besides, the first bloke I ever encountered who used a bag was a Brit from our (then -- 1981) computing facility in Milton Keynes, England!

[skirted_in_SF]

Wallets are effeminate????????????

Yup; that's got to be one of the strangest things I've read here for a while.

As a kid I was taught (by example rather than specific lesson) that women carry purses in their handbags and men carry wallets in their jackets. Wallets being effeminate makes as much sense to me as bras being masculine.

Have fun,


Ian.

Well I guess my wallet could be considered effeminate since it is a tri-fold made by Fossil and sold on the woman's side of the store. It's dark brown, so the color shouldn't be an issue. I bought it when one of my co-workers showed me her new wallet and I noticed that it was a more practical wallet than the one I was carrying.
On my suit wearing days, I carry it in one of the inside breast pockets of my jacket. Other days it goes in my purse/bag.

[Sinned]

Those women must be from the planet Mars ( chosen deliberately ) since wallets are sold on the male side of the corridor. There's nothing effeminate about a wallet especially for storing coins which as mentioned are hard work on the pocket. Their whole attitude is just crazy. I don't know any men who don't carry a wallet of some description. And yes, I do remember those things for carrying change as the part of the world I come from ( very working class with heavy steel manufacturers/processors predominant then ) men were very careful to make trousers, in particular, last a long time. As pockets were the main wear area change containers were popular. By their standards would they be considered effeminate as well? Goodness knows what they would have thought about men's skirts. UN. BELIEVE. ABLE.

[Lawrence de Grande]

There's a girl where I work. I otherwise get on with her very well but she acts like the above. She met an apparently good looking bloke in a bar a while back and initially accepted his offer of a drink. But before he managed to pay for it she noticed him pull a leather wallet from his pocket and fled. Reason being that her and several other women in my office are all strangely repulsed by the thought of men carrying wallets. They bizarrely see it as an effeminate trait and instead think we should carry our cash and cards loosely risking losing them. Then last month the same wallet hating girl treated herself to a nice manly bowler hat. Unfortunately the irony was lost on her though!

Is it any wonder that this girl is still in the dating scene? After all, how many men do NOT carry wallets? With an attitude like hers the pickings must be very slim indeed.

[Silhouette Legs]

Well we've been trying to educate her since the incident happened. I think at the time she appeared to be under the false presumption that most men usually carried their change loose. Hence this bloke with the wallet stood out like a rogue apple.

Although she still doesn't appear 100% convinced about the concept she at least appears more accepting that, contrary to her previous expectations, most of us do infact own wallets.

As mentioned the ironic thing is that the girl making all the noise about men carrying wallets is the same girl who thinks nothing of buying herself a bowler hat. Yes she might have bought it on the ladies side of the shop, like you can with many traditionally male orientated items, but I'd certainly struggle to think of a famous woman whose ever worn one before whereas I could reel off a string of famous men's names.

I really don't care who wears what tbh I'm just interested in equality. But I can't help feel its one rule for us and another for them at times.

[partlyscot]

This whole thing about wallets and purses strikes me as very strange. Beyond that, I am starting to reject notions of masculine and feminine as they currently stand. I feel the way some groups and societes insist on this "manly man" image is very harmful in so many ways. And not just to the men.

I find that I myself am not entirely free of it. I've mentioned before that pictures some of you post have left me feeling uncomfortable. But then I ask myself why? The answer often is, because it's unfamiliar. It goes against my conditioning.

[crfriend]

I find that I myself am not entirely free of it. I've mentioned before that pictures some of you post have left me feeling uncomfortable. But then I ask myself why? The answer often is, because it's unfamiliar. It goes against my conditioning.

That's actually a fairly healthy reaction, and sometimes it's good to step outside the familiar just to see what it's like; that helps broaden one's horizons a bit.

[Sinned]

I agree with prtlysct in that some of the activities here to me border on the Xdressing but then I guess that my upbringing was fairly conventional and I was just that bit young to catch some of the less mainstream fashions in the 60's. So I guess that it is the motivations than the result that should be the guide. Some are enjoying nail polish or high heels in their own right and are not trying to look like women so it seems ok. I have tried these things and decided that they aren't for me but who am I to not allow these to others. I do agree that women literally Xdress far more than men do and are allowed to get away with it.

[Silhouette Legs]

I do agree that women literally Xdress far more than men do and are allowed to get away with it.

And nowhere near as much stigma for women either. For example if a women told her friend's she'd borrowed her boyfriend's pajama top one night because she was cold they would most likely think it was cute. However if a man told his friend's he'd borrowed his girlfriend's nightie one evening because it was cold they'd think he was a perv or a sissy.

I think a lot of women don't even realise they cross dress half the time either!

[Grok]

I looked at the web site for the "Freeman" and I felt a bit uncomfortable with that. It seems easier for me to accept traditional MUGs-perhaps because they have well established masculine images. New designs don't, and seeing a skirt like silhouette on a male takes some getting used to.