Pdxfashionpioneer wrote: ↑Sat Aug 08, 2020 7:53 am
Dust also said he didn't want to broadcast a message, he just wants to be able to wear his skirts in public. Newsflash everyone! that
IS a message. And the message is that contrary to social norms, it's perfectly okay for a man to wear a skirt in public. A subtext is, "We really DO live in free countries where we're allowed to be ourselves. So now that you've seen I can be me and have people accept me; YOU can be you!"
Just like there is no such thing as an unbiased source, there is no such thing as attire that doesn't say something about the wearer. I'll give you that.
However, I would like to wear what I wear in a way that doesn't read as homosexual, or "I'd like you to treat me as a woman" to the general public. That's despite the fact that women are generally treated better than men in our society. Men are second class citizens today. I'm trying to help, in my own little way, to fix that.
On a side note, "you be you" is terrible advice. Some people are a-holes, and most people (or perhaps everyone) should probably be trying to change themselves into something better. I'm trying to improve myself, not "be me."
Pdxfashionpioneer wrote: ↑Sat Aug 08, 2020 7:53 am
It didn't take long after I started wearing dresses to church for people to come up to me to tell me how brave I was. At first that embarrassed me.
Brave? "Running into a burning building to save lives is brave. Wearing a dress? You've got to be kidding, half the world's population wears them and thinks nothing of it." But if so many intelligent people whom I respected said it was brave, I had to own it. For a little while, I felt I was almost obliged to put on my skirts and dresses so that other people could see they didn't have to hide their individuality anymore.
So, I agree wholeheartedly with Moonshadow, Pelmut and Faldaguy; we're given more license to wear our skirts than we were even 10 years ago because of the Pride Movement. And now, here in the US, they have recently obtained for us the legal right to wear our skirts to work.
They've stood up for us so it's long overdue that we stand up for them.
I too, would recoil at someone calling me brave, just for wearing a piece of clothing. I would also like to be remembered for more than just my attire. It's a balancing act. I do sometimes meet new people in a kilt or skirt. Sometimes it is a decision on my part ahead of time, knowing that I'm going to meet someone new, and making that choice. Sometimes I have a conversation I wouldn't have had otherwise, because I happened to be wearing it.
I don't know how much it has changed in ten years. Ten years ago I was relatively new to all this skirt wearing stuff.
I do know, however, that in my lifetime, women have been fairing objectively better in this country overall, and at the same time have been given a lot of extra encouragement and benefits to help them along. Women get built up and encouraged, while men are denigrated and torn down. I saw it as a child, and it planted seeds that lead in part to where I am now.
To say that any change in attitudes are the result of any one, single force in society is an over-simplification, however. Life is just not that simple. Just like my journey to where I am now, which took a lot of unexpected turns due to events that only God could foresee, the meanderings of societal attitudes are driven by a lot of different forces.