“I never joke about my work 007.”

Clippings from news sources involving fashion freedom and other gender equality issues.
Grok
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Re: “I never joke about my work 007.”

Post by Grok »

Spirou003 wrote: Thu Aug 13, 2020 7:51 pm
Pdxfashionpioneer wrote: Thu Aug 13, 2020 3:55 am (...)
Anyway, I am who I am, if a woman doesn't want me to be who I am, she can just go away.
The garment would serve as a Bozo filter.
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Re: “I never joke about my work 007.”

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The quoting above was entirely broken, but the term "bozo filter" works quite well. It weeds out the narrow-minded rather handily.
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Re: “I never joke about my work 007.”

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crfriend wrote: Fri Aug 14, 2020 12:36 amThe quoting above was entirely broken, but the term "bozo filter" works quite well. It weeds out the narrow-minded rather handily
I am extremely divided on that one. Nobody is going to be the perfect mate. No matter how closely the two of you match, the other half is going to have some qualities that you find utterly revolting. Maybe she loves how you dress but she voted for Trump and plans to do so again. Maybe she supports all the right causes, but still can't quite wrap her head around the idea of a man wearing a dress but still identifying as male. Does that make her a bozo? Where do you draw the line? EVERYONE is narrow-minded on some topic or other.

It took me some 20+ years to accept the way I prefer to dress and not be a little freaked out by it, so I can't blame someone else who hasn't walked in my comfy ballerina flats for not accepting that side of me in less time. Mrs. Ralph has made it clear she's not excited by my preference for skirts and dresses, but she also didn't make that a deal-breaker when I proposed. Her philosophy is that we each have characteristics, habits, etc. that annoy the other person so she accepts my admittedly bizarre clothing choices in the same way she knows I accept her odd habits and quirks.

Would I be happier with someone who heartily endorsed and supported my choices and even helped me buy clothes that suit my personality and body shape? Sure! But not at the cost of traits that I would find unbearable. So to me it's less about "this is the hill I choose to die on" and more about weighing a multitude of plusses and minuses. Mrs. Ralph is getting on in years and in poor health, and I may find myself alone in a few years. I shudder to think how much effort it's going to take here in the heart of Bible Belt, USA to find someone else who not only shares all my cultural touchstones but also doesn't mind that I don't dress like a cowboy.
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Re: “I never joke about my work 007.”

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Ralph wrote: Fri Aug 14, 2020 4:56 amNobody is going to be the perfect mate. No matter how closely the two of you match, the other half is going to have some qualities that you find utterly revolting.
That's gospel you can take to the bank!

I'm hard to get along with anyway and have a strong preference for smart women, so if my sartorial sense drives off some of the dimmer ones I likely haven't lost anything. Smart ones are, I suspect, statistically more likely to be open-minded and curious -- both traits that I view as essential to basic living.
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Bozo Filter

Post by Grok »

I used to look at kilting venues. How do women react to kilted men? "They either love it, or they hate it." There were a few stories about men who expressed their interest in kilting to their wives-and the wives reactions were negative. Similar to the reactions of some of the wives described in these threads.

I regard kilting as a kind of Bozo Filter. If a woman can't tolerate a garment that is recognized as mens wear, I doubt that she would tolerate other open ended garments on men. Or other forms of personal expression that have been discussed, such as nail polish for men, jewelry for men, etc....... Indeed, I would expect intolerant women to demand rigid adherence to an extremely narrow, stultifying, coffin sized definition of manhood.
Last edited by Grok on Sat Aug 15, 2020 2:04 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: “I never joke about my work 007.”

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And thus with Grok's last comment we return to my stance that linking -- either explicitly or implicitly -- sartorial choices with trans-* represents a significant threat profile to the cis-normative man (to use the modern lingo) due to opportunity loss by driving away a potentially compatible mate. In other words, "Don't do that."
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Re: “I never joke about my work 007.”

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Crfriend said: Dave, please stop pushing the notion that just because someone decides to shove both legs down one pipe instead of two that he's on the trans-* spectrum. It's false, it's offensive, and it's getting old. I do not care one whit whether you are or not; stop branding others.

Carl, please read my posts.

In this thread I did NOT say that wearing skirts automatically makes us "Trans-" anything! I said wearing skirts puts us outside of the Gender Binary, because that is clearly something "Real Men" -- whoever the heck they are -- don't do. Consequently, we are all "Nonbinary," which is a subset of the miscellaneous category on the rainbow flag that is referred to as "Q" for "Queer" (And no Carl that is not redundantly referring to male homosexuals; it refers to folks who do not fit the Gender Binary and do not fit the definitions for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual or Transgendered.).
Fred in Skirts said, As for these groups helping the straight man in skirts they DON'T.

Fred, I have to respectfully and emphatically disagree.

Even before that recent interpretation of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 by the US Supreme Court, the various state chapters of the Human Rights Campaign got 22 or so of their respective states to enact laws forbidding discrimination against members of the LGBTQ community. Most of those laws also protect "gender expression," practically speaking, including men wearing skirts, even at work. This in turn has led businesses that have operations in not only those states, but states without those protections to adopt policies accepting men wearing skirts to work at ALL of their locations.

If that didn't help us, I don't know what does.
Fred also said: They actually hinder the straight man in a skirt by adding baggage we do not need..

This has not been my experience AT ALL. As I see it, the LGBTQ advocacy groups have done the heavy lifting for us in getting the general public to accept people who act and look differently from the norm.

In fact, over the 5 years since I have made skirts and dresses part of my everyday wardrobe I have been referred to by a slur on what the speaker mistook as my sexual orientation exactly twice. Both times I was dressed in menswear from top to toes.
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Re: “I never joke about my work 007.”

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Pdxfashionpioneer wrote: Sun Aug 16, 2020 5:03 amCarl, please read my posts.
I do, and that's why they draw the response that they do.
In this thread I did NOT say that wearing skirts automatically makes us "Trans-" anything! I said wearing skirts puts us outside of the Gender Binary, because that is clearly something "Real Men" -- whoever the heck they are -- don't do. Consequently, we are all "Nonbinary," which is a subset of the miscellaneous category on the rainbow flag that is referred to as "Q" for "Queer" (And no Carl that is not redundantly referring to male homosexuals; it refers to folks who do not fit the Gender Binary and do not fit the definitions for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual or Transgendered.).
From the point of the layman, the hypothetical Joe Sixpack who does not follow the latest jargon or socio-sexual group-think, putting somebody in the "non-binary" category is the same as putting him in the "trans-*" category, is the same thing as saying he's a "flamer". That's how he's going to take it. One of the joys of being able to think outside the box is that when one needs to think inside the box one can -- and that's sometimes important if you want to take someone else's feelings into account.

If Joe's wife, Jane Six-pack (or Wine-cooler if she retained her maiden name), can wear pants anytime she pleases and not get thrown into a bucket with all other sorts of misunderstanding in it, they why can't Joe wear a skirt without getting thrown into a bucket with all sorts of misunderstanding in it? If an absolute linkage is made between a guy wearing anything other than "the uniform" with his sexuality then the entire game is lost and we may as well put our pants back on and go home like good little lemmings.

It's not about you; it's not about me: it's about the average guy on the street.
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Pdxfashionpioneer
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Re: “I never joke about my work 007.”

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Carl said, the hypothetical Joe Sixpack who does not follow the latest jargon or socio-sexual group-think, putting somebody in the "non-binary" category is the same as putting him in the "trans-*" category, is the same thing as saying he's a "flamer". That's how he's going to take it.

Clearly, you admit that I did NOT say that everyone on this forum is a "trans-" anything. But you are concerned that your imaginary friend (or is he your alter ego?) "Joe Six-Pack" is apt to conflate "non-binary" with "trans-" with a derogation of "gay."

In the first place Carl, if by "Joe Six-Pack" you mean working class Americans I have to say you don't have the first idea of what you are talking about. I grew up in a working class home, as I have said before MY FATHER was an electrician and most of his family (my uncles, cousins, etc.) were also in the skilled trades. During the Summers between my college terms, I earned my college expenses by working in construction. Subsequently, I have hired and worked with plenty of construction workers who remodeled both my own homes and the buildings I was responsible for in my professional and volunteer work and I can assure you that the vast majority of them are quite capable of understanding those distinctions if and when someone takes the time to explain those terms to them.

If you're not able to, that's your problem not mine. I'm not going to be constrained by your imagined limitations of your imaginary friends.
being able to think outside the box

Finally, I've had about enough of your arrogant implications that whenever I disagree with you it's because I don't "apply critical thinking" -- I do, that's why I don't accept your far-fetched conspiracy theory that there's a cabal of obscenely rich people purposely making a mockery of our elections -- or I don't "think outside the box." Really? You've admitted that you have never dared wear a dress to work; I do it all the time. And no one resents my doing so or any of the other dreadful things that you have said would befall me for being prudent enough to see what the laws in my state did and didn't protect, what my company's policies did and didn't provide for and for giving my superiors the courtesy of letting them know what they were going to be in for.

Taking those steps wasn't cowardice; it was simple common sense.
Last edited by Pdxfashionpioneer on Sun Aug 23, 2020 3:01 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: “I never joke about my work 007.”

Post by Fred in Skirts »

Dave, me thinks you protest too much..

It sounds like you are trying to convince yourself that being under the lbgrstwvx umbrella is the only way to go. I say you are wrong! So please stop trying to make us believe what you want us to believe...

I don't and I don't think Carl does either, nor many others here as well.
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Re: “I never joke about my work 007.”

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Pdxfashionpioneer wrote: Sun Aug 16, 2020 5:03 amIn this thread I did NOT say that wearing skirts automatically makes us "Trans-" anything! I said wearing skirts puts us outside of the Gender Binary, because that is clearly something "Real Men" -- whoever the heck they are -- don't do. Consequently, we are all "Nonbinary," which is a subset of the miscellaneous category on the rainbow flag that is referred to as "Q" for "Queer" (And no Carl that is not redundantly referring to male homosexuals; it refers to folks who do not fit the Gender Binary and do not fit the definitions for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual or Transgendered.).
All these labels are nonstandardized; that is they seem to mean different things to different people. Most of the people I see self-describing as "non-binary" use it to indicate that they consider themselves neither male nor female, but something that doesn't fit either biological or social expectations of those roles.

That's not me. I consider myself fully male, inside and out; I'm not somewhere on a "spectrum" 82% of the way over to the "male" side. I just happen to do and wear things that society - not biology - expects more from women than from men. To date, the most accurate descriptive label* I've found is "gender nonconforming". Just because I don't fit Joe Bloggs's idea of what it is to be a man doesn't mean I am in any way less than, or other than, a man.

* However, I detest labels.Their only useful function seems to be to group people together to make class judgments, which is bad to begin with, or to find others who share your social niche.
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Re: “I never joke about my work 007.”

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Fred said, Dave, me thinks you protest too much..

It sounds like you are trying to convince yourself that being under the lbgrstwvx umbrella is the only way to go. I say you are wrong! So please stop trying to make us believe what you want us to believe...


No, Fred my last post was objecting to Carl putting words that I didn't say into my mouth and his expecting me to oblige him by reading his mind and making a nonsensical interpretation of something I made very clear.

And finally his demeaning my heritage.

I'm quite sure you'd have plenty to say in response to anybody who dissed you in any one of those ways, let alone all three at once.
Last edited by Pdxfashionpioneer on Sun Aug 23, 2020 3:02 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: “I never joke about my work 007.”

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Ralph said, All these labels are nonstandardized; that is they seem to mean different things to different people. Most of the people I see self-describing as "non-binary" use it to indicate that they consider themselves neither male nor female, but something that doesn't fit either biological or social expectations of those roles.

That's not me. I consider myself fully male, inside and out; I'm not somewhere on a "spectrum" 82% of the way over to the "male" side. I just happen to do and wear things that society - not biology - expects more from women than from men. To date, the most accurate descriptive label* I've found is "gender nonconforming". Just because I don't fit Joe Bloggs's idea of what it is to be a man doesn't mean I am in any way less than, or other than, a man.

* However, I detest labels.Their only useful function seems to be to group people together to make class judgments, which is bad to begin with, or to find others who share your social niche.

No argument from me on nearly all of this. Frankly, gender nonconforming probably fits me the most closely as well. Unfortunately, gender nonconforming is not a protected class and some of the other groupings that at worst are close enough are. So I go with the flow.
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Re: “I never joke about my work 007.”

Post by rode_kater »

I always find this discussion of "protected classes" a bit weird. Article 1 of the Dutch Constitution states: Discrimination on the grounds of religion, belief, political opinion, race or sex or on any other grounds whatsoever shall not be permitted. The idea that discrimination would only be prohibited if it appeared on an enumerated list feels weird. (Note: although the concept is older, the current text is since 1983).

Additionally, Article 10 protects the "persoonlijke levensfeer", which is usually translated as "privacy" but is perhaps better described as "personal space" in all its forms and thus also what clothing you wear. These are all expressions of similar Articles 8, 10 and 14 in the ECHR.

Of course there is a world of difference between having rights and being able to exercise them. But for me (fortunately I guess) worrying about what my employer thinks of my skirt/dress wearing is way down the list.
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Re: “I never joke about my work 007.”

Post by Pdxfashionpioneer »

Rode_kater said, I always find this discussion of "protected classes" a bit weird.


You just pointed out one of the ways that the self-proclaimed "leader of the Free World" (the USA) is still behind the curve. We have so many prejudices ingrained into our society we have to root them out one at a time and specifically outlaw them.

Most of us, I pretty sure, agree with you; it's pretty dumb of a country that brags about it being the "home of the free."

That is true you know ... so long as you're just like everyone else!
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