Confident young men in girly skirts.

[BobM]

By all means have a look at this.

http://www.africancolours.com/african-a ... hethwa.htm

Confident young men in girly skirts.

[Kilted_John]

Very interesting article. Didn't really find the skirts to be that feminine looking, though.

-J

[janrok]

Actually I can't see what is girly about these skirts. It is a very nice picture showing that men all over the world like the comfort of unbifurcated garments.

[couyalair]

I'd say the photographer chose these subjects for their shock value, and the journalist fell into the trap of exposing all his own notions of sex, gender and clothing. Claiming that we can evaluate the degree of virility in these young lads from the way they are posing is ridiculous. Were the lads not encouraged to take up different stances? I wonder how many of them had been photographed before. I wonder how many of them think their own clothes are "girly".
Reading homoeroticism into the photo of the two standing close, with a hand on the shoulder is typical of northern protestants, who feel that physical contact must mean sex. In many countries, free of such inhibitions, people frequently touch each other, whether to show friendship or to emphasize an argument, and men always seem to get close and look friendly in group photos, with no hint of sex at all.

Martin

[BobM]

I guess not everyone bothered to read the article. I made no value judgments, I only suggested that the pictures were interesting.
Excerpt: (emphasis mine)

"Their outfits of Scottish tartan or checked skirts, frilly, loose, white shirts like blouses, bow ties and close-fitting hats embellished with floral rosettes and appliqués, often give the youths an androgynous appearance.

Religion is not the subject matter. The exegetical nub of “The Brave Ones’ is two pronged. Zwelethu’s concern with the indeterminacy of sexual binaries is coupled with his study of the construction of identity amongst adolescent males as they come of age, and assume their manhood.

What Zwelethu captures are private rites of passage, both conscious and unconscious, and the feminine costume worn by the boys, gives an added sharpness of definition to his analysis of the porousness and elasticity of gender. Taken as a whole, the photographs spell out a narrative in which certain lads conform to the norm, others struggle with it, and a few reject it.

In Zwelethu’s vision, masculinity is defined by example, rather than instinct. It is something we imbibe by a process of osmosis from our elders and peers. Masculinity is learned. It is an ideal that we imitate, study and perform like an actor embracing a role. Many of the boys in the portraits are captured at that fluid stage of development when their future personalities remain latent, embryonic and undefined. Some boys may appear to relax in front of the camera, but that is not to say that they do not ‘pose’.

‘Posing’, in the sense of assuming and relinquishing a variety of different masculine identities, of experimenting and improvising, is seen as an intrinsic part of their evolution, and despite its self-conscious quality, it is a spontaneous mode of behavior. They ‘try on’ identities, like garments, so as to see which ‘fit’ them best. "

[Since1982]

I don't really know what the author is looking for in responses, personally, I don't see anything "frilly" or "girly" at all in those outfits. Just comfy looking outfits for young men looking to get OUT of trousers. The same clothes with trousers wouldn't be considered girly at all. Adding a pleated skirt shouldn't change anything. In my opinion.