STEVIE wrote: ↑Sun Mar 22, 2020 10:59 amOn the likelihood that the child is not your offspring, why should you be perturbed over what a seven year old wears? Secondly, would you not wish to wear your own choice of garb at the same event?
We are all about challenging age old gender conventions are we not? With regard to the ceremony and formality of marriage, even these conventions have altered and evolved quite drastically in time and culture.
In my own case, I have refused to attend two family weddings based on this scenario. I do not see why I should submit to an arbitrary dress code which is effectively exclusive to me alone.
Social gatherings aside, on that basis just concede and stick to trousers. Convention preserved, problem solved and Aunties and Uncles are not discomfited the sight of a male in a skirt or dress.
Steve.
I said "my family", by which I meant my children or grandchildren.
Do I wear my own "choice of garb" when I attend weddings? Generally, no - I am told what to wear and that is usually a suit and tie.
I don't have a desire to challenge gender conventions as such, that's not my point of being here. My issue is with a garment as basic as a piece of cloth that doesn't separate the legs being the exclusive choice for just half of the population. One might even call that a "men's rights issue".
Weddings are formal events and the formalities exist on the basis of traditions. They are not routine activities, otherwise there would be nothing special or momentous about them. Weddings are the joining of two opposites - the two biological entities that nature requires to make a child and one of the features of a wedding is the highlighting of those differences, not the blurring of them - and never the erasure of them. They are also events which, while enjoyed by all present, really belong to those who are marrying, and their preferences should be the primary consideration. So I will dress as I am told, or at least in such a way that does not conflict with convention, when I am attending a traditional wedding so that I do not become a focus of attention, or a source of discomfort to the primary actors.