Skirt Cafe is an on-line community dedicated to exploring, promoting and advocating skirts and kilts as a fashion choice for men, formerly known as men in skirts. We do this in the context of men's fashion freedom --- an expansion of choices beyond those commonly available for men to include kilts, skirts and other garments. We recognize a diversity of styles our members feel comfortable wearing, and do not exclude any potential choices. Continuing dialog on gender is encouraged in the context of fashion freedom for men. See here for more details.
mr seamstress wrote: ↑Fri Nov 29, 2024 3:14 pm
Under the First Amendment we all have the freedom of expression, by that it shouldn't stand up in court.
The First Amendment gives you the negative right to freedom of expression: the government cannot create laws to restrict you. It does not give you the positive right: that your right to freedom expression is protected from third parties. Which is why in the US it's perfectly fine for schools, workplaces, etc to place arbitrary restrictions on clothing and speech which just wouldn't fly in much of the world.
By contrast, the ECHR creates a positive right, which means you need a good reason.
It remains fascinating how people look at that 200+ year old document and claim it's some form of perfection. It's woefully out of date in many areas. It doesn't even place any obligation on the government to make it easy for everyone to vote.
rode_kater wrote: ↑Sun Dec 01, 2024 3:56 pm
The First Amendment gives you the negative right to freedom of expression: the government cannot create laws to restrict you. It does not give you the positive right: that your right to freedom expression is protected from third parties. Which is why in the US it's perfectly fine for schools, workplaces, etc to place arbitrary restrictions on clothing and speech which just wouldn't fly in much of the world.
Schools is allowed some restrictions, but not total restriction on clothing, same as work places. The First Amendment does gives some protections from third parties. If females are allowed to wear dresses and skirts in schools and work places then males have equal rights under the First Amendment also. The courts will affirm this. Any restrictions in work place is mainly on safety, not one sex or gender.
.......easy for everyone to vote.
Laws have been made to make voting easier, but conservators have taken these laws to court to have them thrown out. If you had pay any attention to this last election you would have read countless stories about conservators challenging voting laws and today conservators are trying create laws to make it harder to vote.
It remains fascinating how people look at that 200+ year old document and claim it's some form of perfection.
I am a U.S. veteran. Serve during Vietnam conflict. I took an oath to protect U.S. Constitution. This amazes you?
A key aspect of sentience is the ability to create and work with categories. Without that ability, we are constantly exposed to stimuli at a phenomenal rate and we can't make sense of any of it. Even animals can create and function within categories. Virtually all categories have sub-categories and they have sub-sub-categories. One category is humans and that can be subdivided into male/female - which is seen as an absolute, followed by gradables like young/old; black/white; rich/poor and so on. The fact that the sex category is generally absolute - we are either male or we are female - means anomalies arise and, when they do, we are tempted to resolve them by looking at the axes available for determining these. Such axes include the microbiological axis which is contingent upon chromosomes and gametes; another is physiological - do we have a penis or a vagina? Another is psychological - do we think of ourselves as being male or female? There is the legal axis - how does the law regard us? And, lastly, there is the sociocultural axis - how do others regard us? None of these are truly absolute though. Perhaps the closest to absolutism is the biological, but even that has various exceptions, such as various intersex syndromes and, in any case, someone's microbiological characteristics cannot be readily established in most day-to-day situations. Intersex syndromes also affect physiology including hormonal make-up and genitalia, while the psychological is subject to both interpretation and change over the course of a lifetime.
Consequently, there are no easy answers - but does there need to be for most purposes? Of course, when it comes to the law, then it's pretty much black and white and there have to be means by which any one of us can be determined to be male or female. For most purposes, however, there is no such imperative. Instead of creating an urgency in determining whether someone is male or female, why don't we just leave the categories and regard our interactants as Stu, Sarah, Mike, Joe, Lucy or Tim - or whatever? Unless we wish to recruit them as a sexual or reproductive partner, why is it crucial to be able to label them as male or female? Why is that relevant? Tell you what - you do you. Dress as you like, style your hair as you like, put on whatever cosmetics or perfume or jewellery you like - just be yourself? Your chromosomes, genitalia, legal status, self-or-sociocultiural identities are of no interest to me and none of my business. Just know I accept the person in front of me, whether you are called Stu, Sarah, Mike, Joe, Lucy or Tim - or whatever.
Stu pretty well nails it there -- in most cases, it just does not matter. What we have going on in the US with that particular bill is the American Taleban sticking its nose into matters that it regards as critical -- in its own kinky little microcosm. Most folks will know this, but with all the hate being spewed from all sides things will get messy with this. I, personally, do not expect a reasonable outcome here -- especially with the incoming cast of characters.
As I famously cracked a few years back on the matter, "What the only difference between "their" Taleban and "our" Taleban?", the answer being of course, "Ours wear ties."
Retrocomputing -- It's not just a job, it's an adventure!
Stu wrote: ↑Mon Dec 02, 2024 3:50 pm
why is it crucial to be able to label them as male or female? Why is that relevant? Tell you what - you do you. Dress as you like, style your hair as you like, put on whatever cosmetics or perfume or jewellery you like - just be yourself? Your chromosomes, genitalia, legal status, self-or-sociocultiural identities are of no interest to me and none of my business. Just know I accept the person in front of me, whether you are called Stu, Sarah, Mike, Joe, Lucy or Tim - or whatever.
It is crucial to label people as male or female because it defines our function in our groups. Men are dustmen, scaffolders, firemen road diggers and soldiers. Our physical form dictates the rules under which we live. Without our rules many people feel that the stricture of society is under threat. I think the underlying fear is if gender lines become blurred, who will do all the jobs currently assigned to men? I have watched a feminist in a debate, she said this: we want full equality in a world where men and women undertake the roles they are best suited.
As you said in another thread about the suffragettes:
"The Suffragettes were wealthy women. They didn't want all women to have the vote; they didn't want working class people of either sex to have the vote. They just wanted what their wealthy husbands had and were prepared to cause explosions, arson and kill innocent people to get that. They also wanted all men to fight in the trenches in World War 1 and called men who didn't cowards, fastening white feathers to any man they saw in cililian clothes - but they didn't want women to lay down their lives, obviously."
There needs to be an open debate nationally, even world wide about where we are and where we go from here. At the moment each side is shouting their own view and there is no discussion, possibly because men have lost the argument, they lost it a long time ago.
I wonder if the conservatives will be able to make a law against crossdressing. Of course this law will only apply to men because it is impossible for a female to crossdress. If such as law is passed, it will end our skirt wearing because we will be in jail. This must not be allowed to happen!
Any such law could have positive about turn. It would most likely be based on some kind decency violation. For example short mini skirts that might expose / or flash your penis.
Or it could be around impersonating women. This could be seen as a threat to female safety.
In such a situation normal knee length or longer skirts / dresses and tights where the wearer is clearly male could not be objected too. On what grounds?
You might even find more men wearing skirts in protest to such archaic laws.
Barleymower wrote: ↑Mon Dec 02, 2024 4:44 pm
Men are dustmen, scaffolders, firemen road diggers and soldiers.
There's a woman soldier in my church choir. She's not a foot soldier in the infantry, but then nor are many of the men in the army. And the qualification for dustman is being able to lift the bins, not having dangly genitals: there are women out there who could chuck a full wheelie bin over the garden wall if they felt like it.
Barleymower wrote: ↑Mon Dec 02, 2024 4:44 pm
Men are dustmen, scaffolders, firemen road diggers and soldiers.
There's a woman soldier in my church choir. She's not a foot soldier in the infantry, but then nor are many of the men in the army. And the qualification for dustman is being able to lift the bins, not having dangly genitals: there are women out there who could chuck a full wheelie bin over the garden wall if they felt like it.
You are right MB I'm with you on that and there are a few women out there getting stuck in. That doesn't detract from the fact that these are jobs done by men.
Don't get me wrong both my wife and I are very hard working and my daughter is also a hard worker.
Men have to be prepared to stand up and say "enough is enough" but no standing up for men has become a dirty word. You are going to find it hard to persuade me that men still need to take another beating to make things equal.
I'd like to think that the men standing up for men's rights will be wearing skirts.
This bill seems designed to prevent males from being referred to as women in addition to keeping males out of women's spaces
Technically it would also keep females out of men's spaces, but I think we all know that nobody gives a damn about men's spaces.
This bill will NOT prevent men from wearing skirts.
Sorry gents... we're not at that part if the speech yet...
FIRST, they came for the trans-women, and I said nothing because I wasn't Trans.
THEN they came for the fem-guys and I said nothing because I'm not fem.
After that, it's either us or the Muslims, I think it's a toss-up.
Nah... we're at least three bills away....
The goal is, to have us as some hybrid of Russia and North Korea by the midterms. Soon nobody will have any rights at all. But the good news is the pendulum should start to swing back at that point.
When life gives you lemons, you just gotta eat em, rines and all.
It's not any particular bill that will be passed but rather a general attitude by some that the government can and should decide not only who fits into which boxes but also precisely what those boxes are and how the designees can be treated.
“And the time came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.”
― Anaïs Nin
