Article on de-gendering fashion

[AnonUser30]

"...people who don't fit the norm..." Such people may be find a superficial tolerance for their presence. (And don't expect success in romantic relationships). Without their strange choices being accepted as mainstream.

At best, such a person may have a status as an eccentric; not harassed or bothered for their choices, but not emulated either.

If your friends and family support you and you're able to secure a decent income, does being viewed as an eccentric really matter? FWIW, I have a very supportive spouse and its not uncommon to get hit on when I'm out in one of my more gender bendy outfits.

I've actually pretty much given up on dressing the part of the peacock as I was starting to get a fair amount of pushback about it -- even from friends (who should have known better). I worry now about getting picked up off the street for being a perceived threat and disappeared off into some (other) third-world hole. It's just not worth it any longer. So, it's back into "protective colouration" for this old boy and trying not to stick out lest I get hassled about it. I figure that societally we've probably regressed about 60 - 70 years in the past decade, and I'm not happy about it. However, I am powerless to do anything about it.

That makes me sad to hear. What kind of pushback did you get from your friends if you don't mind me asking?

This idea that men and women are different body shapes is not really true. Yes, women classically have the “hourglass” body shape, but the reality? Women come in all different shapes and sizes. There is even variations within men as well. The simple truth is that clothes should be sold by body shape and type, not gender. By doing this, the fashion industry would make more money by reducing returns.

It’s also entirely true that gender norms are dying. Why? Generation Z , Alpha and to an extent millennials completely ignore them. When that happens, the system collapses. We are in a very interesting period right now, and the degendering of fashion would be in everyone’s interests.

I agree on your first point in there being quite a variety of shapes amongst women and amongst men. One of the things that I particularly like about wearing skirts is that they're intended to sit at the waist usually. I have unusually wide hips for a man so having the waist sit at my natural waist instead of lower as is common with men's trousers is much more flattering for my body. While I like the idea of selling clothes by body type instead of gender, I think there's quite a bit of money to be made off the gendering of products. Products typically sold to men can be rebranded, painted pink and sold to women with an up-charge and visa versa(I'm thinking of tactical butt wipes being sold to men at a ridiculous price). My wife and I are expecting our first child and getting a glimpse into how heavily gendered all baby products is is kind of insane as their is functionally no difference in body type between boy and girl babies.

Regarding Gen Z and Gen Alpha abandoning gender norms......That doesn't really match what I see. I frequently go to rock shows where there's a lot of younger people, either late teens or early 20's. It is true that it's more common for young men to wear jewelry, paint their nails, and such. It is still very easy to differentiate the men's outfits from the women's. The real question is whether any of them continue their sense of style when they're married and living in the suburbs. When I was younger, there were plenty of boys my age into Emo music with eyeliner and long hair. All those guys grew up into boring looking dudes. In less "alternative" spaces, young boys still seem to dress like young boys did when I was growing up. So, I do see real progress, but it's still a minority of young men that are willing to openly flaunt gender norms.

Well, it used to be, and it remains a comforting thought to some, but the reality in the modern world is that women come in 2 "shapes", the "Peloton Princess" and the "amorphous blob" with nothing really in between. The former is unlikely to be fertile, and the latter is generally undesirable aesthetically pretty much removing both from the breeding pool (and who in their right mind would bring a child into this modern world anyway?).

Describing women you don't find attractive as amorphous blobs feels quite off putting. Perhaps some of your lack of success in the dating scene can be attributed to your attitudes about women. Saying that you feel "insufficiently homosexual to be attracted to the tattoo-festooned, pierced, swears like a sailor modern "woman"" while also complaining that women don't want to date you, a man in a skirt, seems to be a contradiction or am I missing something?

[crfriend]

I've actually pretty much given up on dressing the part of the peacock as I was starting to get a fair amount of pushback about it -- even from friends (who should have known better). I worry now about getting picked up off the street for being a perceived threat and disappeared off into some (other) third-world hole. It's just not worth it any longer. So, it's back into "protective colouration" for this old boy and trying not to stick out lest I get hassled about it. I figure that societally we've probably regressed about 60 - 70 years in the past decade, and I'm not happy about it. However, I am powerless to do anything about it.

That makes me sad to hear. What kind of pushback did you get from your friends if you don't mind me asking?

It wasn't anything overt, but rather something far more insidious -- lavish praise about "how good I look" in male drab. I can tell you my heart fairly sank when that sh!t stated manifesting. Everybody was quite happy and liked it before, and now it's become taboo. I blame the societal changes we're undergoing at the moment, hence my assertion that we're entering another Dark Age.

Well, it used to be, and it remains a comforting thought to some, but the reality in the modern world is that women come in 2 "shapes", the "Peloton Princess" and the "amorphous blob" with nothing really in between. The former is unlikely to be fertile, and the latter is generally undesirable aesthetically pretty much removing both from the breeding pool (and who in their right mind would bring a child into this modern world anyway?).

Describing women you don't find attractive as amorphous blobs feels quite off putting. Perhaps some of your lack of success in the dating scene can be attributed to your attitudes about women. Saying that you feel "insufficiently homosexual to be attracted to the tattoo-festooned, pierced, swears like a sailor modern "woman"" while also complaining that women don't want to date you, a man in a skirt, seems to be a contradiction or am I missing something?

You're missing the nuance in my statement -- I am not "attracted to" men, and I am also not attracted to "imitation men". The rest of that is mostly veneer, but is strangely accurate if one actually studies one's environment -- and the statement is pretty close on in my local environment. The dichotomy is that wide: "pears atop toothpicks" or "stick-figures"; there's precious little middle ground. (And then there's the twin notions of shredded denim and the scourge of "athleisure" to deal with. Things add up into a rather ugly world very quickly.)

None of those last statements are to reflect on personalities but rather the externalities that make up a first impression. However, to get to know the personality involved takes time and effort where a "first impression" is easy to form -- perhaps distressingly easy.

I suppose that quite a bit of this revolves around my attraction to beauty and the way it naturally happens; I can see that in architecture (and like King Charles in the UK know the ugly from the beautiful) [0], nature (almost always), computer-architecture, and in engineering in general. Good designs stand out, aesthetically, as being "beautiful" -- and I've striven towards "beauty" for much of my life -- so the progressions from male drab into the more flowery styles made perfect sense when it was happening. Now, however, in the black days we're existing (can't really say it's "living") in, drab and utilitarian (like in Mao's China, or 1950s USA) make sense.


[0] There's an hilarious backstory there having to do with Boston (MA/USA) City Hall in that regard -- much hated and loved at the same time by lots of folks.

[Grok]

The real question is whether any of them continue their sense of style when they're married and living in the suburbs. When I was younger, there were plenty of boys my age into Emo music with eyeliner and long hair. All those guys grew up into boring looking dudes. In less "alternative" spaces, young boys still seem to dress like young boys did when I was growing up. So, I do see real progress, but it's still a minority of young men that are willing to openly flaunt gender norms.

Good question. Are these departures from the Man Box short term fads?

Another possibility would be such departures lingering with a particular generation, then disappear as that generation ages and dies out.

Minorities willing to flaunt gender norms, as with MIS, probably means that mavericks have a particular interest in eyeliner, or nail polish, or jewelry, etc.
So such individuals are willing to experiment in defiance of such norms.

[Grok]

I think people prefer having men and women being really easy to differentiate visually.

Now, that's not to say skirts specifically can't be reclaimed by men, but that just means other means of differentiation will fill in.

For the moment I am disregarding mavericks who dress to please themselves.

It may well turn out, in the long run, that MIS gains only limited success amongst the Mainstream. Western women have had access to a great diversity of skirts/dresses. The Mainstream may not embrace that for men. Beyond kilting, it may turn out that only a very few designs gain traction, and thus the selection for men will be very limited. Candidate designs have been discussed several times.