Greetings!

[3genders]

Hi Everyone

I've just joined the forum and would like to say a big hello !

Haven't got much to say about myself really as I'm pretty unadventurous and I don't tend to get out all that much! Instead, I spend a lot of time rooted to the Internet following news items about dress code stories and the subsequent court cases that frequently follow.

Well...I'm here because generally, I'm interested in gendered dress codes and people's experiences in challenging them. For anyone who's interested, I've written an essay on my website about legal challenges to gendered dress codes in the UK.

http://www.morethan2genders.com/page22.htm

In common with many people on this forum, I would like to see the social taboo against men wearing skirts completely broken. I think that this is a really excellent forum for people to find a path to this goal (both personally and politically) and also to discuss ways in which to challenge, and therefore expand, the restrictive clothing options that society currently presents to males as gender-conventional.

Good luck, folks and Best Wishes!
3genders

[Charlie]

Hi 3genders and welcome to the cafe. I read your essay with interest. It's amazing how the so-called equal opportunities people can weasel word the case against men - so much for equality. I think they'd be better called 'The Commission for the preservation of double standards'.

Charlie

[3genders]

Hi Charlie !

Pleased to meet you! Thank you for welcoming me to the cafe - really like the skirts, by the way...

Yes, looking at the end result of legal challenges relating to gendered dress codes that have been brought forward since the 1975 Sex Discrimination Act there do seem to be plenty of double standards there.

Pile on the pressure, people!

Best Wishes
3genders

[RichardA]

Hi <waves> and welcome

[3genders]

Hi, RichardA

*Waves back* Thankyou!!!
Pleased to meet you!

3genders

[Colin]

Hi 3genders and welcome to SkirtCafe.
Congratulations on your site and the research you have carried out.

If employers and others who enforce dress codes were fair and treated everyone equally, there would be no need for special treatment for trans gender people, as they could wear what they liked in the same way as everyone else. I don't believe that anybody should have to justify to others why they choose to wear a particular choice in clothing.

[3genders]

Hiya, Colin !

Nice meeting you

Thank you very much for taking the time to look at my site, and for your kind feedback.

Yes, if we all had proper freedom of dress then this would help give each one of us the opportunity to express, and be, who we are more.

I think that the power of many employers and educational authorities to effectively dictate that men look one way and women look the other, is bad news for everybody. I just can't understand why more people don't object to being confined to such limiting sexist-genderist boundaries. After all, whether an employee or student wears a skirt or not has nothing to do with general smartness, and can be totally in keeping with professional standards of appearance. Forcing men to dress one way and women to dress the other has, therefore, no justification whatsoever.

Yeah, right on! I think that what you're all doing is just great! Congratulations to you for having the courage to challenge these oppressive dress codes.

Greetings and best wishes

3genders

[sapphire]

For one period of time, I was associated with a local community college. During the times I spent there I had many roles: Student, Trustee and Professor.

During my time there, the only dress code (for faculty, staff and students) seemed to be: wear what you like but don't expose your sex bits and show respect to everyone else.

I remember one event where I was dressed in a micro-mini (I was teaching then and in my mid-fifties) and Carl wore a skirt. aAt the event comment was made from a faculty friend on our bravery and that we looked good. The college President did ask privately why Carl was wearing a skirt and I responded that he liked them. The President was OK with that.

Perhaps the openness and acceptance that I encountered there was due to the fact that the college served all who wanted aneducation and that the community we served was multicultural and had a large multicultural immigrant population.

THe priority was knowledge and learning, not body covering.

[Bob]

3genders, welcome to SkirtCafe. Thank you for writing and sharing the articles. It will definitely take me a while to read and digest it all!

[cessna152towser]

Welcome to the forum and thanks for the link. I am particularly interested in this as my long term ex girlfriend went off to live with a transgender, to whom she has provided great support in the male to female change. As I am an all male living in Scotland, who enjoys the comfort of kilts and denim skirts I am fortunate that a kilt is acceptable wear for my work.

[Milfmog]

3genders,

Welcome to the café. I have read your linked article and like you find it surprising that so few people even seem to notice, let alone complain about, the gender inequality of dress codes that typically exist in the UK.

I have recently sewn a few seeds with my HR department, who have indicated that they see no reason why wearing a kilt should be a problem but then continued with “let me run it past the CEO before you try it”. I’ll allow another week or two and then raise the subject again if I’ve heard nothing. So far I have not suggested any other types of skirt; softly, softly seems like a sensible approach with a CEO as conservative as ours.

Watch this space for updates!!

Have fun,


Ian.

[3genders]

Hi there again!

Hello there, Sapphire, Bob, cessna152towser and Milfmog, and thanks to all for welcoming me to the forum. Thank you also for taking the time to check out my website - I really appreciate your kind words of support and your intelligent feedback.

Sapphire: I think it's great that your local community college took such an open-minded approach to dress code issues. By contrast, some years' ago, over here in the UK, I once worked for a college (in an admin capacity). When some of my gender issues came up, I was told that I would not be allowed to wear a skirt to work and was warned about wearing too much make-up (should I decide to wear it). I was reminded that I was employed by them as a male and was, therefore, expected to present myself as one ! I also overheard someone chatting about how she'd just been to a meeting one boiling, hot summer's afternoon and had witnessed the Principal telling off some of his male lecturers because he 'didn't approve of grown men in short trousers'! Fortunately, I work somewhere else now!!!

Bob: Thank you for your kind welcome. There is quite a lot to get through on my website - being concise is definitely not my strong point. I find it kind of therapeutic to write/draw/paint everything out like that - I guess that's why a lot of people start their own websites. Thanks for your support.

cessna: (may I call you cessna for short? You can call me 3 if you like ) I'm sorry that the relationship with your girlfriend ended. Personally, I don't do 'relationships' (Despite the website spiel, I'm a bit of an introvert really which is probably me making an excuse for myself for being boring and anti-social ) Your kilts sound really 'bonnie'! It's such refreshing news to know that your workplace is cool with you wearing a kilt to work. Great tradition you've got there!

Milfmog: Thank you too, for making me feel welcome. (Wow...you really are such a friendly bunch!) I do hope that HR give you the go-ahead to wear a kilt to work - good luck, chum ! Yep...isn't it strange how so many people accept things as they are when it comes to gendered dress codes? I mean, we're supposed to be living in an age where gender roles have been challenged by feminism and we're constantly told that gender isn't important when we're applying for, or carrying out a job yet so many in authority seem to go 'ballistic' whenever someone wears something that they don't feel is 'conventionally' (whatever that means!) appropriate to their gender!?

I'll certainly be watching this space with regard to how you get on, Milfmog, and, of course, I hope you get the desired result.

Oh well...sorry I've waffled on a bit. Your stories and experiences are so fascinating and engaging.

Thank you so much for welcoming me, folks!

All the very best!

3genders

[sapphire]

Hi 3genders
Usually faculty and staff dress a bit more "up" than the students and a bit more formally, but male professors who want to will wear shorts in the summer.

Just as we have a student body, we also have a multicultural/multiethnic faculty/staff. Most of the faculty/staff wear regular Western business garb, but for holidays, etc, wear their traditional garb.

At the large Episcopal church at Pentecost, parishoners dress in their native, then parade around the church reciting the Gospel in their native languages. It is a truly beautiful thing.

Here, the community celebrates Martin Luther King Jr Day with a community brunch, an event that welcomes all ethnicities and all forms of dress.

Now I'm not claiming that all of this tolerance and understanding permeates the community at large, but I think we've got something special going on.

[Bri]

Saphire, that's very cool!

I wish some of the places I went to school were like that. Sadly though, most were in place that were somewhat conservative. I really do agree that promoting free styles of dress also promotes the idea of free thought and speech. The more one thing is restricted, the more the idea of many other things being the same.


And 3genders, I read most of the articles, and I was really just like wth?? People can be the stupid and ignorant, and say well they can wear something, but because you have something between your legs, you can't. Just like a lot of corporations that I've seen pulling some really unethical things and thinking that it's perfectly fine in the name of profit. I prefer stores that are a bit more expensive (like a small independent tennis store I visited to buy a skirt) but you get much better customer service and can actually get to know the owners one on one. Maybe even get to know them away from where they work.

Yet sometimes I can understand how in certain businesses they have to keep the dress code up to a professional level, but having a dress code that really violates something or gives one gender something and leaves the other out is simply discrimination. Now I think that when a business decides to have a dress code that it should be a meeting open to all employees being able to express their thoughts without the worries of being fired because they think differently, hell that's what makes most companies good is when they have many types of thought.

And yes, I've written a few papers on the subject of diversity in the workplace, not just racial and what your skin looks like, but how differently people of the same color can think.

[Since1982]

Thanx to this site, for the last 3 years, I HAVE been wearing whatever I wanted all the time. I only own 2 pair of trouser-type leggings. One pair of cut offs, one pair of long jeans for jury duty at our local City court which has a older female Judge who, whether she has the right or not refuses to allow me to wear a skirt to court. I have about 17 skirts and wear them for everything else in my life.