Opening Young Minds (or Watching Them Close)

[GothScot]

No stranger to the board. I forgot what I used to post under back when this was still Tom's Cafe, BUT incident last week just shows we've still a ways to go.

As part of my fellowship at uni for grad school, I have to teach two classes in English. We're using a book about reading all the different kinds of text (including people), and so we got to the chapter on Reading and Writing About Gender and I thought "A-ha, perfect opportunity!" so I thought I'd teach class in a skirt, especially after the summer getting questioned about it by the (now thankfully ex) gf. Being of the gothic stripe (as you can tell from the post), I wore in one of my long Tripp skirts with the zips, D-rings, and spiky bondage straps on it (black patent vinyl with red accents), black fishnets and skull t-shirt as well as my bovver boots.

Not only did it freak out the department secretaries when they realized the legs weren't covered separately, but the students sat there with their mouths open the whole time, especially my side o' beef student athletes. We even discussed the semantic issue that these garments are referred to as "one-legged pants" on certain sites, and what that suggests about cultural anxiety in that males can't wear a skirt, but they can wear one-legged pants or "floorkilts." ******** to that, it's a long, shiny, black skirt!

Wore a similar outfit Halloween day out to do banking, pay bills and hit the bookstores. I did get a rather disgusted look from a woman at Sears in line. Only had on one of the black twill ones with silver hardware that time.

Myself, I felt great! Noisy as the vinyl was to walk in. Hot too.

I'd walked down to the rec. facilities in my long goth skirts before (I live in the arty section, so not much in the way of a double-take), even carried on a conversation with a female student, but I can tell, especially from the student in-class writing where I asked which YouTube video made them the most uncomfortable in terms of playing with gender identity (David Bowie, Annie Lennox, Eddie Izzard or Tim Curry) there's not much progress going on. Only one student really thought it was great, or so she said (Surprised it's a female? Neither am I.) Still a ways to go, lads.

[ChrisM]

Great story!

I too teach at uni, in Engineering. But I have worn fair dinkum skirts to various after-hours events and nobody bats an eye.

I wore my black office skirt (plain black, knee length...secretary-like thing) to the start of term party, there was one girl there in a black skirt, so we had several photos taken and joked about being the only two to have received the memo.

I do dress 'normally' to actually lecture, just wanting to reduce their distractions. Except when my lecture on hovercraft design gets around to the subject of hovercraft skirts, in which case I - of course! - will wear a skirt of my own!

So: Welcome back to posting GothScot....and thanks for shaking up their mental cages!

Chris

[Pythos]

Well as a fellow goth (well closet perky variety due to home situation and chosen profession), I can say that I thankfully did not encounter such closed minds when attending college, but then again I did not wear skirts at that time...just black clothing with black leggings of varying material, or catsuits, and no make up. (would have loved to though).

The only thing that is gonna get skirts worn by men accepted is for there to be exposure. Unfortunately it first needs to be done by those that have relatively little to lose or are in an accepting profession. Due to my chosen profession, until I make a name for myself I am severely restricted in my expression, It does not help that I have a mother that is firmly planted in the 50s along with the attitude of that time ("oh my what will the neighbors think?").

Since the passing of my father, I am becoming much less inhibited, not sure why, he really was not a restriction, aside from his not liking my brother guitar playing, and scaring me from learning how to play (and me being a general coward). In fact several years ago when I was working at a place I hated waking up for, he came by to visit, he told me he was very proud of me, even with the stuff he didn't understand (such as my style). I wish mom were such.

When I do get the opportunity to wear a skirted outfit, I get many compliments from both genders. I also get this line from many guys "if I had your build I would so wear that". I usually say, "well there are kilts, you can consider those a safe "training wheel" for skirt wearing." or something like that.

What makes me sad about the Goth community is that the pics I see of the club I frequented I see guys in pretty much mundane clothing, no makeup, and the ladies all done up awesome. What the hell? Why do guys do this kinda thing? It might just be my area.

Sorry, off topic there:)

I have to say, that rig you wore sounds like it stands out even if worn by a girl or woman. It sounds positively awesome, but definitely an attention grabber. It would be equivalent to me showing up to teach a student while I was in my Mana cosplay, or even my Goth club garb (Gads that would be fun though, one of these days I gotta pose in front of my steed in said garb, flashing dual Devil's horns!!, HA another goal for me to do before I kick it. LOL). But what you did, definitely took guts. Good show. My experience with "beefcakes" is most (definitely not all), are really insecure children that have been living to the desires of their father. Seeing a guy in a skirt might bring up unpleasant memories of abuse from an abusive father not letting them be themselves, not necessarily in clothing choices but perhaps music, or artistic expression, or liking ballet, who really knows but them. One thing is for sure, I wish it would go away. I despise Macho. It is dumb and damaging.

How about some pics of that getup, it sounds cool.

[Since1982]

Today...I went to the TAX office to pay my yearly property taxes. About 6 secretaries there taking the money, but all in their early 20's or less, so I'd (just turned 68) consider them the owners of "young minds" and assume they fit in this thread. I was wearing a burgandy "Muscle shirt" and a dark blue cotton A-line skirt with Pacific tropical fishies swimming all over it.

I've not been there in a year and wore cargo shorts the last time I was there and that time, they didn't even notice I was wearing any clothes. I could have been wearing a flasher's overcoat and they'd have been fine with it. But the skirt got 3 compliments, 2 smiling open mouths, 1 hard stare (from the office manager who is about 58) and the 6th secretary came right up to me, felt the material and asked if I knew what kinds of fishes they were. I spent 20 minutes paying my taxes and about an hour talking men's skirts with the young crowd, including a couple of "surfer types" "tall, blond, and muscular" who were paying far far more taxes than I was. Overall, a really fine experience that would never have happened if I wasn't wearing a skirt.

[GothScot]

How about some pics of that getup, it sounds cool.[/quote]

I'm trying to figure out the digital camera. Two of my former students back East (both female) and the secretary of the department I got two degrees from and taught at all want pictures. I think I will post them if I can figure out how to get a fully body shot.

It was great fun, and I must say I LOOKED HOT!

[GothScot]

Since I think Pythos asked, okay, here's the outfit. You can't see the fishnets, and I couldn't get my head in the shot, but that's it, basically. It's the best I could do with the timer function on the digital camera.

[Pythos]

Yep, definitely shiny from what I can see.

What did your camera do though, I have never seen a waffle pattern like that, it really messes the image up.

It definitely stands out like a sore thumb though. I know I don't own a skirt that is shiny like that.

I do like what I see though.

[crfriend]

What did your camera do though, I have never seen a waffle pattern like that, it really messes the image up.

The image is OK if one opens it up. It looks like the resizer has a problem with .GIF images.

[AMM]

1. I see a waffle pattern (actually, I would have called it a "pegboard" pattern) even when I get a full-screen view. Not as pronounced, but it's there.

2. No matter how I fiddle with brightness and contrast, I can't really figure out what you're wearing. It's just a bunch of black and blacker regions. If you hadn't mentioned that you were in the shot, I would have thought it was hanging on the wall.

3. To the extent I can guess what this outfit looks like in real life, I can see why your students might have been taken aback by it. It looks more like a costume for a surreal Batman movie[*] or a mix of "Rocky Horror" and something else. I don't think it was the gender-bending aspect so much as the general wierdness. Imagine if a female professor came to class dressed like Morticia from "The Addams Family" -- she'd get some wierd looks, too.

[*] Or is that redundant?

[crfriend]

1. I see a waffle pattern (actually, I would have called it a "pegboard" pattern) even when I get a full-screen view. Not as pronounced, but it's there.

Sure enough, on my monitor at work I can see the dithering in the image. It looks like that got done to get around the 256 colour allocation in the GIF format.

[Pythos]

If a female professor came to school dressed like Morticia. Well if she were single I would probably have a new objective, LOL.

The picture is actually doing no justice to the outfit. If you can, try some handheld shots of your stuff., see if this same rotten effect happens. None of my pics have ever turned out like this for me.

[GothScot]

I wish I'd had a female prof who showed up looking like Morticia. It would've been appropriate considering my specialization in the 19th C. Gothic. I doubt I would've focused on my studies.

I'm not sure why it came out all waffle-like. It didn't look like that when I uploaded it.

And rest assured, I got (when I got) the same reactions when I had on the black twill one with the silver hardware/chains on it out hitting the bookshop/paying bills on Halloween.

So, not sure why it's waffle-like. I sweated like a prostitute in church wearing it though, dang near froze when I walked across campus in it.

[crfriend]

I'm not sure why [the image] came out all waffle-like. It didn't look like that when I uploaded it.

It had to do with the way that the image was "dithered" (think of how colours look in the Sunday comics and you'll get the picture). The GIF format can only store 256 colours simultaneously, and depending on the filter-chain that an image might pass through that can get mangled. For photographs, it's almost always better to use JPEG formats.

[GothScot]

Well that explains it. I tried posting it in .JPEG and it didn't want to know. So I resaved it as a .GIF file thinking "Maybe," and that's the best it would do.

If you want a better look at it, the eBay store "Dark Pleasures" occasionally has the patent vinyl Tripp skirts for sale. Now, like I said, the bondage straps are off a different skirt, but if you see one on there that's patent vinyl, it's the same thing.