skirtcafe.org

Last night I was watching one of my fav weekly serials. On Showtime every Sunday evening around 9 pm is "Dexter", a program about a Police Blood Spatter specialist who is ALSO a serial killer. Well, he's getting married and has invited his sister, who is also a Police person, to his wedding. The day of the wedding he goes to his wife-to-be's house and lo and behold there's his sister in a beautiful dress. She says........"I'm in a DRESS, I feel like a TRANSVESTITE!".
She, of course, like nearly every other woman in the west, wears trousers all the time.

I thought y'all could see the humor in that!

Skip,

If you're going to post a line that funny I'd appreciate a Coke alert first. That's another keyboard I've ruined

Have fun,


Ian.

Deleted.

SkirtDude wrote: Back somewhat on topic, i have had many women tell me that I look more comfortable in a skirt than most women they know. Probably because I spend more time in skirts than many modern women.

I think you're 100% right on this.

Mipi wrote:

SkirtDude wrote: Back somewhat on topic, i have had many women tell me that I look more comfortable in a skirt than most women they know. Probably because I spend more time in skirts than many modern women.

I think you're 100% right on this.

Yes, I'd agree, too. Part of it is, I believe, because, by and large, skirts are a more comfortable garment. It's always interesting to observe the way women who rarely wear skirts behave, on the occasions they do! A bit like a bloke who'd never worn one would? Tugging, fiddling, etc.? Quite amusing, really!

Part of it is, I believe, because, by and large, skirts are a more comfortable garment. It's always interesting to observe the way women who rarely wear skirts behave, on the occasions they do! A bit like a bloke who'd never worn one would? Tugging, fiddling, etc.?

Merlin may be onto something here. I'm not sure how long it take the (not-so-) average bloke to really master skirt-wearing and become comfortable with it, but once that comfort level is achieved, it's pretty well sure that he's mastered actually handling and managing the garment so that just comes naturally -- and that's what gives the outward appearance of comfort.

I used to know a woman who designed and made her own wedding gown, and one of the things she did was to wear the mock-up for several days around the house so she'd be absolutely comfortable with it, and in it, come the big day -- and this kid already knew how to wear dresses. The result was amazing; she looked like she was floating on air. More than a few of the women guests were clearly uncomfortable in their skirts and dresses. Of course, this being back in the 1980s, I was in trousers and a suit-jacket. Nowadays, I'd likely wear one of my velvet skirts -- after getting clearance to do so; there's no point in needlessly stirring things up unbidden!

It's only fairly recently that i have obtained a skirt that works on the street as well as a pair of jeans. I tend to wear the same ones until they disintegrate! So now i have the perfect substitute! Certainly not hard to get used to and people on the street (or at the Vintage radio junk auction, for instance) didn't seem to need any getting used to it. Maybe they are all used to me of old, and a skirt is no more than they would expect! This is really good as the freedom of the skirt wearing is just the thing for me at least. A few years ago there was a boy who wore a skirt to the school ''mufty day''. He was absolutely persecuted, by the school authorities, in the press, you name it. Naturally none have tried it since.I do think things have lightened up since then but reckon ''authorities'' probably have not. Jack.

How about women who have NEVER worn a skirt or a dress, for that matter!
I worked with a young women in the company I retired from whom I had only seen coming to work in various pants outfits. One day I mentioned to her that I'd love to see when she dressed up in a nice skirt or dress. She coldly informed me that she never has worn either garment and has no intention of wearing any skirt or dress. She was even married, a few months later, in a pants and her bridesmaids all wore matching, black pants suits, not a skirt in sight anywhere.
I was talking to a receptionist during one of my recent hospital visits and she said pretty much the same thing. She had never and was never going to ever where anything but pants. In further conversation she said that pants, to her, were a symbol of oppression of women.
That may explain why there's so little support for male skirt wearing amongst the women of this country (USA). They see any skirt as a reminder of what held them down so long.
In which case it becomes far more problematic that unisex will mean pants and skirts have no future.
As far as I'm concerned, sitting here in a denim skirt and high heels, it would be a bitter future for me, never to be able to wear a skirt again.
But how do you fight the symbolism associated with repression.
It's like blacks seeing the rebel flag as a sign of repression.
So what do we do about it?
Dennis A. Lederle

DALederle wrote:I worked with a young woman ... One day I mentioned to her that I'd love to see when she dressed up in a nice skirt or dress. She coldly informed me that she never has worn either garment and has no intention of wearing any skirt or dress.

I'm not surprised you got a cold response. It comes across as you expecting her to dress to please you, which is not only inappropriate at work, but something that women experience all too frequently from men whom they have no reason to want to please in the first place.

DALederle wrote:In further conversation [a receptionist] said that pants, to her, were a symbol of oppression of women. That may explain why there's so little support for male skirt wearing amongst the women of this country (USA). They see any skirt as a reminder of what held them down so long.

I don't see that women's lack of support for men wearing skirts has anything to do with their own feeling oppressed by having been forced to wear skirts in the past. In my experience, women are less threatened by men in skirts than men are. However, I have seen skirt-wearing men, both here and in crossdressing fora, suggest that since they like skirts so much, women should want to wear them, too. This does not go over very well, and might cause some women to dislike the idea of men wearing skirts.

DALederle wrote:But how do you fight the symbolism associated with repression.
It's like blacks seeing the rebel flag as a sign of repression.

I don't think so. Men wearing skirts (other than to look like or to parody women) is simply too different from women wearing skirts for anybody to put them in the same category. Note that we have and have had women here who never wear skirts, yet still like the idea of men wearing skirts.

Where men in skirts get into trouble is in imagining that their own experience of skirt-wearing entitles them to tell women how they should feel about wearing skirts.

In my skirt wearing full time publically since 2005 about 75% of women that see me are either complimentary or ignore me as if I didn't exist. The other 25% are adamantly opposed to men wearing skirts and even opposed to men wearing kilts unless they're Scots. Their reason is, Skirts are for women only. Which sort of reminds me of how my father felt about anyone who wasnt white. The women say, skirts are for women only because they are FOR women and not FOR men. I can't argue with that as it's so impossibly dense you can't get through.

My dad, who was a card carrying member of the Invisible Empire, said "Whites are better"..I asked him why that was..his answer was equally dense, "Because we are"..How do you get through to someone who's been raised to believe that? Believe me, I tried for years to get through.. "Dad, If you took a white man, a black man, a yellow man, a tan man and a red man and skinned them all and stood them side by side, how then would you tell the difference??"
His answer, "Because WE'RE better"...

Deleted.

I have to agree, I'm afraid. A remark like that at work is something I'd interpret as either too personal, or as coming from a man who objectifies women, even his colleagues. Not saying it was *meant* that way, you understand, but that's what it sounds like.

As a woman who wears skirts pretty much all the time, I am regarded as somewhat eccentric, but if anyone I know feels I'm a traitor to my sex, they keep it to themselves. I'm not making a political statement; I'm just hard to fit, and I hate the way pants feel. I find that a skirt is noticeable occasionally, swishing around my legs now and then when I walk; but wearing pants means they're touching me *all the time*, with every move I make, and it drives me nuts. And I can't see skirts as symbols of women's oppression when I'm so happy to see men wearing them. Live and let live.

Cheers,

Inertia