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Recent study of attitudes of teens regarding gender
Posted: Tue Mar 22, 2016 2:45 am
by Jim2
I came across this web page recently.
https://broadly.vice.com/en_us/article/ ... study-says
While it is not directly about men wearing skirts, it is about the attitudes of young people about gender and conforming to gender stereotypes, and it does explicitly mention Jaden Smith's wearing of skirts in this context. The article is a report on a study of attitudes of young people on gender. I particularly found this sentence about 13-20 year olds interesting:
Those belonging to Generation Z also rejected the gender binary while shopping—only 44 percent said they always bought clothes designed for their own gender, versus 54 percent of millennials.
If that's accurate. it's more than just the girls who are shopping the other aisle for clothes. Wonder what they're buying.
By the way, I found this article at this facebook page
https://www.facebook.com/Clothinghasnog ... /timeline/, which others here may find interesting beyond just this article.
Re: Recent study of attitudes of teens regarding gender
Posted: Tue Mar 22, 2016 4:21 am
by Caultron
Jim2 wrote:...I particularly found this sentence about 13-20 year olds interesting:
Those belonging to Generation Z also rejected the gender binary while shopping—only 44 percent said they always bought clothes designed for their own gender, versus 54 percent of millennials.
Yes, more detail on that would definitely be interesting. Like, who are the 56% sometimes buying clothes designed for the other gender, and what kind of cross-gender clothing are they buying?
Because I certainly don't see 56% of all 13-20-year-old boys wearing skirts (cool as that would be).
I wonder if 99% of it is sneakers and t-shirts (which would certainly be boring).
Re: Recent study of attitudes of teens regarding gender
Posted: Tue Mar 22, 2016 8:58 am
by crfriend
Caultron wrote:I wonder if 99% of it is sneakers and t-shirts (which would certainly be boring).
I'd put money it's on something that would not be immediately discernible.
Re: Recent study of attitudes of teens regarding gender
Posted: Tue Mar 22, 2016 3:38 pm
by Milfmog
Caultron wrote:Jim2 wrote:...I particularly found this sentence about 13-20 year olds interesting:
Those belonging to Generation Z also rejected the gender binary while shopping—only 44 percent said they always bought clothes designed for their own gender, versus 54 percent of millennials.
Yes, more detail on that would definitely be interesting. Like, who are the 56% sometimes buying clothes designed for the other gender, and what kind of cross-gender clothing are they buying?
Because I certainly don't see 56% of all 13-20-year-old boys wearing skirts (cool as that would be).
I wonder if 99% of it is sneakers and t-shirts (which would certainly be boring).
My son (aged 20 at present) is one of the 56%; howver, the "girl stuff" he buys is limited to fluffy socks
Have fun,
Ian.
Re: Recent study of attitudes of teens regarding gender
Posted: Tue Mar 22, 2016 4:39 pm
by Stu
To be honest, I don't buy into the currently fashionable ideas on "gender fluid". While there are some individuals who are a bit ambivalent with regard to their gender, the vast majority of us are squarely in the camp of being either male or female.
So why would boys wear skirts? Well, the answer is that all but a very small number absolutely will not do so while ever they retain their association with femininity. If, however, we can undermine that association, then skirts will become as normal a garment for even the most masculine of males as trousers/pants are natural for feminine women.
I think we will see the most advancement in achievements if we steer well away from anything that remotely smacks of gender fluidity and crossdressing, and instead focus on skirts being no less masculine than a pair of jeans.
Stu
Re: Recent study of attitudes of teens regarding gender
Posted: Tue Mar 22, 2016 6:47 pm
by Fred in Skirts
Stu wrote:I think we will see the most advancement in achievements if we steer well away from anything that remotely smacks of gender fluidity and crossdressing, and instead focus on skirts being no less masculine than a pair of jeans. Stu
I have to agree with you Stu, we need to get away from the gender fluid and cross-dressing and focus on the fact that clothes are just clothes. They have no gender, they do not make you become something you are not. Clothes will not make you gay or anything else.
We wear what we want and I want to wear skirts because they are super comfortable.
Fred
Re: Recent study of attitudes of teens regarding gender
Posted: Tue Mar 22, 2016 7:47 pm
by Caultron
For me, anything that even partially blurs the line is progress.
And as always, I wouldn't get hung up on stereotypes, labels, and semantics. We all have to be ourselves because, like, who else can we be?
Re: Recent study of attitudes of teens regarding gender
Posted: Thu Mar 24, 2016 2:25 am
by dillon
Stu wrote:To be honest, I don't buy into the currently fashionable ideas on "gender fluid". While there are some individuals who are a bit ambivalent with regard to their gender, the vast majority of us are squarely in the camp of being either male or female.
So why would boys wear skirts? Well, the answer is that all but a very small number absolutely will not do so while ever they retain their association with femininity. If, however, we can undermine that association, then skirts will become as normal a garment for even the most masculine of males as trousers/pants are natural for feminine women.
I think we will see the most advancement in achievements if we steer well away from anything that remotely smacks of gender fluidity and crossdressing, and instead focus on skirts being no less masculine than a pair of jeans.
Stu
Gender is rather more complicated than mere clothing. As the father of a college teen, I concur with the relative accuracy of the survey and observations in the article. I'd say Gen Z is helping even us aging boomers catch up on the reality of gender and sexuality. It's a vastly different world now, and to everyone's benefit.
Re: Recent study of attitudes of teens regarding gender
Posted: Thu Mar 24, 2016 3:29 am
by moonshadow
I still think it's more or less societies attempt to keep everyone in their little jars.
What it all boils down to, is we are who we are. Labels only make us identifiable to each other.
Before humans became the dominant species of this planet (I refuse to use the word "intelligent" to describe us), what LABEL (word) separated a pine tree from a maple tree? What separated a tree from a rock? Who decided a tree should be called a tree and a rock should be called a rock? Who decided purple was purple? Why not yellow?
In a world before clothing, language, and arts, what separated humans gender?
Who decided girls are made of sugar, and spice, and everything nice, and boys are made of snips, and snails, and puppy dog tails?
It seems just as likely we could live in a universe where the boys look pretty, and the girls are the dominant worker bees of society.
If I were to blast off to another planet (that could support my life).... and I lived alone, never to reach another human soul.... would it even matter what I was called back on Earth?
Finally, in light of all of the questions I asked above.... I submit a few more.... why can't we cross that line? Will the world stop spinning, and the laws of physics break down if a boy wants to act like a girl or vice versa?
It's like an invisible dog fence. Someone, somewhere in our history has marked our boundaries with little white flags, and placed a shock collar on our ancestors, so that if they crossed those little white flags, they got punished. Well, at some point, the flags were removed, but we knew not to cross the boundary.
Then, several decades ago.... western women discovered there was no shock collar. Now.. a very small minority of men (us included) have also realized there is no shock collar.
Now we're out in the field, roaming free. We can hear the dogs back in the yard.... their "barking" .. "YOU'RE GONNA BE SORRY! YOU'RE GONNA DIE! YOU'RE GONNA BURN IN HELL!"
And yet.... we're out here running in open fields, exploring this new world, denied to us by flags that were removed eons ago, and shock collars that were removed decades ago.
And the other dogs, remained behind.... trapped in a yard with no real boundary. Pissed off at us because we crossed an imaginary line that doesn't exist... and probably never did.
And that line has a name... it's called "GENDER". "gender" itself... is but a word. It has no tangible value in nature. If human's cease to exist, so does the human concept of "gender".
Like paper money... it only has value because we say it does.
Re: Recent study of attitudes of teens regarding gender
Posted: Thu Mar 24, 2016 4:23 am
by Fred in Skirts
An excellent point Moonshadow. This is something I try to use when talking to people about my skirt wearing. But most are Oblivoits who stick their heads in the sand and make the sign of the cross at me. I guess they think I am the Count D. 
Fred
Re: Recent study of attitudes of teens regarding gender
Posted: Thu Mar 24, 2016 4:52 pm
by skirtyscot
Why? Do you wear a cape as well? Do you have very long pointy canines?
Re: Recent study of attitudes of teens regarding gender
Posted: Thu Mar 24, 2016 5:02 pm
by Fred in Skirts
skirtyscot wrote:Why? Do you wear a cape as well? Do you have very long pointy canines?
To some I might as well be Count D.
I do how ever not wear a cape and my canines are now dogs only as the painful yanker has taken them.
Fred
Re: Recent study of attitudes of teens regarding gender
Posted: Thu Mar 24, 2016 11:09 pm
by Jim2
Stu wrote:To be honest, I don't buy into the currently fashionable ideas on "gender fluid". While there are some individuals who are a bit ambivalent with regard to their gender, the vast majority of us are squarely in the camp of being either male or female.
So why would boys wear skirts? Well, the answer is that all but a very small number absolutely will not do so while ever they retain their association with femininity. If, however, we can undermine that association, then skirts will become as normal a garment for even the most masculine of males as trousers/pants are natural for feminine women.
I think we will see the most advancement in achievements if we steer well away from anything that remotely smacks of gender fluidity and crossdressing, and instead focus on skirts being no less masculine than a pair of jeans.
Stu
Your comments pertain to stuff that I think about a lot. On the one hand, I absolutely agree that there is a big difference between thinking of a man wearing a skirt as being gender fluid, or, as it is sometimes put, getting in touch with his feminine side, and thinking of a man wearing a skirt as standing in opposition to the idea that a skirt is feminine. The first point of view says that a man wearing a skirt is saying something about himself, his gender. The other point of view says that the action says not much about the man, but people's reactions to it say a lot about them and their ideas about gender.
The topic of whether men (and boys) can wear skirts is happening in a context in which many questions about gender are being raised. Are women really more empathetic than men and, if so, is it in our genes or just a result of how they are socialized? That's just one of many examples. In this regard, there are many activists and thinkers who have come down hard against the idea that gender is binary, and that the gender binary is the source of our societal problems around these issues. One sees it, for example, in the latest book by Jo Paoletti. On the other hand, in that same book, she muses on the possibility of a time in the future when a man can wear a skirt simply so he can feel the breeze on his legs. One wants to ask, which is it, is he challenging the idea that people are either entirely male or entirely female, or is he challenging the idea that wearing a skirt (and perhaps other clothing) has anything to do with one's gender (or at least, his own gender). I think in some ways the second of these ideas is more radical. The first idea only makes sense if skirts are feminine. If they are not, then a man wearing them is not acting in a feminine way. The attack on the gender binary essentially accepts the gender stereotypes of society (e.g., skirts are for women) he may think he is) so it can claim that people need not stay in one or the other of these rigid boxes. The second idea attacks those stereotypes.
While I believe that these are two very different ideas, they can get muddled. I think that talk of gender fluidity and one's feminine side may often just be a way for young people to claim that anyone can have qualities and do things traditionally associated with females or males only. Such talk may not really mean that you have to be other than a man to wear a skirt, only that one need not fit into the stereotypes of society, where now the stereotypes come to be seen as disconnected from anything having to do with the essential nature of a man or a woman. So it ends up becoming a rejection of the stereotypes really of their elders. Especially if young people see it the latter way, it could really take off. Young people often like nothing better than to repudiate the ideas and ways of their elders. That seems especially true of the younger generations rising up today.
My point is that the talk of gender fluidity by the younger generation may sound like it is quite different than attacking the idea that a skirt is feminine, it might not have that sense for them. They may see it as one and the same thing. In this respect, it might be interesting to contemplate the fact that I found this article as a link from a page that says that clothing has no gender, and the page was created in defense of a young gay man who wanted to wear what is considered a feminine piece of jewelry.
Re: Recent study of attitudes of teens regarding gender
Posted: Fri Mar 25, 2016 4:23 pm
by Caultron
This seems like another case of cognitive dissonance. The thinking goes:
- I want to wear skirts.
- I don't want to wear women's clothes.
- Skirts shouldn't be women's clothes.
The problem is that while we may be able to convince
ourselves of this, convincing all
others who might judge us is difficult. So if convincing them is the only way we can be happy, we're probably not going to be happy.
A more fruitful line of reasoning might be:
- Many people won't even notice I'm wearing a skirt.
- Many of those who do notice won't care.
- Most of those who do care won't care very much.
- Many of those who do care very much will be supportive.
- We don't care about the small remaining number who care a lot and disapprove. It's their problem, not ours.
All of which may be a bit cerebral for a simple piece of cloth but oh well.
cognitive dissonance
the state of having inconsistent thoughts, beliefs, or attitudes, especially as relating to behavioral decisions and attitude change.
