Why don't men wear skirts?

[e2k2houck]

I don't know why other men wear skirts, but the main reason I wear skirts is the comfort. I started wearing them after bumping into someone on the CDT that was wearing a hiking kilt. We talked about it for a while. So when I got home I started to do some research on hiking kilts/skirts. I found Lightheart gear hiking skirts. So I ordered one to see what it was all about. Well 45 skirts later, between Lightheart gear and Purple Rain Adventure Skirts, they are all I wear anymore, except when I'm on my motorcycle. I feel sorry for men that don't try wearing a skirt at least once, they have no idea what they are missing out on. I think that some men would try wearing skirts if there wasn't such a stigma around it. I also do wear them to help with normalize it some. If a straight man is ok with wearing skirts/dresses then hopefully it will help the LGBTQ+ feel safer wearing what they want. I have never felt out of place in a skirt, after the first couple times wearing one in public and realizing that nobody really cares. I only wish that the fashion industry would come up with more conservative designs for the runway as to not put men off. Even though it will be us, regular guy's, that will make the biggest change the more acters, musicians and other famous people who wear skirts and dresses will help. Even though I have at least one of every color Lightheart offers I tend to save the "flashy" skirts for traveling or going out.

[Barleymower]

I don't know why other men wear skirts, but the main reason I wear skirts is the comfort. I started wearing them after bumping into someone on the CDT that was wearing a hiking kilt. We talked about it for a while. So when I got home I started to do some research on hiking kilts/skirts. I found Lightheart gear hiking skirts. So I ordered one to see what it was all about. Well 45 skirts later, between Lightheart gear and Purple Rain Adventure Skirts, they are all I wear anymore, except when I'm on my motorcycle. I feel sorry for men that don't try wearing a skirt at least once, they have no idea what they are missing out on. I think that some men would try wearing skirts if there wasn't such a stigma around it. I also do wear them to help with normalize it some. If a straight man is ok with wearing skirts/dresses then hopefully it will help the LGBTQ+ feel safer wearing what they want. I have never felt out of place in a skirt, after the first couple times wearing one in public and realizing that nobody really cares. I only wish that the fashion industry would come up with more conservative designs for the runway as to not put men off. Even though it will be us, regular guy's, that will make the biggest change the more acters, musicians and other famous people who wear skirts and dresses will help. Even though I have at least one of every color Lightheart offers I tend to save the "flashy" skirts for traveling or going out.

I was thinking about it today and maybe our social conditioning is much stronger than we appreciate.
I remember the Charles Bronson film: Telefon. The sleepers were activated to commit unspeakable crimes with a key phrase "The woods are lovely, dark and deep. But I have promises to keep, And miles to go before I sleep". Once activated the sleepers were unable to anything other than their programming.
How deep is our own programming that we have such difficulty breaking free.
It's just a piece of cloth.

[STEVIE]

I was thinking about it today and maybe our social conditioning is much stronger than we appreciate.

How strong has it got to be when a five year old "instinctively" knows not to tell a living soul that he wants to wear the same as the girls at school.
Strikes me that it's in our jeans. (Yeah, I know, genes)
We all know that cannot be true but .................
Slight digression, but men also have to learn that there is no single skirt rig that is absolutely right for a guy.
There is no such creation for women so why the hell should there be one for us.
Fashion freedom for women came about because they made it happen.
They did not dally for the "perfect" pair of trousers etc.
Men's will never happen until enough of us do the same and quit prevaricating.
Steve.

[Barleymower]

I was thinking about it today and maybe our social conditioning is much stronger than we appreciate.

How strong has it got to be when a five year old "instinctively" knows not to tell a living soul that he wants to wear the same as the girls at school.
Strikes me that it's in our jeans. (Yeah, I know, genes)
We all know that cannot be true but .................
Slight digression, but men also have to learn that there is no single skirt rig that is absolutely right for a guy.
There is no such creation for women so why the hell should there be one for us.
Fashion freedom for women came about because they made it happen.
They did not dally for the "perfect" pair of trousers etc.
Men's will never happen until enough of us do the same and quit prevaricating.
Steve.

There definitely is something in whatbyou say. My own daughter made a beeline for the dresses as soon as she could walk and still loves them. My son couldn't care less and would wear the same article until it fell off. Kids know who and what they are straight away. So it must be programmed in. And why not? We have millions of body functions which do not need to be taught. Why should this be any different?
There are definitely two distinct gender, ying and yang. Dumb humans cannot understand that it is not a on/off switch. There's a world in-between just a valid as the extremes.

Moving on..
It's not the same fight for men. For women it was heroic for men it's proving that demeaning is not demeaning.

Be cool and admired. That is the key. Standing there in a dress shouting "I will do this!" won't work.

[jamie001]

I was thinking about it today and maybe our social conditioning is much stronger than we appreciate.

How strong has it got to be when a five year old "instinctively" knows not to tell a living soul that he wants to wear the same as the girls at school.
Strikes me that it's in our jeans. (Yeah, I know, genes)
We all know that cannot be true but .................
Slight digression, but men also have to learn that there is no single skirt rig that is absolutely right for a guy.
There is no such creation for women so why the hell should there be one for us.
Fashion freedom for women came about because they made it happen.
They did not dally for the "perfect" pair of trousers etc.
Men's will never happen until enough of us do the same and quit prevaricating.
Steve.

It will never happen for men because they are taught by their fathers when they are several years old about homophobia and that anything girly like a skirt is inferior and to be avoided like the plague. They are told that the worst thing that you can be called is a 'girl". Until there is true equality and not just lip service between men and women, skirts for men will never take hold.

[jamie001]

I was thinking about it today and maybe our social conditioning is much stronger than we appreciate.

How strong has it got to be when a five year old "instinctively" knows not to tell a living soul that he wants to wear the same as the girls at school.
Strikes me that it's in our jeans. (Yeah, I know, genes)
We all know that cannot be true but .................
Slight digression, but men also have to learn that there is no single skirt rig that is absolutely right for a guy.
There is no such creation for women so why the hell should there be one for us.
Fashion freedom for women came about because they made it happen.
They did not dally for the "perfect" pair of trousers etc.
Men's will never happen until enough of us do the same and quit prevaricating.
Steve.

There definitely is something in whatbyou say. My own daughter made a beeline for the dresses as soon as she could walk and still loves them. My son couldn't care less and would wear the same article until it fell off. Kids know who and what they are straight away. So it must be programmed in. And why not? We have millions of body functions which do not need to be taught. Why should this be any different?
There are definitely two distinct gender, ying and yang. Dumb humans cannot understand that it is not a on/off switch. There's a world in-between just a valid as the extremes.

Moving on..
It's not the same fight for men. For women it was heroic for men it's proving that demeaning is not demeaning.

Be cool and admired. That is the key. Standing there in a dress shouting "I will do this!" won't work.

I need to correct you on this because you are wrong! There are only two biological sexes and those are male and female. There are many genders that vary from extremely feminine to extremely masculine. Gender is a spectrum and sex is binary. I hope that all of us on the cafe understand this simple concept.

[Barleymower]

How strong has it got to be when a five year old "instinctively" knows not to tell a living soul that he wants to wear the same as the girls at school.
Strikes me that it's in our jeans. (Yeah, I know, genes)
We all know that cannot be true but .................
Slight digression, but men also have to learn that there is no single skirt rig that is absolutely right for a guy.
There is no such creation for women so why the hell should there be one for us.
Fashion freedom for women came about because they made it happen.
They did not dally for the "perfect" pair of trousers etc.
Men's will never happen until enough of us do the same and quit prevaricating.
Steve.

There definitely is something in whatbyou say. My own daughter made a beeline for the dresses as soon as she could walk and still loves them. My son couldn't care less and would wear the same article until it fell off. Kids know who and what they are straight away. So it must be programmed in. And why not? We have millions of body functions which do not need to be taught. Why should this be any different?
There are definitely two distinct gender, ying and yang. Dumb humans cannot understand that it is not a on/off switch. There's a world in-between just a valid as the extremes.

Moving on..
It's not the same fight for men. For women it was heroic for men it's proving that demeaning is not demeaning.

Be cool and admired. That is the key. Standing there in a dress shouting "I will do this!" won't work.

I need to correct you on this because you are wrong! There are only two biological sexes and those are male and female. There are many genders that vary from extremely feminine to extremely masculine. Gender is a spectrum and sex is binary. I hope that all of us on the cafe understand this simple concept.

OK let's get technical. There are two biological sexes, male and female. The same is said when defining gender. Gender (noun) is male, female or neuter.
Your gender (noun) was defined at birth in a long DNA molecule called a chromosome. It is an inescapable fact of your being. You will live your whole life with that determination and you will die with it.

What you are referring to gender expression. When referring to gender expression there is a full spectrum between male and female. This spectrum is now given many names and that's fine. I fully support people's gender expression.

I don't think the cafe needs to learn how to suck eggs.

[Myopic Bookworm]

OK let's get technical. There are two biological sexes, male and female. The same is said when defining gender. Gender (noun) is male, female or neuter.
Your gender (noun) was defined at birth in a long DNA molecule called a chromosome.

I think I disagree. That simplified description conflates sex (biological) with gender (social). To get even more technical: your sex is defined by nature at conception through your DNA; but your gender is assigned by a human observer at birth (or earlier through the use of ultrasound etc.) by inspection of your externally apparent sex characteristics. (As far as I know, no person is ever assigned "neuter" as a birth gender.) Gender assignment is a human interpretation of your sex, not itself a biological fact, and it may in some circumstances change (if, for example, your genitalia are ambiguous, which is not as uncommon as some people claim).

The confusion of sex and gender causes a lot of problems. People who have gender dysphoria have a crisis because their subjective gender identity (from which their urge to gender expression arises) fails to match their socially assigned gender (which generally matches their biological sex). Because gender is (I think erroneously) seen as binary, they are often encouraged to undergo medical alteration of their apparent sex (becoming transsexual) to preserve the illusion that gender is binary and matches sex. Instead, I believe that society needs to be accepting of non-binary or cross-binary gender expression (transgender) rather than imposing transsexualism on all transgender people, especially as transgender identity may be a part of a more complex psychological situation which needs proper resolution.

[pelmut]

There are only two biological sexes and those are male and female.

No, for convenience the spectrum of human sex is arbitrarily divided into "male" and "female", this is a superficial infant school level of understanding and it is a gross oversimplification of a very complex subject.  You may have missed the previous heated discussion on this forum caused by the dogmatic insistence that, because people are (erroneously) assigned to only two categories, it proves that there are only two sexes.

Once you start studying biology in any depth you will realise that there is a whole range of possibilities and trying to fit them into only two categories is a pointless exercise.

[STEVIE]

It will never happen for men because they are taught by their fathers when they are several years old about homophobia and that anything girly like a skirt is inferior and to be avoided like the plague. They are told that the worst thing that you can be called is a 'girl". Until there is true equality and not just lip service between men and women, skirts for men will never take hold.

Actually Jamie, I was never taught anything at all by my Father, except for how to tie my own shoelaces.
I actually cannot ever recall being actually "prohibited" from wearing a skirt.
Finally, I was never given to understand that skirts or women in general were inferior in any way.
Their clothes were forbidden fruit to boys and it really was that simple.
That "taboo" piqued my innate curiosity and it just growed and growed like Topsy.
However, I'd go along with your sentiment on equality, we may just approach that from different angles.

Be cool

In my book "cool" is not about shouting at all.
It is being the same as Norman Normal going about all the mundane, regular and boring activities that we do in our lives.
The only difference is that I choose to do it in a skirt or a dress and whatever else I choose.
As for "admiration", that is down to someone else and not my concern.

I think Mark Bryan, Coder, SkirtsDad, Skirtyscot, JeffB have posted some ideal looks for guys who are unsure what to team their skirt with

Must admit that with the possible exception of Mark Bryan, I'd concur.
He may have a googleplex of followers on his instagram page but is there any real evidence that he has furthered the MIS cause any more than the cafe members mentioned? Simple fact is that who would be willing or able to fund emulating his footwear alone, I wouldn't for sure.
Steve.

[GerdG]

It will never happen for men because they are taught by their fathers when they are several years old about homophobia and that anything girly like a skirt is inferior and to be avoided like the plague. They are told that the worst thing that you can be called is a 'girl". Until there is true equality and not just lip service between men and women, skirts for men will never take hold.

Jamie,

I don't doubt that some fathers are homophobic and will warn their sons. But I also believe that they must be extremely few by now, be very old and/or live in ultimate conservative circles.
I agree with you that true equality shall help, but here we men could still be helpful. By all means, I think that women in a few years shall have overtaken us on the inside. Already now, women are becoming better educated than men, and by nature they are more industrious. We can only hope that they in this process don't totally stop wearing skirts.

[denimini]

Already now, women are becoming better educated than men, and by nature they are more industrious. We can only hope that they in this process don't totally stop wearing skirts.

Indeed. We will not only be out of a job, we will be out of a supply of skirts.

[SkirtedWalker]

I started wearing them after bumping into someone on the CDT that was wearing a hiking kilt. We talked about it for a while. So when I got home I started to do some research on hiking kilts/skirts. I found Lightheart gear hiking skirts. So I ordered one to see what it was all about. Well 45 skirts later, between Lightheart gear and Purple Rain Adventure Skirts, they are all I wear anymore, except when I'm on my motorcycle.

This is great to hear. Your movement into skirts is almost identical to mine. I saw men wearing SportKilts on the AT and Purple Rain skirts on the PCT and CDT.
I tried a whole bunch to find skirts and dresses with the best function, feel, and fit.

Do you have a list of your 45 skirts? Why did you settle on the Purple Rain and Lightheart Gear skirts?

I moved away from the lighter color skirts and dresses, such as sandstone and khaki. In dresses, finding a proper chest size is important for men. I wear a 48 long sport coat.

I feel sorry for men that don't try wearing a skirt at least once, they have no idea what they are missing out on. I think that some men would try wearing skirts if there wasn't such a stigma around it. I also do wear them to help with normalize it some. If a straight man is ok with wearing skirts/dresses then hopefully it will help the LGBTQ+ feel safer wearing what they want.

Back in May while wearing my Purple Rain Dress in the Flagstaff Whole Foods one morning, two women complemented me on it. One woman talked about things for a bit (i.e., frozen foods), and she commented “I’d like to see more men in skirts and dresses, not as drag, but as solidarity with the LGBTQIA community.” She obviously used the acronym frequently by the way she made it sound rhythmical.

LGBTQIA community solidarity is one of my dress and skirt wearing reasons too.

Even though I have at least one of every color Lightheart offers I tend to save the "flashy" skirts for traveling or going out.

I wear the Purple Rain dresses and skirts whenever I can too. I have about 3 everyday skirt colors. I wear the black and stellar blue dresses and lightest weight skirts.

[e2k2houck]

I started wearing them after bumping into someone on the CDT that was wearing a hiking kilt. We talked about it for a while. So when I got home I started to do some research on hiking kilts/skirts. I found Lightheart gear hiking skirts. So I ordered one to see what it was all about. Well 45 skirts later, between Lightheart gear and Purple Rain Adventure Skirts, they are all I wear anymore, except when I'm on my motorcycle.

This is great to hear. Your movement into skirts is almost identical to mine. I saw men wearing SportKilts on the AT and Purple Rain skirts on the PCT and CDT.
I tried a whole bunch to find skirts and dresses with the best function, feel, and fit.

Do you have a list of your 45 skirts? Why did you settle on the Purple Rain and Lightheart Gear skirts?

I moved away from the lighter color skirts and dresses, such as sandstone and khaki. In dresses, finding a proper chest size is important for men. I wear a 48 long sport coat.

I feel sorry for men that don't try wearing a skirt at least once, they have no idea what they are missing out on. I think that some men would try wearing skirts if there wasn't such a stigma around it. I also do wear them to help with normalize it some. If a straight man is ok with wearing skirts/dresses then hopefully it will help the LGBTQ+ feel safer wearing what they want.

Back in May while wearing my Purple Rain Dress in the Flagstaff Whole Foods one morning, two women complemented me on it. One woman talked about things for a bit (i.e., frozen foods), and she commented “I’d like to see more men in skirts and dresses, not as drag, but as solidarity with the LGBTQIA community.” She obviously used the acronym frequently by the way she made it sound rhythmical.

LGBTQIA community solidarity is one of my dress and skirt wearing reasons too.

Even though I have at least one of every color Lightheart offers I tend to save the "flashy" skirts for traveling or going out.

I wear the Purple Rain dresses and skirts whenever I can too. I have about 3 everyday skirt colors. I wear the black and stellar blue dresses and lightest weight skirts.

Well I really don't have a list but at least one of every color that Lightheart has, but 3 in black, 2 blue, 2 green, 2 saddlewood, 3 dark gray, and 4 of the fleece skirts. There is a picture of me in my purple on her website. I am going to be ordering one of the dresses with the cargo pockets in the gray stone today. Purple Rain I have 3 black skirts, a picture of me wearing one of my black skirts is on her website. 4 adventure kilts, 2 gray 1 black and one purple. I mostly stick with those two as they are both woman own and are made here in the USA. I as you have received plenty of complements while wearing my skirts, both while hiking and out and about. I had a woman chase me down in an airport to ask me where I got the skirt that I was wearing. I almost never wear pants anymore and in fact I was wearing a pair of pants, I was riding my motorcycle and stopped at the gym to talk to my GF. Well a couple of my friends took my picture and commented "he does have pants".

[Barleymower]

There is nothing wrong with being considered feminine. It is a big step up from masculine. When I am considered feminine, it is a great compliment.

I like wearing skirts a lot. I agree that there is nothing wrong with being considered either feminine or masculine unless you don't want to be. As a matter of fact, that determination is made about people millions of times a day regardless of what they are wearing. People have their
comfort levels around being seen as feminine or masculine, and that is ok as long as each person respects another's preference without judging
I am sure that even when I wear pretty basic, non-frilly denim skirts and button-up striped shirts, someone will see that as feminine. I have accepted that there is nothing I can do about that, and besides, what another thinks is none of my concern unless they express it to me or take actions that are detrimental to me.
Don't get me wrong; I have worn somewhat flashy skirts as well and have the same attitude about what people may be thinking. I didn't come by that attitude overnight, but by consistently putting on a skirt and hitting the streets and realizing that, for the most part, nobody gives a darn, and if they do then ...so what. I am working on posting pictures to show some of the various arrangements I've come up with.
As has been expressed time and time again here the only way skirting is going to become more open is that we who want to have to wear them and others will join.
(tipping my hat)

I agree with you Modoc it doesn't seem to matter wether you wear something basic pr something more flamboyant. A skirt is a skirt. I tjinknitbis more about how you carry yourself.
Post the pictures as soon you can. It's good to see other guys looks.