Dressing Like a Woman
It's just another resonance with my research. As I was reading about the lavender scare and intense, non-comprehending homophobia in the nineteen-fifties — and before and after — here in the US, I ran across plenty of mentions of laws making it illegal for one gender to wear clothing "generally regarded as appropriate for the other sex." Doesn't that sound arbitrary and ripe for application in harassment and persecution!
Gender identity — appropriate gender identity — as signified by such will o'the wisps as fashion in clothing and hair has long been vitally important to lots of society. The reason why must escape me since I'm a sexual outlaw anyway. I've known of people who get really frustrated and angry if they can't tell the gender, from behind, of a long-haired someone walking down a street! Obviously, that will mean the end of civilization as we know it. For their own sake it's a good thing that these gender-identity obsessed types aren't aware of just how many intersexed babies are born and get reassigned.
Anyway, the attitudes persist, and are thought still to be extremely natural and obvious to the people who hold them. Witness the recent case of a Texas-college freshman who wrote an editorial for his school newspaper calling on women to "dress like women". He'll either grow up or become a Republican.
That was the context for these comments of Avedon Carol about "dressing like a woman", but they lept to my notice for the other reasons mentioned above.
We didn't start wearing jeans because they were fashionable; we started wearing them mainly because they weren't. They were also cheap, durable, practical, and had pockets. (There were no such thing as "women's jeans" in those days.) We took a lot of crap for it, you understand. Back in those days, a woman who wore trousers had to listen to some jerk say, "Why don't you dress like a woman?" with some frequency. It was always a surprise, though, because it didn't make any sense. "Drag queens have to dress like a woman," I would say. "I am a woman, I don't have to imitate one. What I'm wearing is what a woman wears." (It's not like there could be any confusion about that.) But I've been dressing this way since I was 15 and I'm not going to stop now – especially when most women's clothes still don't have decent pockets.
[Avedon Carol, "Thinking extremely locally", The Sideshow, 26 November 2007.]
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on Monday, 26 November 2007 at 21.58
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Gosh, I thought this had been settled a long time ago.
I've never had a problem with women wearing jeans, pantsuits or whatever. I have seen a couple of males dressed as women and it was jarring to the sensibilities. Didn't make me angry or anything. I can't imagine trying to outlaw the practice. It just seemed weird and inappropriate.
I do enjoy seeing an attractive woman dressed in a definitely feminine way. I saw Elizabeth Taylor in a movie from the 1950's recently, dressed in a high-fashion gown. I said to myself, "Wow, she really was stunning." Maybe her stunningness seemed all the more impressive in this time when so many women dress for proper-looking workplace functionality during the week and ultra casual the rest of the time. Some do this with a hairstyle that evokes thoughts about someone who decided to ride out a hurricane on the beach. Being breathtakingly beautiful was Taylor's stock in trade, and she didn't stint on the wow factor in clothing, hairstyle or makeup.
Likewise, if you watch the superb World War II movie, "Command Decision," take a good look at Gregory Peck and Walter Pigeon in their vintage Army Air Force officer's uniforms. I don't think well-attired, handsome masculinity has ever looked better.
So, I admit to being something of a traditionalist who prefers and enjoys definite difference in the appearance of men and women. I just don't claim any right or good reason to force my preference on others.