“How culpable are heterosexual, cisgender women in keeping men boxed in?,” wonders Jeannette Cooperman. “I take real pleasure in wearing [men’s jeans and shirts],” she writes. “Also in using power tools, swearing, and drinking bourbon. But when my not-exactly-hard-drinking husband tried to order a banana daiquiri in a pub, I did a facepalm.” To state the obvious, “male characteristics are so rich with success and strength and feminine things are associated with weakness and fragility.” Read her full essay on WUSTL’s Common Reader.
Her third sentence summarizes the problem, & explains her foregone conclusions. “…traditional categories…old gender stereotypes…”
Use the same tired assumptions, (clothing has some form of inherent “gender”), arrive at the same tired conclusions. The remainder of her article is based on this presupposition. Remove these assumptions, the problem goes away. Women tend to pay less attention to the stereotypes than men, hence the freedom to wear whatever they want. Reality: Men CAN wear skirts, women CAN wear pants. Anything else for that matter. Old stereotypes need to die. Nothing inherently male/female about clothing, unless we WANT it to be that way. Mostly a phenomenon of North America and Europe. The rest of the world is much more relaxed about the issue. Ms. Cooperman needs to think outside the box.