I once experienced a freak Saharan heatwave with highs over 40° C while studying in Madrid. It was a dry heat, though, and very different from one recent 103° F July afternoon in south Georgia. I bounced to a thrift store in search of some well-worn (breathable) medical scrubs and that’s when I saw it: the plain, charred olive A-line mini. It struck me as the ultimate heatbuster and looked so sensible and professional that it triggered a brief flashback to my days in the corporate offices of a large regional bank and I wondered, as progressive as the bank was, if I would have been permitted to elect its female dress code. On second thought, I have no desire to cross-dress, but shouldn’t gender equality give men the option to wear skirts just as it gave women the option to wear pants many decades ago? As counterintuitive as it might be, I suspect the bank would have been much more cerebral than most universities in contemplating such questions. This being a summer break, I decided to test the waters and having donned various skirts for three weeks now, I reflect upon deeply disconcerting truths.Continue Reading
Why I Wear Skirts
Why I wear skirts has everything to do with equality. It started one roastingly hot July day in 2016 and I haven’t looked back since. Sure, I see the curiosity in others’ eyes and on their faces, but it surprises me how few people are direct enough to ask about it. This is, after all, the deep south far from international megatropolises like Miami, Los Angeles, and New York where cultural anomalies might be more commonplace. Perhaps southerners just want to avoid the appearance of rudeness. Even so, a few days ago a local librarian lamented that I had not blogged my experience and this led me to think that just maybe the public at large might be interested in my personal reasons and my social message.Continue Reading
Gender Equality in the Shadow of 1960s Civil Rights
The outside temperature reached 103° F one recent July afternoon in south Georgia. I once experienced even hotter temperatures in Spain a decade ago, but the gulf humidity here is a beast of a different kind. I bounced to a thrift store in search of extensively used (i.e. breathable) medical scrubs. Little did I know that this simple mission would ignite a profound inquiry into gender equality.Continue Reading
Skirted Gallery
Bad-Ass in a Utilikilt
A Guy’s Guide to Getting Skirted
Words do not adequately describe a skirted man’s enhanced comfort in the sweltering summer months. While comfort is an enormous justification for donning a work-appropriate skirt, comfort is neither the sole benefit nor the sole justification, as I have pointed out in “Why I Wear Skirts” and other posts about men and skirts. Skirts need not be frilly, froufrou, or feminine, and skirts can indeed be very masculine if a person first understands the basic design characteristics and uses this knowledge to make some sensible selections.Continue Reading
Internet Coverage of Skirted Men
Instances of men wearing skirts in non-traditional regions is nothing new, but now the world is starting to take notice.Continue Reading
The History of Skirted Men
In the not all to distant past, men wore unbifurcated garments and while few would want to dress like Henry Frederick, Prince of Wales, it is not a novel concept that men should not be confined to trousers. Little by little, journalists, sociologists, and artists are looking into the history of skirted men and sharing their findings:
- Bustle: The History of Men & Skirts
- 1883 Magazine: Men in Skirts
- NY Metropolitan Museum of Art: Bravehearts: Men in Skirts
- Victoria and Albert Museum: Men in skirts
Another Man’s Skirt Conversion
Why Men Still Don’t Casually Wear . . .
In the not too distant past, European aristocratic males wore both skirt-like garments as well as high heels. (In fact, women adopted high heels from European men and made them daintily and femininely narrower.) Over time, though, the European and American industrial revolutions made bifurcated pants and flat shoes more utilitarian for daily life. Women, however, who were relegated to lives of domesticity continued with the less practical fashion. But there has always been a double standardContinue Reading
Double Standards
I was just recalling an incident from several months ago at a local club (this event was still a few months before the time a female police reached under my skirt at this same club). I rocking an awesome 15″ Gap or Ralph Lauren chino skirt. I found myself speaking with a group of three or four females when one of them rather abruptly asks me, “what do you have on under your skirt?”Continue Reading
All Clothing Is Unisex
Wow, check out the replies and comments!
All clothing is unisex if you stop being a little bitch about it
— Saint Sims (@SimsJoseph) August 23, 2018
Advocacy Apparel – Because Clothing Is Genderless
I am developing a site and business plan to sell skirt-advocacy apparel. Not just screen printed t-shirts, either. There will be some classy polo shirts and caps (and perhaps bumper stickers!) with catchy phrases and educational URLs. Stay tuned for more details. In the meantime, please suggest items and slogans in the comments below.
Tell your friends too!
Feedback = Market = Advocacy
Live the change that you want to see.
In a Man’s World
Bravo has a cutting new series titled In a Man’s World. Women from various walks of life receive full-body muscle suits, and craniofacial prosthetics to create a physique that is out of this world. The women also receive vocal and movement coaching and then simulate their regular selves….as a man. The circumstances and settings are a bit artificial (after all, some explanation has to be offered for the presence of video cameras) but some balance is achieved with additional hidden cameras. What I find most interesting about the series, though, is the coaches’ observations of the subtle differences between men and women. Esco Jouléy’s keen insight into body movement is fascinating and empowering for skirted men wishing to amplify their masculine aura.
Skirts, Pants, and Deuteronomy 22:5
Cognitively-challenged Christians are eager to invoke Deuteronomy 22:5—in judgment of women as well as of men—that “woman shall not wear that which pertaineth unto a man, neither shall a man put on a woman’s garment: for all that do so are abomination unto the LORD.” Some denominations read this as requiring women to wear dresses (or, in the contrapositive, as prohibiting women from wearing pants). Likewise, Deuteronomy 22:5 has been invoked to condemn and deny skirts as menswear. This was certainly my experience when I “saw the light” and “converted” to skirts in 2016, but it has taken me three years to get around to publishing this formal rebuttal.Continue Reading
More Double Standards
Some time back I came across this image and I later scolded myself for not saving it. Then as serendipity would have it, I found it again. Continue Reading
A Brief History of Unisex Fashion
According to The Atlantic, “gender-neutral clothing is back in vogue, but the craze in many ways has mirrored broader social changes throughout the 20th century.”
How I Met Your Mother: “The Nightshirt”
The New York Times: “Skirts for Men?”
The social acceptability of men wearing skirts is by no means a nascent subject, but has has anything really changed since the Industrial Revolution? In 1984, the New York Times ran this piece regarding a Paris fashion show featuring men in skirts that was, according to French designer David Hechter, “the most important thing to happen in fashion in the past 20 years!” Hechter was one of the first designers to break fashion norms previously “when it was scandal for women to wear pants.” Rodney Martin puts a sharper point on it: “It makes me feel free. It’s a statement by which I can say I am free to do whatever I want. It does cause hostility on the streets, though. Sometimes I keep my coat closed over my skirt so no one will see it. And I do have to sit differently. But it’s not about being a woman.”Continue Reading
The Time a Cop Touched My Junk at a Club
A few months after the “double standards” occurrence, I was again at the same club and speaking with two ladies. Something in the conversation prompted a third to disclose that she was municipal police (and although the club was not in that city, municipal police in this state have extended jurisdiction for the entire county in which the city partially lies, which did include the county of this particular club). No fan of cops (and definitely not white cops), I excused myself from the conversation and went on my way. Over the course of the eveningContinue Reading
David Hall on Phil Donahue & Johnny Carson
Skirt pioneer David Hall’s son, Patrick, has uploaded a number of advocacy and apologetics YouTubes including David’s appearance on Phil Donahue and Johnny Carson.Continue Reading
Designing Our World: Clothing Without The Gender Binary
The 1-A aired a segment today on NPR titled “Designing Our World: Clothing Without The Gender Binary.” A transcript does not appear to be available, but the 30-minute segment can be streamed from the 1-A website.
Self-proving Dress Codes
If an employer specifies distinct garments for males and for females, and if a “male” employee wears a garment classified for the opposite gender, then by definition that male is due to be construed as a member of the other gender. The dress code thus self-proves the validity of his attire.Continue Reading
Whether and How to Wear Skirts (as a Male)
Reviewing Google’s search data I was surprised to see queries about how to wear a skirt (the suggested subtext being “. . .as a male”). I have seen this and similar queries on Quora were a variation asks whether a parent should allow a boy to wear skirts “like a girl.” The answer to both is astoundingly simple:Continue Reading
Why do women wear skirts?
Cristen Conger explains everything.
Mine, Not Hers
— Garjan Sterk (@GarjanSterk) August 25, 2018
Extreme Summer Leads Chinese Men to ‘Dress’ Accordingly
This blurb is hardly long enough to draw reliable conclusions, but it is food for thought: Dresses for men really do help keep things cool in the summer heat
Why Women Can Dress Like Men But Not Vice Versa
The History of Men’s Nightshirts
The Wall Street Journal has this interesting piece on the historical legacy of men’s nightshirts, and their suppression due to evolved Western gender constructs.: Why Some Men Favor Nightshirts Over Pajamas.
Boys Wear Skirts to School to Protest Homophobia & Sexism
Philip Ellis and Sebastiaan Vermeulen on Culturally Transgressive Fashion
I love that this piece about Sebastiaan Vermeulen appears in a gender-targeted venue with a largely heteronormative readership. Philip Ellis and Sebastiaan Vermeulen sublimely and succinctly lay it out for the reader: “In the end, it’s the same you, just a different piece of fabric.”
Oldest-Surviving Trousers in Archeological Record
I don’t have a basis to evaluate the academic credibility of Science News, but the takeaway is that Trousers seem to have originated with asian horsemen.
Kilt Lifting
Saias para homens: liberdade, estilo e cultura
An interesting morsel, in its original Brazilian Portuguese, or in English, via Google Translate.
Portuguese: Saias para homens: liberdade, estilo e cultura | Moda Sem Crise
English: Skirts for Men: Freedom, Style and Culture | Fashion Without Crisis
Etsy Gothic/Asian Skirt
Profesores que fueron a clase con falda y otros gestos que fomentan el respeto
What To Call Skirts Marketed For Men?
Part of the women’s liberation movement was inventing new vocabulary which enabled women to differentiate their agenda as the pursuit of equality and not emulation. Women sought to be treated equally as men (particularly in employment) but it was also clear that they were not to be regarded as men. Employment law shifted accordingly such that if trousers were acceptable attire for men, they must also be acceptable attire for women. And since men were not required to wear stockings or heels, neither could women. As I have pointed out in other posts, these cultural strides were not reciprocated for men. While it remained acceptable for women to wear sandals to the office, I have yet to read a single employee dress code that specifically extends such option to men. (Granted, no one wants to see most men’s feet, and most men lack fashion sensibility to select dignified sandals, but the same can be said for a number of women as well.)Continue Reading
Skirt Memes
Why Are Skirts Perceived As Feminine?
Before the women’s liberation movement, skirts were just what women wore. In post-liberation America, skirts became something that accentuated the female identity rather than just aligning with the identity. With Queen Victoria’s prudishness far in the rearview mirror, hemlines rose and skirts no longer merely accentuated gender, but became a means of summoning attention once society finally admitted the legitimacy of a woman’s sexual self. Would it be unreasonable to think that males therefore came to cognitively associate skirts with exaggerated femininity? After all, that seems to be the only time most men take notice of how women dress—when the skirt is styled to stand out or the pants are tight or the shorts are extra short. In other words, males fail to notice (or the brain fails to imprint) when women wear anything “ordinary” that does not compel attention. That leaves only the out-of-ordinary to be noticed. And if it is out of the ordinary for a man to skirt, that gets noticed. Could it be as simple as men failing to notice the aesthetic range of women’s skirts, noticing only when women wear certain skirts and therewith construe all skirts as a purposeful intent to assert femininity?