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Wearing Dresses, Men's Edition

TLDR, just do it.

Below are my thoughts on why...

Why not?

I've been wrestling with these ideas since my daughter was born, 11 years ago. The notions of gender norms, how we raise children differently depending on whether they're girls or boys, how 'society' does exactly this, regardless of what we do as parents.

Why is it my daughter wearing her big brother's 'Cars' t-shirt is perfectly fine, but her little brother getting her 'Frozen' t-shirt is not generally acceptable?

Many people will refute the premise of the above question, but it's true in my world, and probably in yours too. When it's no longer noteworthy, then I'll accept it's no longer true.

We live in a Christian Fundamentalist society

For hundreds of years we've been living under the moral laws of fundamentalist Christians, certainly here in the Scotland, in the UK, in Europe generally, we've exported this all over the world. Just read up on blasphemy laws and punishment to see how harsh it was.

The bible forbids women to dress like men, and men to dress like women. While it's now generally acceptable for women to dress like men, this is quite a recent development, and there are plenty places in western societies where it's still unacceptable. Up until the mid 90s women were not allowed to wear trousers in the US Congress, many Conservative communities today disapprove of such things.

The bible enforces a strict gender binary, technically not even a binary, since it places Eve firmly subordinate to Adam, not an equal to him. These are beliefs held literally by Christian fundamentalists.

In this light, I can see why gender conformance is so important, and why, even when it's at least 'tolerable' for a woman to strive to be a man, it's shamefully deameaning for a man to strive to be like a woman. It goes against biblical dictats, and anything that's even vaguely adjacent to 'transgenderism' threatens the very basis of fundamentalist Christian beliefs.

What does my daughter see?

I believe that people, girls in particular, see the asymmetry described previously. It's just one of many, and they're belittling, disparaging, and dismissive of females generally. It's essentially, and profoundly, misogynistic.

Now the above example with t-shirts is contrived to make a point, and there's basically zero chance my daughter would want a 'Frozen' t-shirt. But there was a real occasion where she got a pair of her big brother's trainers that he'd never worn. She was delighted with them, and couldn't fathom why he'd never worn them.

I knew the answer. They were bought online, and when he saw them close up he realised there was some shimmery sparkle in part of the trim. Too 'girly', even just that small detail, to risk a negative response from his peers.

I didn't tell her, I couldn't bring myself to, because I knew the answer was society's imposition of arbitrary nonsense that places women below men, and I desperately hoped the world would be largely rid of all that by the time she was grown up. I was foolishly optimistic.

Wear that frock!

So, I encourage men to embrace any traditionally feminine things that they choose, to make an outward statement that women are role models that men also aspire to, perhaps to help diminish the gender disparities, or even just to send a 'fuck you' to the zealots who enshrined misogyny in our culture.

It's also not as big a deal as you might think.