Tuesday 15 December 2009

Skirts for men

Guy in a Skirt playing a Saxophone
It seems bizarre that people are still hung up about seeing a man in a skirt. Women have been wearing trousers since 1850 (earlier in the case of female miners), so why has it taken so long for men's fashion to be rationalised in the same way? There was a brief bout of skirt-wearing in the nineties, but it seems to have subsided.

Men can wear sarongs on the beach, kilts and priestly garb (and there are plenty of pictures of Jesus in a dress), but people are still intolerant of men wearing actual skirts. Why? It's only a piece of cloth. It must be because the Western definition of masculinity is still so circumscribed by convention that people can't imagine a man being a man unless he's hairy and/or betrousered. There's still a strong taboo against men crying, for instance.

Men who wear skirts: I salute you from the bottom of my heart. You are pioneers as much as the early feminists in their bloomers.
We detachments steady throwing,
Down the edges, through the passes, up the mountains steep,
Conquering, holding, daring, venturing as we go the unknown ways,
Pioneers! O pioneers!

~ Walt Whitman
Here's some sites about men in skirts:

7 comments:

  1. Divided garments are warmer -- note that Eskimos wear them.

    They are better for horseback riding and bicycling.

    They keep biting insects off your skin better.

    So why, pray tell, should someone living in a climate with cold winters switch to a kilt or skirt?

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  2. So as to ventilate the equipment?

    Personally I am an inveterate trouser-wearer. I merely note that it is frankly bizarre that the wearing of skirts by men is still taboo, since women have been able to wear trousers for decades.

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  3. Actually it is possible to trap warm air under a skirt, which is not possible with close-fitting trousers. The other day I wore a skirt over leggings and noticed that there was warm air trapped under it.

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  4. Cold-weather trousers should not be close-fitting. Ask those Eskimos.

    My usual winter wear is long underwear (some of it ex-Dutch Army, some ex-US Army) under loose cargo pants or jeans.

    When the temperature goes to 0 F. or below (say -20 C or below), or I have to be outdoors a lot, I switch to baggy wool instead of cotton.

    Sometimes a lightweight nylon layer over everything if the wind is blowing.

    Wearing a kilt under those circumstances would be a challenge.

    The people I known with Utilikilts (I have one friend who is a distributor) wear them only in the summer.

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  5. I realize that I am dodging the point of the post, the so-called taboo. But then I never believed that all barriers had to be broken "just because."

    If some men want to wear undivided garments while others do not, that is "diversity." And we all know that diversity is a Good Thing.

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  6. I think a Utilikilt would suit you :)

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  7. I thought about buying one ... for about 20 seconds. But then I would have to wear a big honkin' knife to show that I was a heroic Pagan man of northern European ancestry.

    And knee socks.

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