Why is androgyny fashion acceptable on women but not on men

[lolla]

Why is this acceptable Click to view my image or this
Click to view my image
but this is not ?
Click to view my image
or
http://bp2.blogger.com/_rs1S3sX8Pfg/RweYOrSjT2I/AAAAAAAADTg/6WE9fhKwtsE/s1600-h/DSCF1715.JPG posted in http://www.marbellastyle.blogspot.com/

[Guest]

Final image link causes an access forbidden error.

[minigirl]

wow - whatever that person was wearing was so bad that they banned the image from being shown!

[Fe-male]

I'm not clicking those links until I'm on my own PC - I'm not mental!

But I can guess at what they are. It's all down to gender rolls and the way we fit into society. It wasn't long ago, probably in your grandparents era, that the male-female roles were very different and clearly defined. The woman was the home maker/mother and the male the bread winner and provider. It was thought that males were of higher status then females and females were denied many basic rights such as the vote and being able to own land and property (going back a bit further). So if a woman wanted be taken more seriously she'd take on something of the male role and wear male type clothing (amongst many other thing but I'm still assuming the pictures are about clothing as we're in the fashion forum?) and gradually it became acceptable for woman to wear trousers, suits and all things male. But it didn't happen over night and wasn't easy going for the original woman who did this.

Imagine if a man in that time and era decided he'd dress in more feminate clothes, it would be considered he was leaving the 'higher status' world of a man and entering the second teir world of a woman, something that society wouldn't allow so it was rejected by the public and stamped out.

Fortunately we know this all rubbish and woman are now more equal in our world (but still not totally equal, such as in the work place). But some of the old principles live on and it's still taboo for a man to want to go anywhere near womans clothes. But they're just clothes, what difference can it make? Well to society it still matters a great deal and we have some way to go before things will be truly equal, probably not for another couple of generations will it be acceptable.

Although funny, this sums up how things were and how we've moved on:
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=_lrJg8NMsFw

[dreyam]

Fe-male, that was absolutely hilarious! "I don't know anything about the gold standard, but I love little kittens!" I'll have to remember that...

[Bushwalker]

Whatever that third image was, couldn't access it here either - checked your levels of protection on that one ??
Or is simply too socially unacceptable ???


As for those comments above about women taken on male fashions, consider this -
* two or three centuries ago, it was still acceptable and fairly common for men to wear skirts and skirt-type garments in western societies;
* around the world at large today, around 75% of men can be wearing some type of skirt-like garment (kilts, sarongs/pareos, robes, tunics, kaftans, and other various types of skirts - maybe even over 90% when bathrobes/shave coats/wrap-around-towels are added to the mix..), without anyone worrying about it;
* go back a few thousand years, and you will find pants/trousers as common female garments, before taken on by the men to make their horse riding easier and more comfortable..


As for female equality these days - you have pulled ahead in some areas, and still lag in a couple of others - but men are being pushed aside, or backwards in some areas at the same time, and men's Fashion Freedom is just one such area.

[dang]

in many offices of large cities in India...men follow unwritten dress code of formal shirts and trousers.....while the women folk have all the freedom to not only wear formals....but also our ethnic/traditional outfits like salwar-kameez or saree...or some mix-match like kurta with pants...and if a guy wears kurta(men's version of it)..everyone stares at him and some people will ask him...if he is attending some ceremony(wedding etc).....its stupid...I have no idea...how they will react if a guy goes dressed in femme style...I think he will be branded a gay or an eunuch.....

[dreyam]

Alright, I’m going to reiterate something I wrote in a different thread. If you’ve read it before, my apologies, but I think it’s relevant here.

I suppose I am going to have a somewhat different take on this issue... I am a guy, but as you can probably tell from my pic at left, I do tend to favour a rather androgynous/feminine look… (although I tend to reserve dressing totally "in drag" typically for special occasions, going instead more for a kind of gender-blending look, generally.) I almost always wear makeup and a fair bit of silver jewellery, I polish my nails, wear fairly feminine clothes (though casual, jeans and tops mostly) and often wear heels. I’m lucky to live in a pretty progressive town, and family, neighbours and friends all seem to accept me, no problem; I've also never had any real issues being out and about (pun intended) around town.

Okay, to be honest, I suppose that may be partly because many people, giving me a casual once-over, may be making the assumption that I'm female; I am lucky enough to look rather androgynous anyway; I'm not that tall, I'm fairly skinny, I've got long curly hair, and I suppose have a pretty androgynous face.

But I guess the point I am wending my way towards here is that I believe that it really ought to be up to the individual how they dress, and what clothing choices they make. I think people should basically wear whatever they want to wear, and the only criterion that should be applied is whether it looks good or not. And yes, of course I realize that's a totally subjective criterion, but, as other posters have pointed out, that which "looks good" is very much an issue of what people are used to.

It's entirely possible that if more guys experimented with clothing and accessories not traditionally considered "masculine" in our culture (heels, skirts, nail polish, earrings and all of the other things discussed in this forum in various threads), those things would very likely become more and more acceptable through a kind of social pressure, and the trend would acquire a kind of momentum of its own (i.e. by becoming more visible, it would become more acceptable, and by becoming more acceptable it would become more visible, and so on.)

I would be willing to bet that there are a lot of guys out there who would welcome that level of clothing freedom if it was available. Just my 2 cents.

[Guest]