Why Don't Men Wear Skirts? The Female Image of Skirts

A major factor that puts men off wearing skirts is the fear of ridicule. The skirt, along with the frock are such powerful female images in modern society, that to wear one risks being thought of as a cross dresser. Some people will also associate it with homosexuality, but I would argue that is probably more to do with confusion over homosexuality and cross dressing.The fundamental association is with femininity.

When a man wants to dress like a woman-whether it be a cross dresser, a drag artist, a transexual, or for fancy dress-he will wear a frock or a skirt. His hair may be long or short. He may wear make-up, jewelry or neither; but he will always wear a frock or a dress.

Women seem to be able to wear anything without judgement. They have subsumed the male wardrobe and adapted, trousers, suits, ties, even the DJ and made them look feminine.

Darren Fernandes wrote in his article Androgyny as an Abomination or Aphrodisiac for Notjustalabel; to consider fluidity in sexuality, it must be understood that, when women play with incomplete androgynous fashion to still attain an overall feminine look, androgyny is released from being an abomination and may actually be considered an aphrodisiac.

That is not to say that women can not also cross dress. The bottom three pictures are of lesbians from http://www.afterellen.com/people/2010/11/hide-seek-uncovers-lesbian-images-in-art

Why Don't Men Wear Skirts? The Power of The Skirt

The kilt, the fustanella, the toga-there are lots of examples of skirts associated with military or political power from ancient times. But what about more modern times- since skirts have been considered as female dress?

The frock coat is cut to accentuate the neoclassical ideal male form. It is not a skirt, but in silhouette can give the impression of one. The frock coat also flows and swirls like a skirt; a quality also shared by the cape.

What got me thinking along these lines, was when I drove past a small group of people on their way to a wedding. There were two men dressed in kilts, and two ladies in dresses. The ladies were made up with new hair does and wearing jewelry, but it was the men who looked the more impressive; in a way that wouldn't have been the case if they were wearing trousers. The swish of the kilts were accentuated by the swagger of the men as they strode down the road knowing that eyes were on them.

Jewelry is another form of attire, albeit an accessory, that can convey power. It is interesting to compare jewelry with skirts. Jewelry has been used by both sexes throughout history but in the modern western world it is usually seen as a feminine accessory. Whereas jewelry is ostensibly worn for its prettiness, there is a strong association with showing off. I am thinking of those women who wear expensive jewelry and are more concerned with the size of their diamonds than their aesthetics. Jewelry or "Bling" has also been adopted by the Rap culture and is worn by men as a show of power. The lyrics of Rap songs are often about men exerting sexual power over women and bling seems to form a visual illustration of this power.

In contrast to this and despite my feeling that the skirt can convey power, it may be that it is the fear of the loss of power that stops men from wearing skirts. Just think of the expression ' You can tell who wears the trousers in that relationship.'

Why Don't Men Wear Skirts? Gender Identity

When it comes to gender roles and identities there is often debate, just as with other human characteristics, about how much can be attributed to nature and how much to nurture.

Having established that trousers are a relatively modern form of clothing, I think we can confidently say that the assignment of skirts as female dress has nothing to do with any inherited predisposition and is entirely a social construct. By this I mean that when, in the modern western world, parents choose to dress their sons in trousers and their daughters in skirts; this is because of social convention not because of natural instinct.

We very much recognise this behaviour from our grandparents and parents, and no matter how enlightened we feel in comparison today the tradition continues. See this website that I found for a shop that sells unisex children's clothes. It markets itself on its uniqueness, and prides itself on its progressive stance, but obviously the policy is not profitable enough, because it also has a boys and a girls section.

It is therefore a natural threat to our ingrained model of the world when men wear skirts. But hold on, don't we all try and challenge convention these days. Well, designers might do so because that is their job, but there are plenty of walks of life in which people have a vested interest in preserving traditional gender roles. I am imagining a "traditional middle-class couple". The husband happily follows his profession or chosen work and his housewife is happy to give up work to support him. She may even have been raised for just such a role and finding the right husband may have been akin to the husband finding the right workplace. Such a couple are likely to oppose a threat to traditional gender roles as vehemently as a designer is likely to promote it.

So what if we try and take this social construct out of the equation. Take the Goth scene. "Goth Culture: Gender, Sexuality and Style" is a book written by Dunja Brill. It was reviewed last month by Catherine Spooner in "The Times Higher Education"-http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/story.asp?storyCode=406767&sectioncode=26 and referenced extensively in a student essay I found on the internet by Simon Pascal Klein-http://klepas.org/files/doc/a-critical-examination-of-gender-relations-within-goth-subculture.pdf.

The impression I get is a world stripped of any expectation to conform to traditional gender identities so that natural and intuitive expressions of gender can emerge. The result is men taking on androgynous appearance and other men using make-up, jewelry and skirts as a form of power dressing to accentuate their masculinity. In turn it seems that some women need to go even further to express their femininity. Brill adopts the term "hyperfeminine" to describe them.

Could this mean that women could feel threatened by men wearing skirts. Is there a certain power associated with skirts that women would prefer to keep for themselves and as a result consciously or subconsciously discourage men from wearing them?