24 Mar 2020, 10:39 am
naturalplastic wrote:
IsabellaLinton wrote:
lostonearth35 wrote:
Women just get away with doing stereotypical masculine things more so than men do with feminine things. A woman can wear pants without everyone thinking she's a male impersonator or trans, but if a man wears a dress it's completely different.
For years I wondered why it was okay for girls to like girl stuff but not okay for guys to like girl stuff, and then I finally realized it's because society still sees "girl stuff" as weak and inferior. Go figure.
For years I wondered why it was okay for girls to like girl stuff but not okay for guys to like girl stuff, and then I finally realized it's because society still sees "girl stuff" as weak and inferior. Go figure.
I always wondered the same things. I felt sorry for men because their gender roles were so much more pronounced. Women can wear whatever, and essentially do whatever job they want. They can colour their hair, wear cosmetics, stay home, work, take parental leaves, etc. It's only recently recently that men have had the same social freedom to dress or behave "female", without being ridiculed.
That wasn't always the case.
Your Victorian great great grandmothers would NEVER wear pants.
No way in hell.
They even contrived garments like bloomers (sorta baggy pajama like things that enclosed each leg seperately) that...were pants... but weren't considered to be pants, that ladies could wear in situations like riding those tall Victorian bicycles they had back then.
But yes, after the first world war it became acceptable for ladies to wear pants suits. Emelia Airhardt looked kinda hawt in her pilots jump suits. But I digress.
The first world war also made it acceptable for men to wear ONE type of jewelry: wrist watches. Before that men only carried watches on chains, but that got impractical for the guys in the trenches.
Local history nut.
Women's bicycles in the 19th century, once they got past the three-wheelers steered by levers, and the shorter versions of the old high-wheel bike, aren't too different from drop frame safety bikes of today. That you're talking about is called a "bifurcated skirt" and it was handy for riding horses, too, if they didn't want to ride sidesaddle.
Women's clothing incorporated crotchless drawers as well; at that time (due to suspenders, etc) men and women both had quite a time trying to use the commode. If a man wore suspenders under a vest he was going to be there for a while.
Men had more jewelry in the 19th century: signet rings or class rings, cufflinks, tie pins, the pocket watch & chain itself, waistcoat buttons (often sold at a jewelry counter, these offered a bit of flair: I have seen some antique ones made of precious metals still in their little presentation case) and of course the heads of walking sticks.
Women, in this same time, had a ton of jewelry they could wear as well...the Victorian era was particularly flamboyant considering how difficult life actually was for those people.
Regarding male gender roles of today--the "machismo" of today doesn't make for a well-rounded man, any more than the third-wave feminist is anything resembling a normal woman. Today's toxic masculinity robs men of all the humanizing things of life, making him a caricature brute.
The reason we're OK with women wearing men's clothing today is because women have filled manly jobs in the World Wars, and because a lot of men's clothing is almost gender-neutral: khaki pants, for instance. "Male" clothing peaked in the 1500s, with a swaggering, exaggerated, sexually-charged absurdity. Now instead of a man wearing an oversized codpiece he might drive an oversized pickup truck...we still think he's compensating for where he falls short.
It's interesting stuff really.
If you want to see something weird, go look up antique records from the 1900s and 1910s, and hear how many ballads and whatnot that people were listening to. These days it'd be considered unmanly to sing anything about joy or sadness. Back then everybody took poetry & put music on it and called it the next popular selection. Society changes a lot...but that doesn't mean it always changes for the better.
