Women's Lib v. CD Lib?

[Lainie]

Sometimes people post that it's not fair--women get to wear pants, but CDs are disparaged for wearing skirts.

Women wearing pants; voting; working as doctors as well as nurses; being CEOs as well as secretaries; and all the rest, was a decades-long process of liberation: accepting that women are capable adults who can be counted on to keep up and do well in what had been a "man's world" in the workplace.

When you wear a skirt, do you have any feeling about gaining acceptance in the "woman's world" of nurturing children & the sick; preparing food for friends & loved ones; doing the menial work because it's not fair to push it off on others; sharing your feelings with friends & listening supportively without trying to solve their problems; and all the rest?

The asymmetry between attitudes toward tomboys & sissies is partly just that people honor the search for higher status, and still regard women--overall--as having lower status than men. Do you want humbler status?

[reb.femme]

Hi Lainie,

No, I don't want a more humble status in life, either drab or femme.

But to turn the whole question on it's head, status is also a state of mind, as shown by Dennis Thatcher, the husband of our ex-Prime Minister, Mrs Thatcher. He was asked by a journo if he wore the trousers at home? His answer was, "Yes, and I wash and iron them too!" He had been a successful business man in his own right but was happy to play consort to his wife during her time as a politician. So he accepted a humble position in a man's world, if it may be deemed that way.

Rebecca x

[NathalieX66]

The asymmetry between attitudes toward tomboys & sissies is partly just that people honor the search for higher status, and still regard women--overall--as having lower status than men. Do you want humbler status?

I don't like that analogy. It implies one sex or gender is stronger, while the other is weaker. Humanity is a spectrum of many things.

[Marleena]

Women are still fighting for equality, it's not done. The only other thing I wish to say is that women in general are much more accepting of Cders than men are. If there were more women in the world transgender girls would have a much easier time of things. I think everybody is looking for equality.

[MelanieB]

Something I always understood......

The stronger sex is the weaker sex because of the weakness of the stronger sex for the weaker sex!!

Never quite worked out which is which though.

[Vanessa Storrs]

It would be wonderful if we had the same rights as women. I would enjoy the right to have some jerk hitting on me. I would love the right to make 70% of what another man makes for doing the same work. When women actually achieve the same rights as men I would like to have their rights.

[Amy Fakley]

Sometimes people post that it's not fair--women get to wear pants, but CDs are disparaged for wearing skirts.

This line of reasoning always feels really oogy to me. I think the reason is that it conflates two mostly unrelated things: fashion and human rights.

"Women's Liberation" doesn't have a whole heck of a lot to do with pants ... women couldn't even vote in the US until, historically speaking, the pretty recent past ... and this is still the case in many parts of the world. On the whole women to this day aren't payed the same as men for the same work.

What we go through as CD/Trans folk isn't trivial either. We're pretty much all of us, dealing with some heavy identity issues ... as well those of us who have transitioned and are full time ... these people face even more blatant discrimination and hassle.

So ... yeah I don't know what I wanted to add to this thread ... your post makes it clear you understand those issues ... but I swear I just don't understand it when people who do their level best to become women, then have the audacity to trivialize the very real struggle for equal rights that genetic women have had, by complaining that they don't have the equal right to wear a skirt and not have people question their sexuality, that a woman enjoys when she wears pants.

This has nothing to do with "rights", it has everything to do with gender perception in society. Congress isn't going to pass a law changing that, y'know?

To me it's like "LOL WUT??"

[bridget thronton]

I embrace the concept of servant leadership - so humble is not a gendered concept

[Alice Torn]

Western culture swings as a pendulum and where it was way swung over to men's advantage for centuries, it has now swung way over, to where women are in advantage in mant ways over men! Over 60% of college and university degrees are going to females. The times they are a changin! However, i know that women are on average a lot more tolerant of crossdressers, than most males.

[max]

However, i know that women are on average a lot more tolerant of crossdressers, than most males.
In friendships perhaps. But relationships I'd say women are a lot less tolerant than men, considering there are men who actually chase CD's, of which there are very very few women.

[Beverley Sims]

Hi Lainie,

No, I don't want a more humble status in life, either drab or femme.

But to turn the whole question on it's head, status is also a state of mind, as shown by Dennis Thatcher, the husband of our ex-Prime Minister, Mrs Thatcher. He was asked by a journo if he wore the trousers at home? His answer was, "Yes, and I wash and iron them too!" He had been a successful business man in his own right but was happy to play consort to his wife during her time as a politician. So he accepted a humble position in a man's world, if it may be deemed that way.

Rebecca x
Sort of agree with Rebecca on this one.
Not going to carry a banner in the streets for women's lib either.

[Frédérique]

Women wearing pants; voting; working as doctors as well as nurses; being CEOs as well as secretaries; and all the rest, was a decades-long process of liberation: accepting that women are capable adults who can be counted on to keep up and do well in what had been a "man's world" in the workplace. When you wear a skirt, do you have any feeling about gaining acceptance in the "woman's world" of nurturing children & the sick; preparing food for friends & loved ones; doing the menial work because it's not fair to push it off on others; sharing your feelings with friends & listening supportively without trying to solve their problems; and all the rest?

After spending many years in the service of crossdressing, I can honestly say that clothing can be divided into two camps: practical and impractical garments. Since male clothing is, by necessity, highly practical, not to mention liberating in terms of locomotion and utility, it’s not difficult for me to understand why a female would wish to get her own sense of freedom via practical male clothing. Clothes that are definitely female or feminine can be highly impractical; something that a fetishistic crossdresser like me worships without question. Why? Well, all I’ve known is an endless array of practical male clothing, thrust upon me in an attempt to funnel me towards some unseen occupation, removing sensuality like the weakness it represents. In such an unhealthy emotional climate, I got depressed, and crossdressing was the cure…

So, unlike most males, I embrace the impractical. I wear women’s clothing to feel vulnerable, and thus ALIVE. I cannot do male things while wearing a skirt or a dress, and I LOVE that! I don’t care how women feel about my crossdressing, but I do have an inkling about their struggles in a “man’s world.” I believe men once insisted on women dressing a certain way, which may belie a hidden desire to wear impractical, delicate, pretty clothing. As far as I’m concerned, the genders are not that far apart – practicality, or pragmatism, will always be at work in our choice of clothing, but, in my world at least, impracticality reigns…
:battingeyelashes:

[noeleena]

Hi.

Where are you standing in reguard to women are you a male or a female are you seeing this from a males view point or a womans,

its not about clothes the issues are far deeper i personaly dont care what a male wears the issue is ,

Is he trying to be a female not possibale so ill say woman , this is where it changes so you wont to look like a woman okay clothes make up shoes & breast forms & hair & so on.
Can you take the responsablity of being a woman year in year out you wont acceptance yet .......

Those of us who are women dont have the same rights as men.

In the 2nd ww. the men decreed women to wear longs or pants because they were militay.the uniform was not a mans clothes it was cut & shaped for women same colour same fabric they were not for males.

Yes we are in some countys & places counted as 2nd rate yet we carry the can ( babys ) we have been slaves servents who were not payed other than a pitince.

Used abused killed used as sex objects, & so on .......has mans attitudes changed no its still the same & more so in those countys i know about from one of our forums,

Im not sure as to status id rather just be accepted for who i am as a normal woman .i am here,

Yes we did have some forms of liberation yet we paid dearly for that in the 1900's the surferjets.

So again why do men wont to take the little we do have away & still over rule us .

If it was only about wearing a skirt or dress there would not be a issue,

Our group of men some 60 to 70, do wear skirts dress's & look very nice thank you, just they are not trying to be women. thats our Renaissance group.

Now so you are saying men are looked down on because they wear skirts , not for us who are in the clans or those of us who are scottish, our island men wear skirts we have a number of coutrys that do ,

It was the english that came over here & change the way of life of our people,

So you see its not in the wearing .....OF.....skirts or similar its , it does not stop just at that you see you wont to take it further ..... then it becomes crossdressing ,

As i said i dont care what men wear its what changes after that, & ill say it trying to be what your not.

Im seeing this as a female . my women friends & i have many & some i showed pics of some men who do crossdress & they thought they looked fantastic & yes they did, just they thought they were women till i told them , & they looked at me in disbelive , that was funny as,

There is one thing i for got women were wearing pants long before men did quess what they were called though .....see what you can find on that,

...noeleena...