Greatest writting assingment ever!!!

[natalie_cheryl]

For someone like me anyways. The assignment why can women wear pants and it is socially acceptable and a man can not wear a dress. Going to title the paper ''Gender Uniforms'' so if anyone knows of any credible sources that I can site as to why its ok for women to crossdress and not for men

[Sandra]

Look a woman wearing pants is not a crossdresser unless they are FtM......geez I get so fed up of hearing this. If your'e going to write this then get the bloody facts right first!

[Beverley Sims]

Natalie,
This is a bit of a hackneyed thread for here.
The arguments have been had and done.
To write for those less in the know it may make an interesting diatribe.

I believe the internet is a great source, so I would start there.
I think to a lot of us here it is the same as self analysis on why we are like we are.
We all have some unique traits, why are some gay etc.

I associate with and have a couple of gay friends.
Who cares as long as they are not patting me on the bum. :)

[ReineD]

Thanks Sandra! :)

But since I have the habit of using ten times as many words as Sandra to say the same thing, this is my answer:

My favorite topic! :D

"Cross"-dressing means to wear clothing that is significantly different than what is culturally acceptable for one's own sex. For example, a man who wears dresses in a culture where this is not usual or acceptable.

So … if all women wear pants and it is culturally acceptable, then they do not crossdress.

Sorry, I don't have anything to cite. It's just common sense … but I do understand that crossdressers don't look at it the same way.


If you're wondering why pants have become popular for women during the 20th century, have a look at this article, although it is far from complete:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women_wearing_trousers_in_the_Western_world_after_ 1900

And this:

http://www.historyandwomen.com/2012/04/woman-and-pants.html


Bottom line: pants became popular for women (and therefore no longer "cross"-anything) because the bulk of the female population wanted to wear them. Dresses for men will have the same fate when the bulk of the male population want to wear them.

Why did most women want to wear pants? Because they were more practical for activities that women wanted to engage in, such as work and sports. Why will most men not want to wear dresses? Because they are not practical for activities that men want to engage in, such as work or sports.

[Di]

Get it straight!!!!

Sandra and Reine explained it...thanks ladies.

But women wearing womans pants IS NOT CROSSDRESSING.:bonk::bonk::bonk:

How about writing a paper on
How to get men to accept wearing what they want like Reine said Dresses for men will have the same fate when the bulk of the male population want to wear them.

:Pullhair::Pullhair::Pullhair::Pullhair:

[Stephanie47]

Is this for a college class? Are you auditing a class at a local college? If this is a legitimate paper and not just a rehash of previous threads on this forum, have at it. There may be some worthwhile points to make, but, if the slant is all about men wanting to emulate women by wearing wig, makeup, forms, feminine undergarments and dresses, well, that's old stuff. If you're going to zero in on examples of women not being permitted to dress in male attire for male activities, maybe the paper is not going to be a half baked idea. It is rather mind boggling that the women who played in the war time and post war All American Girls Professional Baseball League had to wear skirts at risk of getting raspberries sliding into base. There are plenty of on line reports of women getting arrested for wearing pants in years gone by. Do your own research rather than looking for sources.

[NicoleScott]

Others just provided you with the angle for your paper: that women wearing pants is NOT crossdressing. Dispel the myth.
Also, here is one credible source you're looking for: this forum

[Katey888]

Natalie - don't forget the multicultural aspect here also...

Define what a dress is today and in structure (a seamed robe with opening for head and arms, say...) it is no different to a kaftan or a dishdash - both items of male attire in Africa and the Middle East respectively. Look around the world and there are plenty of guys apparently in dresses, as well as the jocks in skirts - also sarongs in Indonesia, kilts in the Philippines, and historically, the Romans in togas!! (and what have the Romans ever done for us...)

It's just a fashion and culture thing...

Have some fun writing it...! :)

Katey x

[natalie_cheryl]

Ok so I didn't mean to get everyones panties in a twist, I know that a woman simply wearing a pair of trousers does not make her a crossdresser so I apologizes for my minor slip (so I hope we can all get off our crosses for a little bit) yes this is for a college class that I am taking, I have already pooled some good material to site for examples of why it is not socially acceptable for a man to wear a skirt or dress while totally fine for women to wear pants. When for a very long time it was TOTALLY not tolerated. So I am doing my own work just thought that maybe just maybe there might be a person or two that could have read an article that I might have missed in the MILLIONS out there on the internet....

[Kate Simmons]

I personally appreciate that you are writing a paper on it. Why some get into a twit over this is beyond me. There are about a bazillion people out there who don't have a clue as to why. Any education will help the way I see it Hon. :)

[kendra_gurl]

The assignment why can women wear pants and it is socially acceptable and a man can not wear a dress.

seems pretty clear the assignment is already stating the obvious (says nothing about them crossdressing) and its your job to explain it in ways the links Reine gave you does.

[Georgia_Maine]

jeered and cursed and even had stones thrown at him. Being famous and popular with the Roman people, he didn't understand why this was happening. When he arrived in Rome the general of the emperor's Praetorian Guard, a life-long friend, quickly pulled him aside before the emperor or senators saw him. Why? Not only was he riding a horse, something no Patrician would do in Rome - but even worse - he was wearing pants! Something a self-respecting Roman never wore! Winters are cold along the Rhine. Anyway he was quickly dressed in suitable attire: a short, above the knee, tunic and breastplate. Moral of the story: when in Rome don't wear pants but a short dress ... er, tunic. ;-)

[Barbra P]

In many parts of the world it is culturally acceptable for a man to wear a sarong – basically a skirt – and they are not cross dressing. In much of the world it is culturally acceptable for women to wear trousers.

Capris, pants ending between the knee and the ankle, are a popular summer style for women. But in the fifties Capris, often referred to as clam-diggers – were a popular summer men’s garment. The Kingston Trio wore Clam-diggers on one of their album covers; Harry Bellefonte also helped to make this style popular. Try finding Capris in any Men’s Department.

[Leslie Langford]

Interesting quote and POV, Georgia, but now you've piqued my interest. Which Gaul, Helvetian, Visigoth or other Germanic Barbarian in particular is being referenced here?... Arminius, before he turned on the Romans and soundly defeated three of their legions in a German forest?

Must be that he was p*ssed off (in part) because they made him wear a dress. ;)

[LPark]

At one time many years ago women wearing pants was unacceptable.

[Jorja]

Oh, the nerve of them women! Those crossdressers! How dare they brake 1940's-1950's dress codes!:)

I think you need to go take a look back at history and find out when and why women started wearing pants. In the US it was common for women to wear pants for work related wear as far back as one can remember. Around 1970-1971 pants became a fashion statement that has not gone out of style since. Are women crossdressing? No, they are stylin' and profilin' and looking damn good doing it.

[BeckyAnderson]

This article may shed a little light on the subject.

http://weeklysilence.wordpress.com/2011/12/09/research-paper-pants-phenomenon-the-switch-from-skirts-to-trousers/

The argument "woman wearing pants is not crossdressing" may be valid to a point today. But how many of you have seen woman wearing a suit and tie? Call it fashion, call it whatever you want but the point is that a white shirt, suit and tie has always been a guy's domain. Designing a suit to fit woman and adding a tie as an accessory doesn't change that fact. How many of you have seen woman wearing work boots? Perhaps designed to fit a woman's foot but nonetheless a guys domain. How many of you have seen woman wearing men's t-shirts or flannel shirts? C'mon folks perhaps you should begin looking through the "women wearing pants" thing and start looking at ways to change what is acceptable clothing for either sex. There are countless men in this and other forums and on this planet who wear woman's clothes but are buried so deep in the closet (because of the fear of the social stigma attached to dressing in woman's clothes) that they can't even see the light of day. The biggest difference between men wearing woman's clothes and woman wearing men's clothes is that woman are not afraid to venture across a line. They ventured across the gender line (for whatever the reason) when woman began wearing pants knowing that it was not acceptable and that clothing trend continues today. Some call the intrusion into mens clothing.....fashion. The point that I'm trying to make here is that so long as we remain couped up in our tiny little closets nothing will change. The wrong kind of thinking here is to "let someone else do it or I can't or won't do it." For change to happen on any level, with any issue it takes a unified and an ongoing effort. So long as we sit back and complain about how unfair it is we will never move towards making it socially acceptable for men to wear women's clothing.

[NicoleScott]

Maybe it's easier to understand the issue if we take the women's pants out of the argument. That leaves "why is it socially unacceptable for men to wear dresses?"

Just curious - do you turn in your paper or present it to the class? If the latter, will you wear a dress?

[JenniferR771]

One thing, Natalie--double check the meaning of the word "site"; I am sure you meant to use the word "cite." Unless you are in high school, your teacher will not appreciate the misuse of the word. It does sound like an interesting topic, plenty of room for lots of expert opinion and evidence for one idea or the other.
Its a lot of extra sewing and fabric is better than leather--I suspect--pants were not even invented until a few thousand years ago.

[kendra_gurl]

Nice article Becky, very informative.

Nicole I often wonder if there became a large movement in fashion of skirts and or dressed designed for men if we as CD's would wear them?

Even if it was fashionable, us knowing they were designed for men would that satisfy our desire to look and dress feminine?

[Jorja]

But Kendra..... if skirts and dresses were made for men, would you be dressing feminine? You would be dressing male wouldn't you?

[kendra_gurl]

Jorja that's my point. would that satisfy our desire of trying to feel feminine or would we still HAVE to wear panties, bra, wigs, makeup, jewelry and heels?

I just thing there is a lot more to crossdressing than just the clothing and that alone discounts the women can wear pants argument.

There might be some out there but I have never seen a male with a real physical need to wear a bra but we who crossdress sure love wearing them

[Annaliese]

When woman first started to wear pants it was consider scandal less, but as more and more woman started to wear pant it became more acceptable. And at first they were wearing men pants, then some figure there was a market there and design pants for woman with softer material. I believe they did not start to design jeans for woman til the 70's. Good luck on your assingment.

[devida]

Others have answered this question, natalie_cheryl, but I think what you're asking for is more structural. You can certainly take an historical, sociological or even literary approach to this question. Shakespeare's comedies are full of plot twists that depend on cross dressing and gender misidentification, which are all the more delightful when you know that all the women's roles in Shakespeare's time were played by men. But I think you'll get a better essay if you look at the work of gender theorists (wiki gender theory) who have been so influential that they have deeply affected modern understanding of literature, society, and history. After all the question isn't that interesting if all you're doing is answering why women can wear pants and men can't wear dresses, which is inaccurate as other posters have pointed out. But if you use the question to talk about the way gender is presented you'll get an essay your teacher will love and you'll enjoy researching and writing. Narrow your paper's focus to why people use clothing to denote gender in public and you won't be quite so swamped with information. And use a spell checker so you don't get marked down for writing site when you mean cite!

[NicoleScott]

No, Kendra, I used "wear dresses" as another way of saying "completely transforming to appear as feminine as possible". I have no desire to wear a man-dress. I want the whole thing.

[AngelaKelly<3]

Sounds like you have a GREAT assignment there!

Unfortunately I don't really know of any good sources for you :(

[Chickhe]

...in sayng that "it is not socially acceptable for men to wear skirts".... you are already starting off with something that is not true at all. It is re-enforcing the incorrect stereotype that society beleive that...and its very negative. You would be better off with a positive title, "why anyone can wear a skirt..."

[suchacutie]

and lets not forget that the entire Roman army was "crossdressed" by our standards, and it was just their uniform by theirs (a la Reine's comment).

[Jacqueline Winona]

Funny things I have heard recently at work (and I work in a very progressive office). When I asked a gg who "Mia*) is, she tells me "She's the really feminine woman who works over there, always wears a dress or skirt." Same GG, and my question is Who is "Lilly*?" Answer "She dresses really feminine, usually a skirt, sometimes a dress, always with nylons." This is coming from a single, GG who is about 30, and wears pants much more often than not. It isn't just the CD's who think this way, for better or for worse, folks. (*= all names changed to protect the innocent. :))

[Isabella77]

I think there all kinds of examples of how people dress differently in different cultures. To answer the question of the essay you're going to have to take a more universal approach. Truthfully there is no reason why a male cannot wear a dress except for cultural expectations. Of course there are subcultures all over the place where this rule looses its "authority".

BTW, I've always been jealous of girls because they can wear whatever they want.

[PaulaQ]

@Natalie - you can write this paper, but if you really want to talk about "Gender Uniforms", you really need to understand what constitutes gender uniforms for men and women. Just wearing pants is *not* cross dressing for a woman, as everyone else has said.

However, wearing men's jeans, socks, shoes, a wallet on a chain in the back pocket, men's shirt, vest, hat with no makeup is probably far enough over the line that a woman who dresses like that will often be assumed to be a butch lesbian. (Particularly if she's not an especially feminine looking woman to begin with.)

There are absolutely lines of fashion that women dare not cross - at least if they want to be perceived as straight. You'd do well to talk to some women who were more masculine, FTMs, butch lesbians - gender variant women who understand where the lines are, because they either try to break them, or have been frustrated in life because they break them inadvertently.

That may sound really subtle, and unfair, because for men - "dude in a skirt = obvious gender variant", while for women, it actually takes some effort to gender bend, but here's the thing. You are a man. Men are not, for the most part, subtle. Women tend to be so. There are, of course, exceptions to such a generalization.

I think if you approach it from that angle, that men and women have different standards and degrees of conformity for their gender uniforms, that you could probably write something quite useful.

[Aeslyn]

Natalie,
As you have said that this is a college paper I would like to refer you back to your school. Most schools have an online library for access to scholarly journals. wikipedia and other websites should be avoided as sources to cite because they are not scholarly and as such probably not acceptable to you prof. They are however a great resource for sources if you look at what the wikipedia article or website use as their sources then go look those work up (probably at your school or local library).

As for the big controversy this thread has turned into there are a few things which should be considered. It is right, that in our current time and place a woman wearing pants is not crossdressing. The opposition of acceptability here is not a good one for you paper for many reasons beyond those already stated. But a couple possible lines of thought you can look into are the effects women's movements of the last 50 or so years which have had as one of their main ideals that women can do anything men can - which would include wearing pants. Before the women's liberation movements the enforcement of what types of clothing women wore was as much about women "being in their place" as anything else. It was about what women were supposed to be. Feminism and women's liberation movements have made it, and rightly so, that you can't tell a woman she can't do something on the basis that she is a woman that. The second part you might want to look at is the traditional position of masculine as higher value than feminine in conjunction with western (mostly American) ideals of trying to achieve or succeed. Achievement and success are all about upward mobility therefore, if masculine is above feminine a woman wearing pants is attempting to "improve" while a man wearing a dress is choosing to go downward. This issue can be found in more places than sex/gender such as the fact that a black man trying to pass for white would be more acceptable than a white man trying to pass for black.

Anthropologically speaking, human societies evolved from early beginnings of hunter/gather societies. As such the most valued trait was physical strength as this was the most commonly useful for production and therefore survival. As men are on average stronger than women this "natural inequality" (Rousseau) became associated with men while its opposite, weakness, became associated with women. Hunter/gathers transitioned into farming/herding societies, and then into industrial societies based on physical labour (in some cases where European based societies encountered non-European based hunter/gather societies the farming/herding stage was skipped - i.e.: Coast Salish). In both of these physical strength was again the most useful for production and therefore for survival while the associations of strength with men and weakness with women hadn't changed (men were still on average physically stronger). Homo-sapiens, thus these societies, came into being approximately 200,000 years ago so the trait of strength was the most useful and therefore most valued for a long time. Financial and technological societies, where physical strength is not the most useful quality, are infants in comparison to the length of human existence and as such there is a long history of deeply entrenched values to overcome. In all honestly, the first real wide-spread upheaval of men being more highly valued began only a mere 100 years ago with Vladimir Lenin and Aleksandra Kollontai who argued for, and eventual succeeded in, incorporating women into the industrial workplace on a large scale. However, even within soviet Russia it was considered more socially expectable for a woman to take on a man's role or identity then for a man to take a woman's. There were even cases of women who, known to their superiors, crossdresed and passed to attain high positions in the military or government while men crossdressing was still quite taboo and would have been kept behind closed doors. It is interesting to note, however, that there was no taboo regarding alternative sexualities with the commissar of public affairs, Grigorii Chicherin, one of the most prominent members of Lenin's government being openly gay. (Gender roles and identities in Soviet Russia is a topic I wrote a paper on just last year which I would be willing to share if it will help. It does have some discussion of alternative sexualities and alternative gender identities.)

Anyway, this has been a mouthful but I hope it helps. I know how tough it can be to begin to form your ideas for an academic paper. I am struggling with that for my current work for a theory class I am taking. Sometimes the actual ideas and wording of your topic don't really form until the rest of your paper does.