Male / female brains

[Nikkilovesdresses]

Clothing standards are socially determined and are in a state of constant change.

I disagree. Female underwear is very different to male for entirely physical reasons. Some men like to wear very brief lower underwear, but since the underwear is invisible to society, it seems unlikely that they do it for reasons of peer pressure - quite the opposite in fact, and if it's actually designed for men, it doesn't include a gusset.

Women's clothing standards versus men's have changed in one or two important respects, eg women now routinely wear trousers, and may go bra-less, but just as women's clothes have become simplified and more revealing, so have men's. 100 years ago a gentleman would no more have thought of wearing shorts and a t-shirt in public, other than at the beach, than a lady would have thought of wearing a mini skirt and a halter top. A century ago a hooker might have worn more revealing clothing than the norm, but she was shunned by all levels of society and her clothing choices were not imitated - in other words peer pressure had nothing to do with it- in fact she operated contrary to peer pressure.

...female thought patterns do not lead to a desire to dress in a more feminine way. The female peer pressures are far less directed toward anti-male appearance than are male peer pressures toward anti-female. On the other hand, they are often more fashion driven than are male pressures.

I disagree with this too. I believe that hetero females dress, when conditions permit, to attract a male. They may well do it at work too, within limitations, but the display is most obvious on a night on the town. They do it because they are designed to breed, and it is natural to want to attract the most eligible male possible. This is why you tend not to see rich men dating unattractive women- they can pick and choose. So yes, hetero women are unlikely to dress mannishly, but it is entirely because of their thought patterns.

Hetero men dress mannishly to attract feminine, ie classically nest-driven women, because they know that those women will (in theory) most closely fit their ideal. Such women are unlikely to be attracted to men in dresses and make up, as we see time and again in this forum, and it's why wives are frequently shocked and profoundly disturbed when their conception of their partner as something approaching Alpha male goes out the window.

Only in the last few generations have we begun to see these traditional values questioned, and the result largely seems to have been a rocketing divorce rate, fewer children, increased emotional problems and a general disintegration of society. Not great news, in other words, except that women now have the Vote and can get jobs in previously exclusively male domains.