Many Hats

Any sufficiently unfamiliar technology...

My friend Erin made this hat. She made it with her hands and some sticks (or maybe a hook?), out of yarn that she also made with her hands. That pretty much makes it magic to me. Besides, I love blue, purple, and brown. Pink, not so much, but the pink on this hat comes in the form of a five-pointed star at the crown. That will redeem just about any color in my eyes.

When I saw it, I went through pretty much the same thought process I always do when considering items of clothing that appeal to me, but which are intended for women. It goes kind of like this: "Oh, cool! But that's a 'girly' thing. So what? So I can only use it for cross-dressing. Wait. Why?!"

Since I did not have a good answer (I never do), I accepted the hat. I finally wore it out on a walk last night, and the world did not end. I felt rather silly--not for wearing something "girly", but for worrying about the gender affiliation of a hat. It is just a (wicked awesome) hat; it is also a gender signifier, and no amount of eye-rolling will change that.

I have struggled for years to understand my complex and sometimes contradictory feelings about clothing and gender. Well, "struggle" is a strong word for it, but my nigh-complete ignorance of fashion does make this topic challenging to explore and discuss. I know what kinds of clothing I like, and some of those (e.g. skirts) are more commonly associated with women than with men in contemporary Western society.

Every once in a while--typically in winter--strangers will call me "Ma'am" or "Miss" even when I wear average, societally-approved masculine clothing. I do not bother correcting them anymore. When they hear my voice, they usually backpedal so hard that you would think they had mistaken me for an axe murderer rather than a woman.

"I'm sorry, Sir! I uh...didn't look too close." Long, awkward pause. "So, um...you like the Orioles?"

Those fumbling apologies are sometimes hilarious and sometimes annoying, but I really cannot fault those people for getting confused. By Western standards, I appear fairly androgynous--short, fine-boned, and not particularly hairy. I do not expect every single person I meet to successfully divine my gender from seeing half of my face between scarf and hat.

Ironically, my androgynous appearance sometimes causes me to shy away from dressing androgynously, which, all else being equal, tends to be my preference. Most people still look askance on men wearing anything that looks even remotely feminine to their eyes. While I could not care less about the disapproval of strangers, I really would prefer to avoid the confusion, the flustered apologies, and the jeers that come with wearing androgynous or feminine clothes.

At least two acquaintances have asked me if I prefer feminine pronouns after seeing me "dressed up" for the club. The answer was "no", but it pleased me that they asked at all. I have made peace with the fact that most people will never ask; they will make assumptions based on the clothes that I wear. Some will stare, some will stumble over forms of address, and some will mock. But, in the end, I get to wear this fabulous hat...and they don't.

Skirting the Issue

Iggy Pop in a dress. Your argument is invalid.

I like skirts--long or short, on women or on men, on other people or on myself--so long as they are wide enough to permit free movement and have usable pockets. I like trousers that fit those criteria as well, and find them more suitable for some situations, but I still prefer skirts for on the basis of comfort and aesthetics.

A lot of people seem to have this mental block: they see skirts as women's garments, and cannot move past that. Men wear trousers. Women wear skirts...and trousers. Why are women permitted to wear both, but not men? They cannot be bothered to ask questions like that.

Maybe they just do not want to consider the likely explanation, which is misogyny. This is a very reductionist version: women wear skirts, men wear trousers, and women are inferior to men; it is good for women to strive for something above their station, therefore women may wear trousers; it is bad for men to sink to something beneath their station, therefore men may not wear skirts.

Other people can accept certain types of traditional men's skirts, such as kilts or sarongs, but only if one belongs to the culture that produced said garments. My partner's mother is convinced to this day that my partner's and my predilection for kilts is justified by our Irish American heritage. The number one question we get asked when we walk around in kilts is, "Are you Scottish?" After all, why else would a man wear a skirt? Is 'personal preference' that difficult to understand?

Yes, Utilikilts 'count' as skirts.

There are also people who embrace the idea of men wearing men's skirts--but only men's skirts made for men only! Strangers sometimes ask about my 'skirt', only to be corrected by other well-meaning strangers: "It's a kilt, not a skirt!" That strikes me as similar to insisting that blue jeans are not trousers. The obsession with framing men's skirts (or men's unbifurcated garments, as some prefer) as exclusively male and unambiguously separate from women's skirts seems kind of neurotic to me. It goes back to the same misogynistic message that it is more humiliating for a man to appear womanly than it is for women to appear manly.

Every culture attaches a different set of largely arbitrary meanings to clothes. Living in the Information Age affords us the opportunity to experience many such sets of meanings from all times and places. Furthermore, we have the freedom to question, change, or discard these meanings if we find them wanting. I call bulshytt on the notion that only women can wear skirts.

Beards, Beer, and Bacon

I went to MAGFest this past weekend with my partner. We were both sick (apologies to anyone who contracted MAGflu from us), but had a blast nevertheless. MAGFest was distinct from most other conventions I have attended in recent memory in several ways: it was one of the smallest, most focused (in subject matter, i.e. gaming), and most heavily male-dominated (probably due to above-mentioned subject matter).

Me and River, in kilts.

You can observe all kinds of interesting phenomena at a con with a higher sex ratio than the People's Republic of China. Among other things, I found the sheer amount of facial hair startling.

I do not have much of an opinion about beards in and of themselves. Even if I did, I would stay clean-shaven, as my facial hair looks pretty tragic when allowed to grow out.

However, the popularity of beards seems to coincide with a new cult of masculinity, a reaction against the 'metrosexuality' of the 1990s. Perhaps every generation finds its own arbitrary standards of manliness, but really, how did we wind up with beards, beer, and bacon?

These standards of masculinity (short hair, preferring the color blue, interest in sports) or femininity (shaved legs, preferring the color pink, interest in...whatever adult women are 'supposed' to like--cooking?) are typically enforced by peers in a process sometimes called 'gender policing'.

As an effeminate guy, I have come to regard with vague distrust any fashion that gets too closely tied to societal expectations about gender. In fairness, I have not yet heard anyone level a charge of sissiness at a man for lack of facial hair. This frankly surprises me, given that a beard (as a male secondary sex characteristic) seems more intuitively masculine than, say, pants. Maybe it has something to do with the company I keep.

At the last Dragon*Con, someone heckled me for wearing a UtiliKilt, referring to it as a skirt in a jeering manner. Before I could give the repartee I learned from Eddie Izzard, the rest of the room shouted him down with a roar of "It's a kilt!"

On the one hand, I felt very encouraged by the intent of my defenders--they found that man's gender policing unacceptable and told him as much. However, the way in which they chose to respond suggested that A) they did not consider a kilt a type of skirt (in what way is it not a skirt?), and B) they did consider a charge of skirt-wearing for a man to be an insult.

I prefer to question the underlying assumptions: what is wrong with a man wearing a skirt? Why do you consider bacon a manlier food than tempeh? How does my interest in this particular band have anything to do with my sexual orientation? It tends to bring the gender police up short, because they expect either anger or submission, not discourse. Better yet, it might make someone think.