I am one of those husbands/boyfriends/sons…. My wife has made it clear she would be mortally ashamed if anyone finds out she is married to a man who crossdresses. It frightens, worries, and disgusts her- a potpourri of negativity which reflects the hold that gender norms have in society. Even after 37 years together, she cannot love me ‘that way”. I am writing this for her, for us, and for all the relationships foundering on conflict over gender expression.
Gender norms are thrust upon us with the same emphatic certainty as we might warn about the force of gravity- a natural limitation on behavior that cannot be disregarded. However, it is not nature we need to fear. These norms are not natural, but cultural. They are cultural rules, explicitly imposed on children, with a variety of arguments [see below]. And when arguments fail, with threats and cruelty. This enforcement is so thorough and uncompromising that most people just give in. The foundation of our social relations is that every thought and feeling is policed towards conformity, until we are so old or infirm we can be disreagarded.
The sad part is that there are few people who did not feel a significant personal loss as they were forced to adhere to gender rules. Women learn to manage around the daily humiliations of being second class citizens. Men double down on hollowing themselves out as they learn that emotions other than pride and anger are a dangerous vulnerability.
For whose whose painful compliance eventually morphs into pursuit of various idealizations of adult man and woman, the prize is increased social status, career opportunity, and inclusion. Well, first we seek safety, then all those other things.
The downside is that we are role-playing, not living from our wholeneness. And if we become parents, we repeat the process and turn our whole children into half person adults.
I am writing this to say it is time to rethink the perpetuation of this burden.
Some of this thinking has obviously been taking place. I recently asked the friendly female receptionists [age 50 and 20] at my relatively conservative fitness club if they would be upset if I wore a dress. I expected a reluctant yes, but it was as if I asked if it would be ok to wear tennis shoes to play tennis. “What? Of course not! Why would it be an issue? Look, we are wearing pants, so yes, whatever, not a problem!”
It was nice. It cheeres me that there are places where corporate tolerance and youthful clarity allow everyone to see that the sky doesn’t fall when a gender norm fades away. But the reality is that when I wear women’s clothing there, I see my fellow fitness club members becoming uneasy.
Fun fact: In the U.S. females were not legally permitted to wear pants in public without negative consequences until the 1930s. Of course, during WWII pants were necessary wear for Rosie the Riveter, but dresses were expected again on the home front in the 50s. In the 70s, the women’s liberation movements resurged, and mocked the argument that pants on women were a significant problem. Today, women adopt men’s styles more freely, but the gender norm pressure is still there. Jeans and chinos soon gave way to leggings. Why? Leggings confer many of the modesty and functional advantages of pants, but reinstate the distinctly feminine showcasing of body contour, along with comfort and sensual enjoyment.
To be fair, there is now an active discussion over the idea of liberating men. A public rejection of ‘toxic masculinity’ brought everyone up short for a bit, but now has aroused a defensive backlash that liberals are femininizing men. That ended the flirtation with men’s hair buns, but there is more room now for sensitive men to survive, as long as they are not criticizing the men who are straining to prove their masculinity. Men are struggling to figure out how to be nicer people and better fathers and caring friends while still clearly not being like women.
Dresses and other explicitly feminine clothing are still off limits for men, except as a joke or a protest. Many males do want to enjoy feminine energy and style, but when those with social power as celebrities have tried to leverage their fame and promote dresses and skirts for men — it has not found traction.
I beleive the primary obstacle is that social power is claimed by males only because it has been relatively easy to maintain it by physical threat. It is clear enough that males are on average bigger, and stronger than females. Innate differences in physical capacity are then exaggerated by differences in the physical challenges and training provided to males and females. Physical strength alone does not translate into enduring power. That arises when the culture assigns male children the prerogative of violence.
The gender mythology states that it is their nature, bu t my contention is that violence is offered to males and promoted. And very little actual physical violence is needed to take control via just the threat. Social and economic penalties are an excellent substitute for physical violence. When a society merges sexuality and violence, as is so often the case, females pay a high price, and males perceived as vulnerable or otherwise like women will as well.
Admitting that males could enjoy the trappings of the weaker sex undermines the the mythogy of male supremacy. Females are allowed to aspire to the power status of males, but not to actually have it. Males are allowed to joke about vulnerability, but never to reveal it.
Absent the threat of violence, there is no way to see differences in individual physical capacity as justification for the subordination of women or the damaging restraints placed on men’s emotional development.
The truth is that females and males are equally equipped with spiritual, emotional, and mental capacity. Intelligence, hope, patience, creativity, kindness, courage, etc. are not and cannot be differentiated by gender. Whole people are amazing- kind, thoughtful, considerate, communicative.
Occasionally I encounter someone who sees me in a dress and thinks it is cool and edgy- a mark of a man sure of himself. Rare, but nice when it happens. Sometimes someone will complement my dress, as a genuinely friendly gesture, but the conversation stops there. I understand- sadly.
The arguments against males wearing women’s clothes are a defense of a cloud of intersecting half truths, habituations, and fears. What someome says is going to be their private distillation of the forces arguing for conformity to the particulars of gender norms that constrain their lives.
The top line arguments:
- it is contravening the laws of nature- This view of nature goes something like this: ‘Males and females are the two kinds of human being, and they are differentiated in significant ways to play a critical role in family forming, child rearing, home care, and ensuring the survival of the species. A male is designed to be strong, hardy, and assertive who will seek, mate with, and then carefully protect a female who is designed to be weak, soft, nurturing, and dependent. The male must remain unencumbered, better to stand ready to repel invaders and competitors for his female, and is unquestionably captain of his family unit, though he is subject to the man pack hierarchy around him. Every female is a sexual target for males, and in return for a male’s protection and limits on her freedom, chooses to do the labor not of interest to males.” The toxicities inherent in this model are obvious. Women have been pushing back on this for centuries, joined now by a host of people with ‘queer’ identities who found enough safety to testify to the failures of this model to describe their lived experience. There is a struggle now over how these ideas are dramatized every day in our media. It could be helpful to recognize that evolution uses individual variation to increase adaptation and survival. The intelligent thing to do is to celebrate and build a better society around the diversity of sensitivities, capacities, and strengths of individuals.
- it disables the erotic engine and the evolutionary imperative of reproduction. Yes, of course. There is a basic instinct for sexual reproduction that draws males and females together to mate. We implement gender separation and modesty rules beginning early in childhood. Then the expressions of masculinity and femininity are exaggerated to increase the emotional intensity over separation. Most animal courtship behaviors are instinctive, but we humans create them, and then we spend a lot of time achieving and proving ourselves in our prescribed gender expressions. We might not naturally arrive at them. We have to split our original whole personhoods down the middle to make males and females differ in every detail, just to make sure we need each other to be complete? In recent decades society finally acknowledged that same sex couples are legitimate, finding sexually motivating excitement without a binary gender difference. It is no secret why married couples find out that being whole human beings is a stronger connection than performative role-playing. Cultivating sexual attraction with role-playing is not harmless, it is objectification. The sooner we drop the gender binary mythology as our framework for sexuality, the better!
- it is contravening divine admonishments- Religion is by definition a means of uniting with the divine, but in practice every religion is mired in competing ideologies, each claiming primacy. Many religious doctrines have signficant unresolved internal conflicts, for example between choosing love and forgiveness or moral judgment and punishment., splintering into factions insisting on particular interpretations. For this reason alone a society cannot be harmonious if an attempt is made to structure its laws to reflect a religious doctrine. As a lived experience, I feel absolutely blessed by my Creator.
- it is inappropriate, aesthetically discordant, and off-putting- Yes, of course. Explicitly feminine clothing is designed to fit and flatter an archetypal female body. It is a stretch, literally, to make that work for a male body! THe prize underneath is all wrong, too. Clothes are messages about ourselves- and our expected roles. Women’s clothes tend to be fragile, visually interesting, designed to enhance their form and sexual attractiveness. Men’s clothes are designed for male bodies and the jobs men are to do. They should be durable, functional, and with a minimum of stylistic flair or useless decor. If a male is wearing women’s clothing, what is the message??? The first question I hear is ‘Are you gay?’ The misfit with what people expect is confusing and uncomfortable, and will be so until we realize as a society that masculine and feminine characteristics are found in both males and females. Then we can all relax and enjoy new clothing designs that express masculine or feminine memes, AND fit one’s male or female body!
- it is shameful,- Um- shame is a social exclusion penalty imposed by a rule-maker. Threatening the human need to feel safely included is a cruelly effective enforcement for deviating from gender rules. There is obviously nothing inherently shameful in wearing women’s clothes. Who is it who wants to shame others, and why?
- it is unnecessary, misdirected, fetishistic — It is correct that beauty is only skin deep, and focusing on superficial material things is not character building. But this argument is meant to dismiss and demean the very valid human desire to enjoy the stylistic pleasures of clothes, and the full range of feeling and activity that humans can enjoy.
- it is isolating, to the point of being dangerously provocative - Yes, we are a social animal and we need the cooperative agreement of others for anything to work smoothly. Not adhering to norms can be seen as being uncooperative or as an affront and public challenge to deeply held beliefs, and violent opportunists will consider gender rule violators fair game for abuse when they find opportunity out of the public eye. Majority stress on minorities has bedeviled this country from the beginning. It is clearly far better to widen the circle of understanding of each other and cooperatively work together if we want to have a peaceful and resilient society.
Depressing, or just daunting? The recent liberalization that encouraged gender diversity aroused a violent backlash. The path to an accepting future is mired in the fears of those who see it as dangerous, and there are only a few isolated refuges where an overriding norm of altruistic inclusion is at work.
That said, this a complex but finite problem. Gender norms are social constructs, and we can logically and productively decouple gender norms from anatomy. Assigning social powers and privileges by anatomical sex is crude, and wasteful of human talent. Decoupling anatomy is not negation or devaluation of masculine and feminine gender expressions and ideals. Rather, it allows for fuller and more accurate expression of individual strengths.
Decoupling anatomy from gender idealizations would set us on the path of loosening the grip of other incorrect and entrenched negative and limiting beliefs about minorities. Race, for example, is a social construct. It cannot even be defined biologically, yet it has powered the imposition of untold suffering. The sooner human society matures beyond this kind of ignorant cruelty, the better for all of us.
PS A few years ago, a dressing room attendant was amiably chatting me up, offering more selections. As she was counting my garments, another staffer came to relieve her. The arriving staffer saw my armful of women’s clothes, turned to the attendant who had been helping me, frowned, and started to say ‘But…” My attendant just smiled and said, genially — “Why not?”
In a flash it was over and the tension was gone. One more person who saw the light.
Full disclosure, though. For anyone to accompany me anywhere in public is to announce that they are either in sympathy with me or just blatantly unconcerned about gender norms. More than once someone who enthusiastically expressed friendship and nonchalance over gender norms realized soon afterwards the expected social cost was too high for the value of a casual acquaintance. This same calculation, of social cost vs love and care, is tearing apart couples and families everywhere.
Every day brings new hope.
I am writing this for all of us!
