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(Migrated from Furious Angels 1.0)
The rule that said men should not wear skirts has got to be one of the daftest around, made even more absurd now that its equivalent rule that women should not wear trousers has been quite sensibly abolished.
Obviously, rules telling you what you can't wear are bizarre oppression. Make that gender-discriminatory and you're talking serious gender apartheid. But add to that a curious asymmetry, making some people arbitrary second-class citizens, and the logical conclusion is that this is some kind of a joke rather than reality.
An early example of someone breaking the rules was Emma Snodgrass, who in Boston on 29th December 1852 was arrested for wearing trousers. Now let's see if the world is advancing, and losing its silly rules.
No, it's not. Before even the birth of Christ men wore not just skirts but dresses too. In the form of reed and burlap smocks, all genders of peasants wore some form of skirt or dress. The Romans conquered Europe wearing skirts made of armor. The Scots, Highlanders, Saxons, and Celts, defended their home lands and ransacked Rome in skirts. Babylonians wore them in casual and war dress. Egyptians wore them from rich to poor. Japanese wore them, Samurai or not. Chinese wore them, old or young. Monks wore - and still wear them. African tribes have always worn skirts made from cloth and reeds. India is full of men wearing skirts, in fact the whole middle-east is skirt-wearing central if you're not in their military. (On a side note, all of these cultures had men as the ones wearing makeup too).
It wasn't until after the Romans, after the Turkish Empire, after the Brits in the West and the Spanish finally became "refined" that skirts on man started to slowly disappear. It was for practical reasons rather than fashion: one could engage in horse riding, sports, science, or parliament much easier if one didn't have cloth hanging about. As the rich's "trousers" became less and less expensive (and less extravagant and frilly), the poor began to buy them for sheer ease of use. Farming and newspaper selling went well with pants instead of a skirt. Modern life slowly creeped in and washed skirts away. But not for women. Why?
Because women didn't play sports, partake in parliament, sell newspapers, or work plowing a field. Manual labor was off limits unless it involved squatting out a baby or cooking. What happened when women were finally able to get normal jobs here in America in the late 60's? The skirts phased out for them. No, really, women started wearing pants all the time. Capris were even invented to help keep pants "feminine". They clung to the freedom of wearing pants because it was novel. But now skirts are back in fashion thanks to fashion designers bringing them back; but try as fashion designers may, they can't bring back skirts for men. They want to. They know what I know about historical fashion - hell, most fashions in the modern day ARE historical. They can't. Why? Stigma. We have to stop with this ridiculous and bizarre oppression of a clothing garment originally designed by and for and worn for millenia by men.
The rule that said men should not wear skirts has got to be one of the daftest around, made even more absurd now that its equivalent rule that women should not wear trousers has been quite sensibly abolished.
Obviously, rules telling you what you can't wear are bizarre oppression. Make that gender-discriminatory and you're talking serious gender apartheid. But add to that a curious asymmetry, making some people arbitrary second-class citizens, and the logical conclusion is that this is some kind of a joke rather than reality.
An early example of someone breaking the rules was Emma Snodgrass, who in Boston on 29th December 1852 was arrested for wearing trousers. Now let's see if the world is advancing, and losing its silly rules.
No, it's not. Before even the birth of Christ men wore not just skirts but dresses too. In the form of reed and burlap smocks, all genders of peasants wore some form of skirt or dress. The Romans conquered Europe wearing skirts made of armor. The Scots, Highlanders, Saxons, and Celts, defended their home lands and ransacked Rome in skirts. Babylonians wore them in casual and war dress. Egyptians wore them from rich to poor. Japanese wore them, Samurai or not. Chinese wore them, old or young. Monks wore - and still wear them. African tribes have always worn skirts made from cloth and reeds. India is full of men wearing skirts, in fact the whole middle-east is skirt-wearing central if you're not in their military. (On a side note, all of these cultures had men as the ones wearing makeup too).
It wasn't until after the Romans, after the Turkish Empire, after the Brits in the West and the Spanish finally became "refined" that skirts on man started to slowly disappear. It was for practical reasons rather than fashion: one could engage in horse riding, sports, science, or parliament much easier if one didn't have cloth hanging about. As the rich's "trousers" became less and less expensive (and less extravagant and frilly), the poor began to buy them for sheer ease of use. Farming and newspaper selling went well with pants instead of a skirt. Modern life slowly creeped in and washed skirts away. But not for women. Why?
Because women didn't play sports, partake in parliament, sell newspapers, or work plowing a field. Manual labor was off limits unless it involved squatting out a baby or cooking. What happened when women were finally able to get normal jobs here in America in the late 60's? The skirts phased out for them. No, really, women started wearing pants all the time. Capris were even invented to help keep pants "feminine". They clung to the freedom of wearing pants because it was novel. But now skirts are back in fashion thanks to fashion designers bringing them back; but try as fashion designers may, they can't bring back skirts for men. They want to. They know what I know about historical fashion - hell, most fashions in the modern day ARE historical. They can't. Why? Stigma. We have to stop with this ridiculous and bizarre oppression of a clothing garment originally designed by and for and worn for millenia by men.
