Breeze Around The Knees
In politically-charged fashion news:
Why yes, since you ask, I am reading the Guardian. Specifically, a piece by Mr Phineas Harper:
Possibly because it tends to look contrived and rather silly, even when celebrities do it. A contrivance that suggests, not so much a high-minded “dismantling” of “gendered fashion,” or “a small step towards gender equality,” as Mr Harper would have us believe, but something closer to tedious self-absorption. The kind of thing one might expect from a disingenuous, noodle-legged Guardian columnist, say. But apparently, this craving for attention, for being the skirt-wearing star of any social gathering, will somehow liberate British women from their supposedly grim, downtrodden existence.
Those of you with an urge to behold Mr Harper in a skirt – complete with tights, trainers, and dickie bow – can do so here. A second ensemble, featuring a bold leaf print, also awaits your applause. Readers are welcome to say whether the word panache – favoured by Mr Harper – is one that comes to mind. Though it occurs to me that the author’s own carefully curated fashion statements rather solve any mystery as to why said garment hasn’t been widely adopted by the menfolk of the nation.
Despite this setback, further attempts are made to entice male Guardian readers into the realm of “floaty Toast midi skirt combos,” including:
Because every man, in every household across these islands, wants to be complimented on his skirt.
And,
Or perhaps the thing being signalled is something else entirely. Like insufferable twattery.
“Normal men” is an inadvertent admission.
His sister sounds like an insufferable twat, too. Runs in families. Time to joke again about the ginormous douche gene?
…it’s still vanishingly rare to see normal men wear normal skirts day to day.
I think he needs to look up the meaning of “normal” to find out why.
Like insufferable twattery.
Which in this case is synonymous with “This is how I compensate for a complete lack of personality.”
Notice what makes skirts cosy in winter is not the skirt but the tights worn under them. Which do not go well with thick leg hair.
You seem – how shall I put this? – awfully knowledgeable.
I’ve mentioned before a big family barbecue – one summer, a few years ago – at which a niece and her boyfriend brought along a schoolfriend, a rather delicate-looking chap wearing Doc Martin boots and a colourful, floaty summer dress. He was obviously expecting some kind of reaction from the assembled normies, being so immensely genderqueer or genderfluid or something. But aside from a few initial raised eyebrows, nobody much cared. People just got on with having a good time.
There was a distinct sense of disappointment on his part, of our having failed to be scandalised or provoked in some way. Despite, initially, quite a bit of flouncing.
Which is kind of the point with Mr Harper’s advocacy of male skirt-wearing. It isn’t about “dismantling… gendered fashion,” or taking “a small step towards gender equality.” It’s about the rest of us not appreciating the tediously needy attention-seeking.
Which do not go well with thick leg hair.
That the author doesn’t depillitate in some manner is likely a sucker bet.
Again, I’m seeing a level of expertise I hadn’t anticipated.
Again, I’m seeing a level of expertise I hadn’t anticipated.
It doesn’t take expertise to reckon that someone who thinks male “panache” means dressing like a peacock run amok in an ornamental flower garden at a clown convention instead of, say, Cary Grant or by all the tailors of Savile Row, probably renders himself non-hirsute.
It’s a close shave, there…
*ducks*
I’m afraid I don’t know what a “dickie bow” is, thus I am also afraid to click and find out. Hopefully this is just one of those cute British terms/expressions like “stepping out to suck on a fag” that you Limeys have fun with to observe the Yanks’ reaction. But why take the chance?
You know, it used to be quite common for men to wear dress-like clothing: the chiton, toga, etc. For that matter, his namesake the biblical Phineas would have worn a simlah, the approximate Israelite equivalent. Eventually people found the “barbarian” style of trousers a heck of a lot more convenient.
So, far from being bold or transgressive or whatever, all this Harper fellow is doing is harking back a couple of millennia. Well, why stop there? How’s about he starts going around in furs like Ötzi?
A dozen comments and still no references to the Scotts. Interesting…
This has been the general trend of how to deal with these and other similar situations but I honestly believe this avoidance approach is a big part of the problem. The traditional response to such a situation would be, and actually has been more appropriate and effective over the long run. It’s just become totally unacceptable. For some reason…
I saw the Grauniad article …. One word comes to mind …. k-i-l-t….
See also, give us a tug on that fag, mate.
[ Muffled sniggering. ]
There have long been a few cross-dressers/trans/etc in some of my social circles. I have pretty much ignored their sartorial nonconformity and simply joined in whatever conversation was taking place. (I was very aware that these people were psychologically damaged in various ways, but felt that was no reason to be unkind to them.) But now I am being told that it’s no longer enough that I speak courteously: I must also publicly celebrate their choices and always use whatever pronouns they now demand. A bridge too far.
Thing is, a kilt isn’t coded as female. It isn’t generally perceived as ladies’ wear. Mr Harper is much more interested in the cross-dressing aspect. Which will apparently liberate British women from their grim, downtrodden existence.
Looking back, I was an astonishingly naive 14 year old nerd: Jokes in Bored of the Rings such as “up jumped a narc brandishing a huge faggot” went right past me.
Now, as a Mature and Sober Minded Adult, I would never snigger. What?
This. Fashionable transgression. And then we are ordered to applaud.
I have met a number of men who wear what they call utili-kilts. Also with some claims that this is much more practical than pants, but maybe they just want to be Scotsmen. 😉
Sartorial choices: around here, leggings (yoga pants, tights) are big for women. It shows off their ass..ets wonderfully. You never never see a cross-dressing man in leggings. Why? That is “what makes a woman”. But of course in leggings you can obviously see that this chap does NOT have a female rear end or legs. So they choose long dresses to hide their deception.
To ease WTP’s link-clicking anxieties.
In All Creatures Great and Small Siegfried Farnon berates Tristan when he sees the dickie bow that Tristan plans to wear to a formal dinner: “worn by waiters in seedy Italian restaurants” and “no brother of mine will be caught dead in such a thing” whereupon he tosses it into the fireplace.
It seems as if Mr Harper needed a Siegfried in his life for multiple reasons.
The only men who look good in skirts are men in kilts, specifically Scots. As the article states, all others look contrived.
He’s getting compliments because people think he’s Trans or a They or some such fad idiocy and don’t dare be the last one clapping.
And skirts being warm in winter? Maybe if you wear woolen leggings under and the skirt comes down to the ground. Otherwise – hell no. It’s also hard to look like much of anything in long woolens and skirt, unless you’re a male twig, or Twiggy.
Alternate explanations: 1. He only gets those compliments in excruciatingly woke settings. 2. He is not getting compliments.
I recall attempts by New York fashion designers to persuade men to wear skirts.
Or maybe merely to get publicity by being outrageous.
Ah. A kind of bow tie. But what makes it ‘Dickie’? I don’t think Nixon ever wore one but…I suppose there are a number of other Dicks. I’ve been misnomered in that regard myself once or twice…or…
I do recall a few attempts by New York fashion designers to persuade men to wear skirts.
There’s a reason many women, especially active or sporty women, or in northern latitudes in general, stopped wearing skirts when they didn’t have to anymore. They’re a PITA. The recent trend to ditch pantyhose isn’t doing most women any favors, appearance-wise. I hate the things, but they do help you look better in a skirt, especially as you get older.
Men in kilts though…very much yes!
[ Fetches spray bottle of iced water. ]
Wiktionary is your friend here:
I assume this is why those silly things Howard Wollowitz wears are called dickies.
Don’t trust Wiki. Wiki lies.
I think we can be fairly confident when the topic is non-political.
But if you want to check your printed dictionaries I’ll be happy to read what you find.
Oh no! Incoming!
It was this kind of thing that provoked the American Revolutionary War. Tax on tea was a relatively minor consideration.
It does seem likely Harper’s mother is wondering where her portieres got to.
Portieres? Wiktionary says that means gatekeeper. I’m confused.
A portière is a hanging curtain placed over a door or over the doorless entrance to a room.
aelfheld: Heh.
It was a joke, Francis. And an excuse to reference a movie that amused me.
Everyone clear their browser history.
I didn’t tell you what YOU must do. I am merely suggesting the oh so uncomfortable, Overton Window moving suggestion that maybe, just maaaaaybe, our acceptance of such behavior, without any pushback whatsoever, is a problem. I am not TELLING YOU SPECIFICALLY what to do. You inferred that. It certainly would be inappropriate and awkward, not to mention stupid and beating a dead horse for EVERYONE present at such an occasion to make an issue of it. I am merely suggesting that perhaps…PERHAPS mind you, that should someone present at such an occasion think of a moderately sufficiently witty or even otherwise appropriate…dressing down (?) of such a person, that the person who actually does speak up not be denigrated as a…dick.
If there was a better way to get this point across without having to write a bloody TL;DR post full of apologies and qualifications, please let me know. I admittedly am not the most elegant language person, especially when vocal inflection is not an available tool. But I am willing to learn.
Heh. What timing. We just checked into an airbnb in St. Augustine last night that has a very light, white linen over our entrance door, along with the three others in this little quadraplex. Of course we also have a proper physical door. But walking around the neighborhood in the morning I noticed similar on a few of the residential homes in the neighborhood. Is this a new fashion trend? I have used them myself to replace a couple of bifold doors to closets. Hate bifolds. Maybe I started a trend.**
** Another joke…ok, “joke”. Probably not my best but then again, no refunds. Credit note only.
Per Wikipedia: “It is known to have been in use in Europe in the 4th century […]”
So . . . it depends on your time scale.
I was in a hurry so I didn’t follow your link.
And don’t call me Francis.
Um, no. My comment had NOTHING to do with you telling me what to do. It was all about what leftists are telling me to do–demands which I am unwilling to accede to.
Ah, sorry. My misunderstanding.
Heh. When looking for the clip I posted from the Stripes movie, I ran across the scene at the beginning where Murray’s GF is leaving him. Word for word, joke for joke, second for second, it’s one of the funniest scenes in a movie, book, or TV show that I know of. The whole movie was great but that scene has stuck with me for…decades. I quote it often, mostly internally because some of the lines are a bit esoteric out of context. Maybe because each line hits my particular set of humor senses but…and as I recall, the critics dissed the movie when it first came out. In fact, just checking my memory I found this from the always reliable WaPo.
[ Fetches spray bottle of iced water. ]
[fans self]
Thanks – I needed that.
Hate bifolds
That’s terribly phobic of you…
[ Fans ComputerLabRat with bar towel, unspecified particles fly everywhere. ]
[ Wonders whether a clean bar towel might be in order. ]
I do not want to fondle a man’s willie through a pleated skirt. I want access through his zipper only – this is through fifty years of experience! Harper looks very effeminate. I would not touch his thingy if my life depended on it. I want a big strong man wearing Carharts!
pst314: “(I was very aware that these people were psychologically damaged in various ways, but felt that was no reason to be unkind to them.)”
You know, maybe we were wrong about that. Maybe being unkind to them was exactly the right thing to do.
Wiki: I use it to look up facts. Anything political or science with a political slant (race, climate)–all lies.
Skirt-wearing can mean different things in different places and times, but right now a man wearing a skirt doesn’t mean “gender-neutral fabric surface for gender-neutral self-expression” or “efficient summertime heat exchange mechanism” or “I just happened to pick this abstract-shaped garment off the rack, oh, it’s a skirt you say, I didn’t notice”. It’s understood to be a deliberate choice to signal the wearer’s transgression and androgyny.
Accordingly, if I’m just a man and I’m not interested in imposing sexual transgression and androgyny on people, then there’s no reason for me to wear dresses. End of story in theory, but no, I’m being told to signal something I’m not. I think twice before complimenting a female colleague on a new hairdo/outfit, because HR might take it that this constitutes looking at her as a man looks at a woman, which inappropriately [hetero]sexualizes the work environment, but the Guardian tells me I should dress for the office like I’m going to a gay parade, and not think anything of it.
I’m told that if I’m really secure in my masculinity/heterosexuality I should dress like the opposite, because what? I’m so alpha that everyone will immediately see that it’s a joke? Because it’s somehow in my interest as a heterosexual to signal that I’m a homosexual? Because if enough straight men adopt a queer signal it’ll stop being a queer signal, and then what – is that not a loss of variety, a loss of precision, a loss of a means of self/group-expression? Because of the Gainsbourg–Ciccone Conjecture, I’m supposed to get over the stigma I attach to femininity? Whatever the ideological pretext is, the consequence is always that men are expected to beclown themselves by expressing everything and the contrary of everything.
Skirts: men used to wear Togas in rome and greece not due to an editorial in the NYT but because scissors were not invented and sewing by hand was a pain. It tells us nothing about masculine fashion.
There are reasons that we have conventions for clothing. Flaunting those conventions does not make you a revolutionary.
I deliberately refrained from responding to that because I wanted time to review my memory and formulate my thoughts.
Such as, for example, asking “Why are you wearing a dress?”
You have a point. And it is certainly true that liberals are not under and constraint to be polite and accepting when they meet conservatives. I could tell stories about aggressively political discourtesy.
All the situations I have been in have been superficially innocuous: I was never asked to affirm anything, merely implicitly expected to refrain criticism:
The culture of science fiction fans and medievalists is one of radical tolerance: Because so many of these people are eccentric and socially awkward (to put it mildly) these subcultures are supposed to be havens in which they can feel welcome and comfortable. Over the decades since their inception in the 1930’s the range of eccentricities which are supposed to be welcome has expanded enormously. In the 1930’s and 40’s it was young male austistics and obsessives, not to Marxists and Esperantists and other radical nuts. Now it includes every “gender” and kink you can imagine, but the average level of social functionality has not improved. My involvement declined steadily from the mid 80’s until it is now near zero, so I am not up on everything that is going on, but it is not socially or psychologically healthy (except in the minds of the obsessives and fanatics.) I can say that if I were an employer I would be very cautious about hiring one of these fans, as so many of them have proved to be problems.
Several years ago I dropped by someone’s home while they were having a gathering of these medievalists. I didn’t know any of them, but some looked disturbingly odd and one of them had so many facial piercings and “decorations” that I am certain he has serious psychological problems. And later the host of that gathering admitted that psychological dysfunctionality is widespread by telling me that it is essential that everyone be required to use whatever pronouns are demanded lest crazy people cease to join the groups.
Come to think of it, I vaguely recall an case back around 1990 when one of these men decided he was a woman and started dressing accordingly. His wife, feeling betrayed, was furious and divorced him. But he saw him at a few parties, wearing a dress, and nothing was said to him although there was some talk when he wasn’t present about how angry his wife was with the clear subtext that he had betrayed her. I strongly suspect that if it were to happen today there would be little or no talk about betrayal and the only acceptable words would be support of his “brave decision”.
EDIT: I have generally dealt with these dysfunctional people by merely not seeking them out in social situations–there are, after all, always multiple knots of people engaged in different conversations. If they joined a group I did not walk away, and I would say hello in passing when I saw them, but I would not seek out their company.
EDIT: I have never had to deal with extremely “marginal” people in the workplace. I am sure this is largely because employers have been careful to not hire people who display socially problematic behaviors–they know that the costs of hiring a problem person are too high. And I have known more than a few such people who I would never hire in a million years, although some of them had very high opinions of themselves.
I’M from North Kilt Town!! Do you know Angus McCloud?!
…because scissors were not invented…
Modern scissors, no, but scissors of a sort have been around for a long time. Romans also had pants, along with kilt like garb and the togas which started out as sort of a poncho, so yes, much easier to make.
No, but I knew Angus Podgorny before he won Wimbledon.
That resembles the first lawn clippers I had to use as a child. (Dad would push the mower, the kids would trim the edges. Hands got tired fast.)
Jordan Peterson: Conflict Avoided Is Conflict Delayed.
Man says he deserves to be part of the female category in athletics.
Honestly, he looks like nothing so much as a guy who lost a bar bet.
Man says he deserves to be part of the female category in athletics.
Related, there is this charming lady.
Again: Perry Iowa high school shooter was “trans nonbinary” and “LGBTQ activist”.
Thank God that worked out for Jordan Peterson such that he is in the position he is in today such that he can advocate for it. Of course his entire life up to that point was consumed by the psychology of being a human being. Others had other stuff to do and did not have the time, money, or energy to be in the place JP was/is to properly deal with the situation. However, the vast majority of the people in his profession fought and continue to fight hard against any such thing. As do the teachers, administrators, HR departments, even police departments, and damn near every “authority” organization. Every person has their breaking point. Conflict is hard and one can fight and fight against the grain for…decades and never (ok, maybe, maaaaaybe a few times but the ratios are not uniform) have the ABC Saturday After School Special warm and fuzzy uplifting kumbayya experience. At virtually every turn, conflict is condemned as the fault of those involved. Especially the fault of the innocent. People for the most part have a narrative in their heads that tells them to shoehorn what is happening before their eyes into a panglossian belief narrative where things must just always work out for the good. They simply must. For the gooood people. The smaaaart people. Thus fewer and fewer people will expend the energy to push back on the stupidities that we have all seen before us for…decades. The few that do are the ones considered just a bit crazy or “lacking in self-awareness” or, the most effective of them, just don’t give a flying f*** what other people think. The others take big hits of the copium, or worse other drugs and alcohol (gee, from whence did these problems arise?) to deal with the BS.
And I am dead serious and sincere in saying the above. Call me what you will I genuinely don’t GAF but we are in the situation we are in because it is socially unacceptable to address the f****g stupid. Thus a woman on the SCOTUS cannot tell you what a…WOMAN is.
” ‘You should meet each other half way’ said the liberal school teacher to the bully and the victim.”
This happens in the 1983 TV series, but not in the original books. Another instance of the BBC “spicing up” the stories. Not an admirable thing to do, considering that the books were true stories about real people.
[ Wonders whether a clean bar towel might be in order. ]
If you do that, where, then, will the ambulatory bar snacks get their fuzzy coatings?
[ Raises hand. ]
The Scotch have been wearing skirts for centuries, as have various residents of hot climates where the citizenry often goes about in sarongs. This guy has re-invented the wheel.
Princess Cutekitten is back, too. Haven’t seen her commenting much lately.
Probably shouldn’t put it like that, lest David’s Fine Establishment be visited by the Scottish Inquisition AKA a thousand blood crazed Mel Gibsons.