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.
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.