Why Cant Men Wear What They Want?

It is often said (by crossdressers) that women can wear any clothes they like, wether it is female orientated or not but men are restricted to ‘man’ clothes only and this is not really fair. Well lets take a look at this subject

In Helen Boyd’s book ‘My Husband Betty’ she states, quite rightly, that when women wear jeans, they wear jeans cut and designed for women and so therefor are not crossdressing. In a similar vein elsewhere in the book she says that when women were required to work in the munitions factory during the second world war they wore trousers as that was the most suitable piece of clothing for the job and therefore were not crossdressing. Both these observations are perfectly valid and I would have no argument with them. In industry here in the UK and I suspect many other places as well, women are increasingly taking on roles traditionally carried out by men, it is no longer uncommon to see women on production lines, working in the construction industry or in transport. Companies engaged in the construction industry (again here in the UK) often provide their staff with steel toe caped boots, trousers, sweat shirt and jacket. From what I can see, the items provided for the women are exactly the same as that provided for the men, and as it is male orientated clothing it could be argued by some that this is crossdressing, but no it’s not because in reality it is the best clothing for the job in hand. 

Fifty years ago a woman working in construction would be very rare indeed, a woman wearing male orientated clothing would be rare, in truth women wearing jeans was not that common at the time. So what we are seeing is that as women increasingly take on male roles in the workplace, so they are adopting clothing most suitable for that role, the fact that it would be regarded as ‘male’ orientated is immaterial, it’s the most practical clothing for the job. Therefore it could be said that this sort of ‘industrial’ clothing is in fact unisex. This is a fair assumption because this is based on practicality, and in many cases the requirements of health and safety. In these cases women are definitely not crossdressing.

Now let’s turn the tables a little, if a man were to work in a high street woman’s clothing store, or perhaps the women’s section of a leading department store, what would you expect to see him wearing? The answer is of course a man’s suit. Now consider the women in that department,  they might wear, for example a black dress, or black skirt and top. Put a man in that department wearing  the ‘regulation’ black dress, in these circumstances is he crossdressing? The answer would almost certainly be yes. But why is that? Our lady in construction can adopt traditionally male clothes, admittedly the best items for the job, but a man working in a traditionally female occupation can not adopt the traditional female clothing, also arguably the most suitable for the job. Now what about a man that purchases a dress from a store that specialises in clothing for crossdressers, this dress is specifically designed and manufactured for the male body, so using the logic we applied before he would not be crossdressing as the item of clothing was made for a man to wear. Except of course that's not the case, he would still be regarded as crossdressing. 

This discussion is not about practicality, or health and safety, it’s not really about crossdressing, it’s about ‘society’s’ vision of how things should be. Women have fought for equality for years, they have fought for equal wages and equal rights, and I wholeheartedly support them. Equality is defined as “the state of being equal, especially in status, rights and opportunities", but this is not an equality issue, well not really. There clearly is unequal situation between men an women regarding who can wear what. The fact of the matter is that men can wear women's clothing when going out and in many cases in the workplace, and quite a number do. Here in the UK and in I would guess most western countries there is nothing to stop a man dressing in women's clothing if that is what he wishes to do. What does stop them quite often, is the perception society has of crossdressers. Humans have an instinct to fear what they don't understand. This is the real problem, far too many people in society are fearful and therefore might object to crossdressers or even be aggressive toward them, simply because they don't understand who and what a crossdresser really is. This is not their fault, they have been conditioned by society to feel this way. Crossdressers in the past were almost always portrayed as being involved in pornography, prostitution and heavens only knows what else. Of course some are, but that is the case for most sections of society, the trouble is others in society don't know what we really are about and so the fear remains. The only way to deal with the fear is education, and the only people who can educate the general public is crossdressers themselves. 

Because of my personal circumstances it is not possible for me to attend a local 'Pride' event crossdressed, I would like to but that is just not possible at the moment. This is a similar situation with many crossdressers, their personal circumstances will not allow them to demonstrate to the world just who and what we are. So we have a chicken and egg situation, we can't come out into the world until there is better understanding of us, and there will never be better understanding of us until we demonstrate to the world that we are really just very nice people who just want to be left alone to do our own thing. 

Now dear reader I don't want you to think I am suggesting you do something I am not prepared to do myself. I'm not, I believe in lead by example, and as I can't 'lead' at the present time I would not expect any of my readers to step in and do it for me. That means we are back to chicken and egg, women have fought a long struggle for equality, and the fight goes on, but they have won the right to wear the clothes they want to wear, our battle is only just beginning. So until the battle has been fought we, as crossdressers, can not complain that women can wear what they want to but men can not!

This article has concentrated on Male to Female (MTF) crossdressers, I have not included any reference to Female to Male (FTM) crossdressers because I know very little about them and I have never knowingly met one. However if there in a FTM crossdresser who would like to talk to me I would be very pleased to hear from them.