Can Men Wear Dresses?
I have a diverse wardrobe, ready for everything — from steel toe boots, Wrangler jeans, and flannel shirts for soil sampling to pantyhose, small heeled dress shoes, and a dress nice enough for a fancy banquet. Usually, I’m wearing something like pants and a polo for work, and one of my favorite outfits to relax in is a t-shirt and pajama pants. I was selecting one of my go-to outfits for special events, a sweater over a dress with leggings and knee-high boots, when I began to wonder if I should have a more “gender neutral” wardrobe (whatever that is), now that I came out as gender fluid. Can gender nonconforming people wear dresses? I decided that yes, it was okay for me to wear whatever I wanted. I was wearing my wardrobe not to impress someone else or to prove my femininity or masculinity, but for form, function, comfort, and because it is my style and that is what I want to wear.
Whoever decided dresses were for women and not men anyhow? As I thought about this more, I realized this was a genderized cultural appropriation, that just in this current culture have we decided that dresses are for female bodied people only, and that it hasn’t always been that way. Robes, kilts, togas, and tunics are all dress-like, and other cultures have accepted people with male bodies wearing dress-like items for a wardrobe. It is just my culture, right now, that doesn’t accept it.
That doesn’t mean I’ve never seen a man wear a dress. Both of my ex-husbands, in fact, have worn my dresses. And it wasn’t for a dare, and it wasn’t because they were drunk. First get over the fact that I have TWO ex-husbands (yes, what I don’t learn the first time I have to learn again), and read on.
The first one was because he was dressing in drag for a bachelor party. He was a part of a group of men that danced in a bar, and for one of their parties, they dressed in drag for the night. He and one of his buddies borrowed my clothes for this — one unashamedly wearing my form fitting dress, the other enjoying my pleather mini-skirt and shirt tied at the waist, complete with balloons in bras, to the bar — in public. They weren’t embarrassed, and dare I say they actually had fun while doing it. I even helped put on their make-up.
The second one was a little more surprising. First, you have to know, he is the kind of person who believes in the patriarchy — that men are superior and need to dominate women, who have a place to obey their husbands (one of the many reasons it didn’t work out between us). I walked in on him trying on one of my dresses in my bedroom — looking at himself in our full-length mirror. I wasn’t upset that he used my clothes or was crossing the feminine-masculine line in the sand, just upset that he stretched out the shoulders so I couldn’t wear the dress anymore. And I honestly don’t remember what his excuse was when I caught him — whether he just wanted to know what it felt like to wear a dress, or to know what he looked like with one on. Believe me, if you haven’t worn a dress, you should try it: they are more comfortable and freeing that you know. What shocked me was his action in actually putting on the dress, given his views on the polarity of the sexes and his place in it. It just shows you what people will do when they think no one is looking.
Which leads me to the question — why can’t men wear dresses? Why do we limit wardrobes so much? Why do we care? Why are we shocked when a man is more feminine or a woman is more “butch” than we expect? Why can’t we expand our possibilities to include anyone in our acceptance of what is okay to wear? Why this stark difference in the genders? Is it for the men to have a power play over women? Is it worth it?
I’ve seen gowns on men at celebrity events. I’ve heard a make-up company has hired a man to model their products. We see all genders represented on the internet, but that’s the big city, not here in our home. How about bearded models wearing gowns beyond the fashion industry? Do they cover nonbinary individuals here in my hometown? We’ve seen women wearing tuxes — how about more variability and expansion on this sharing of the wardrobe in the real world? Who will be brave enough to begin the trend on the street of small town USA?
Thanks for considering.
April 24, 2022
Tansy Julie Soaring Eagle Paschold
