Long before I ever really started wearing dresses, I wondered why brands never marketed them to men. I was always of the opinion that girls had a lot more and a lot more enjoyable options when it came to clothing. That I always ended up looking doofy in baggy T-shirts (didn’t want to look fat) and carpenter jeans with big deep pockets. But the idea that I could wear the stuff I was so jealous of on the girls in my classes was too hard for me. Fears about family, school administration, temple, and friends held me back.
A desire to cast off pants and T-s subtly made it into conversations. Piping up when the girls complained about how there were no pockets in their skirts, I claimed that despite that drawback they still seemed a lot more fun. “Well then you wear them!” was met with silence on my end. There was just too much of a barrier from “borrowing” friends’ clothes to actually buying some of my own; a bigger barrier between buying and actually wearing!
I knew a boy in high school, a thin black boy about my height, who, over our years in school together, progressively dressed more and more feminine. In makeup, girly shirts, tight pants, he was an embodiment of the fact that at least someone could get away with wearing my dreams. I came to realize that they weren’t a he, they were doing their best to present as female, they were a she. My school had a transgirl, and I was too scarred of my own desires to talk to her about them. Would she have wanted to listen? Would she have told this geeky Jewish kid to bug off? Or would she have let me know that I had an ally, that I could do whatever I wanted and screw everyone who didn’t want me to?
I’m not trans, though I love transpeople; it’s incredible courage to recognize that you don’t belong on the side of the spectrum everyone assumes you should be. But while I always thought it would be fun to be a girl, I never thought that I was “in the wrong body.” I just that I didn’t want to follow “the rules of being a guy.” A few years ago I came across terms like gender queer, gender fluid, and non-binary- the identities of not following the rules. Ever since, I’ve been trying to find a comfortable home in a new spectrum.
Now I’m the guy biking between your classes with a trimmed beard and a skirt. Now I’m on Overheard at Pitt in candid shots of my hairy legs and almost too short dresses. Now I’m my own symbol for the next generation of the decimation of gender roles. Before, I was an ignorant coward. Now, I have an identity and a message. A beard and a dress are not mutually exclusive, they can, in fact, mesh like chocolate and peanut butter.
Now that you’ve slogged through some of my history, I’d like to bash the advertisement industry. Why do companies refuse to market traditionally feminine clothes to men, even in masculine styles? Are they stuck in my high school phase? Is Forever 21 an ignorant coward? Is American Eagle? In a Crocs shop in Delaware I came across a “Women’s” section, a “Men’s” section, and a “Neutral” section. My enquiry as to the distinctions and was greeted with confusion- first to the question’s existence, but then with the clerk’s newfound honest confusion about the store’s gender segregation. What was so different about these foam shoes that they could be sorted into three categories with no overlap? What’s so different about skirts and dresses that they don’t make it into the men’s sections, while the women’s sections are cluttered with pants and button downs and combat boots?
For decades, companies have profited off of societal acceptance of women in “men’s” clothes. Business wear for women has expanded to allow them to look and act more like men. The opposite has never been true. For every pantsuit ad to women there are a total of zero dresses advertised to men.
Who decided that skirts and dresses were only for women? On what authority did they decide that? And why, why, did we ever let them?
Many men buy the femme clothes. I know because the clerks at the mall tell me. I know because I’ve passed other guys looking at the Goodwill heels and dresses racks. I know because the cross-dressing community is as old as the Greeks. The clothing companies know men already buy “women’s” clothing, so why aren’t they marketing them to us?! Why aren’t they trying to make the fastest buck ever with a billboard of a CEO in a professional dress and heels (surrounded by his sexy secretaries, of course; can’t expect them to become too feminist all at once, eh?) Why isn’t Urban Outfitters putting some hipster guy on a skateboard and skater skirt?
One friend answered my issue: “It’d be corporate suicide.” I don’t buy it. The press boom of conservative gender policing boycotting could easily label men’s dresses as the hip, progressive, in thing. Within a few years Kohl’s would be keeping up with Macy’s in new lines of cocktail dresses for men; Target and Kmart would be fighting for the “Best Spring Skirts for Boys.”
Clothing companies have almost all of the power to change the face of fashion. We didn’t all start wearing Aztec print and rompers because we wanted to, but because that’s what Rue 21 and H&M were selling. These corporations can’t be blind to the profits they could make. Perhaps they’re content with men just buying the femme stuff unadvertised and leaving them at that. But one Old Navy back to school ad with a boy in a dress next to the most tomboy girl they could find… the map changes forever. In one move, cross-dressing ceases to be a thing; it just becomes “dressing.” The moms go, “oh, I guess that’s the style now… Bobby, come here, we’re going to the Gap; they’re having a sale on these new boy dresses!”
As it stands, clothing companies have made the decision, and the masses have agreed: that it’s quite fine, and practically encouraged, for girls to act like boys, but for boys to act like girls is akin to drowning the family dog. As it stands, masculinity is the “right answer.” For everyone, forever.
I’ll be the first to admit, this is a hard sell. How do you get a society to give up its Victorian era misogynistic, anti-queer expectations and enforcement? How do we tackle the breech into a freer, more truly egalitarian world? How do we let the boys know that they can proudly wear the fancy dress their tomboy friend threw on the floor last Hannukah? Perhaps, by changing what’s in the 20,000 commercials a child sees every year. Perhaps, by cutting the heteronormative billboards down a peg. Perhaps, with a single clothing brand, taking the bravest step towards a new age, marketing “The First Ever- Dress For Men.”
-Benjamin Wahlberg is a Senior Psychology major, who teaches Sunday and Hebrew School, sings internationally with the Pitt Men’s Glee Club, and also writes for the Pittiful News. More of their dialogues on gender, clothing, and Queer Judaism can be found at BenInDresses.tumblr.com.
Image Credit: All images provided by author