Why are we as a society far more forgiving of a woman dressing in men's clothes than we are of the opposite?
Watching a drag show can be a spellbinding experience. If performance is about temporarily being in the shoes of a character different from yourself and convincing the audience that you have left the real you behind, few things are as on the money as a drag show.
Every night, a drag queen sells the idea that they are a person of the opposite gender, but what comes across is that the gender of the lead doesn't matter. Drag shows are about the persona, not the wrapped box it comes in. Acceptance, enjoyment, entertainment and freedom are the spirit of any good drag show.
One of my colleagues is a superb drag performer. He is fabulous in everything he does, and the energy is electrifying when he is on stage. Sadly, not everybody can get past the clothes and the make-up to recognize the magic. Recently, I heard a dear friend make offensive remarks about my colleague, most of which do not bear repeating. When I called him out on it, he hid behind defenses like "it is unnatural" and "for a man to want to dress up in women's clothes, something must be wrong biologically".
Never mind that it is perfectly acceptable for women to wear male clothing. Never mind that most female students on the campus spend the day in shirts and trousers (in one form or another, jeans for example). Never mind that the world has moved on from corsets and gowns. Never mind that fashion has evolved to make clothing that was historically intended for men more suitable for women (women's trousers, high hip jeans). Yet, heavens forbid that a man walk around wearing a dress. What is even worse is that he would want to!
I attempted to find pragmatic explanations. Clothing was a large part of the women's rights movement. After the national suffrage amendment of 1920, with more women finding employment in the workforce, shifts in fashion pushed out the clothing of the past as being impractical. Decorative dresses and frilly skirts were no longer useful to the working woman. Clothes historically made and purposed for men began to be redesigned and sold in retail for women.
The second explanation I found is utilitarian. Certain clothes are made with the purpose of fitting the female anatomy. Bras are an example. They would not serve any purpose on a man's chest. But does that mean he should be disparaged for wanting to wear one? Dress shirts and suit jackets, originally purposed to define a man's shoulders have been repurposed to fit a woman's slender frame.
A counter-argument is the nature of the professional workplace. Because the work force began as a male-dominated industry, what is considered professional clothing is majorly male-oriented. Trousers, blazers, shirts and ties are all apparel intended for men. Hence, it is natural that women transitioning to wear male clothes is socially acceptable. A man in a dress is out of place because a dress is out of place in the office. I do not agree with this contention, because a woman in a dress is still a common workplace staple.
My friend's remarks, while offensive and hurtful to a very vibrant performer living his dream, are troubling, furthermore, because they point out habitual societal intolerance toward changing notions of the masculine and feminine. It is acceptable for a woman to take on men's roles, wear men's clothes, have male-dominated occupations because doing so makes her appear to be confident, independent, secure and even attractive. The reverse, a man taking on women’s roles, implies a man stooping to a lower level on the food chain, so to speak. A man who acts in an effeminate manner is a ladyboy, queen, or gay. Some of society's most crude insults are words that describe female genitalia. Hell, even our everyday expressions like "grow a pair" and "don't be a pussy" indicate tipping the superior-inferior scale in favor of the male gender.
This, I think, while offensive to women, does men a larger disservice. Female gendered insults directed at men contribute to the notion that masculine traits are desirable while feminine ones are not. Everyone agrees that there need to be more female engineers, but the idea of a male nanny or a stay-at-home dad still does not sit well with most people. Our sitcoms make gay jokes, our movies stereotype effeminate men and carve out masculinity to be an ideal to work toward. Our little boys grow up with unhealthy expectations of what it means to be masculine, surrounded by a culture that celebrates male athletic prowess, obsesses over physical size and dismisses sensitivity, emotional expressiveness and identifying with femininity. Taken together, these factors cause the social discomfort with a man in women’s clothes, or with men wearing make-up, or with men doing anything that is remotely associated with being a woman.
At the heart of this, there is a proclivity in our society to make boxes labeled “male” and “female” and demand that all people fit in one or the other. Much of transphobia, I think, stems from people's discomfort with their convenient boxes being made useless. Humanity responds instead, by creating more boxes with new labels: Trans woman. Trans man. Drag queen. Transvestite. Genderqueer. Androgyne. Call me an idealist, but I wish we stopped making boxes at all.
Equating a particular gender with positive or negative traits is dangerous to do. It is time we stopped thrusting our notions of how someone should look, behave, dress or speak at other people. It is time we saw someone as a person, instead of drawing conclusions about them based on their gender or orientation.
As for my performer friend, he continues to stay fabulous both on stage and off it. The last time I saw him, he had just won a talent contest and was out shopping for fishnet stockings.
Nandhini Narayanan is a student in the Master's of Engineering Management program. Her column will run biweekly in the fall.
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