I want to wear a dress. Now, taken at face value, this should not be an issue. I have absolute autonomy on what I wear and what clothes I buy and when I wear them but this issue of mine is not something to be taken at face value. The problem is that I, as a man, want to wear a dress in a cisnormative society that generally denies the existence of ambiguity in the historically established binary of gender. I could surely wear the dress in the privacy of my own room and feel satisfied in that situation, but I should probably clarify what I mean. I want to wear an Ariana-Grande-at-the-2020-Grammy’s gown, or a Belle-in-“Beauty and the Beast”-ballroom waltz type of dress. This is not something I want to mess around with, honey. I want to stun. I want people to gawk.
I think the proper way to go about explaining this desire and why it’s not a simple wish is by analyzing modern examples of men wearing dresses and tying it to who I am.
Khoa Sinclair, a fashion enthusiast who pushed against the binary through experimentation of attire, says “for the longest time, people were so stuck on being one way or the other. Queer people have been playing with this for a long time. But now you see guys in dresses that don’t identify as all that feminine”(New York Times). For the past decade, men in pop culture have been expanding the boundaries of what masculinity means when it comes to their clothes. We’ve seen men that are part of the LGBTQ+ community appear in dresses and skirts, like Lil Nas X appearing on “The Tonight Show” in a kilt or Billy Porter dazzling in a tuxedo-gown fusion to the 2019 Oscars. Yet, it is not only openly gay men who are pushing the boundaries. Like Sinclair says, artists like Kid Cudi and Bad Bunny have been seen in dresses while performing their music. It is these men artists who bring light to this pushing against the boundaries and this expansion of femininity within men.
One of the biggest examples that comes to mind when thinking of men wearing feminine clothing is Tom Holland’s rendition of Rihanna’s “Umbrella” on the show “Lip Sync Battle” where he is seen wearing a black halter outfit and fishnet stockings. I remember this lip sync cover gained a lot of traction and popularity because Tom Holland, the world’s Spider-Man, was seen wearing a woman’s clothing. And yet, nothing emerged from it. Tom Holland continued to be himself and enjoy his life. As I watched these men break the barriers that try to keep men in a regulated heteronormative state, I always felt envious. So why am I so worried about wearing a dress, or anything remotely feminine for that matter, when there obviously are people who have done it before?
I believe my fear comes from the expectation my family and the environment I grew up in have for me in the way in which I “do” gender. In class, we’ve discussed what it means to “do” gender. We explored that dynamic between femininity and masculinity, and what it means to fit into this arbitrary binary. Candace West and Don Zimmerman say that femininity and masculinity are “something that can be conveyed fleetingly in any social situation and yet something that strikes at the most basic characterization of the individual” (http://www.jstor.com/stable/189945). I think it’s true for most people that assumptions about another individual are made based on things attributed to femininity and masculinity that they convey. Through our social interactions with other people, we do gender; We actively convey and take part in embodying our gender identity through what we wear, how we talk, how we walk, etc. By doing gender, we portray something that an outside person would interpret in a certain way.
The expectation that my family and environment I grew up in have for me are large players in my hesitation to wear a dress. I grew up in Northwest Arkansas within a traditional Mexican family. The concept of femininity and masculinity within my family was never to be questioned: the men were men who went to work and did the yard work while the women were women who cooked and took care of the children. These were rigid concepts that did not start to be upended until the past decade or so. The modern generation of children consisting of my cousins and myself are starting to push back against those roles. However, the expectation for the sons of the family is still to find a nice wife, settle down and start a family once you’re married. You’re supposed to find a good job, be the head of the household, and take care of your parents.
If I were to wear a dress and publicly flaunt it, as I wish to do, these expectations that my parents or grandparents have of me would probably get turned into mush. It’s not that they don’t think I wouldn’t succeed in my endeavors to get a good job and be successful, but rather that I wouldn’t fit their idea of a man. My act of wearing feminine clothing would be such a drastic change in how I’ve been doing gender that it would spread like wildfire in my family and cause questioning of who I am from their perspective.
My hesitation in this matter is significant because it resembles the desire many have to shatter the gender norms we live within. However, my fear of the judgment of others also reflects the difficulty that comes with breaking free of a societal norm: the fact that you are being watched by a society that wants to regulate you. In doing gender, there are expectations that are set and met. Yet, I find myself wanting to break free from those expectations. I see these men with the public eye on them be unafraid to wear feminine clothing; I see active disruptions of gender norms within my family and their understanding of what makes a man, a “man.” The changes and progressions are happening. It just all depends on if I’m willing to take the step and pursue my own dreams/aspirations. I think this will lead to a time where I have to just do what I want to. Until that time comes, though, I will have to keep feeling like a pretty princess in my own head.
This was a great read, I think it ties into some other blog posts like Daniel’s and Lily’s which explore gender in fashion, and femininity of male K-Pop idols. I definitely can relate to some of these ideas you bring up as well. There’s this type of clothing that I’ve always wanted to try called Hanfu. It’s a very traditional style of clothing from China worn by all genders that features a “skirt commonly worn as the lower garment” (Wikipedia). I personally don’t mind that it’s a skirt, I just think the style of clothing looks cool.
I often think about how clothes as pieces of fabric don’t feel like they should be gendered, yet they are due to cultural and societal norms. A quick search on Google of “men wearing dresses in history” brings me to an article that points out the fact that European men have worn dresses and skirts since the 14th century.
In addition to that, I think you hit the biggest point when you talk about how individuals “doing gender” must always contend with outside perception. Specifically the point that individuals may want to take certain action (like wearing non-gender-conforming clothes), yet there is always this sort of invisible regulation of self-expression that persists in day-to-day life.
Overall, thanks for sharing your thoughts! Hopefully we will one day see you slay in a dress of your choice.
I really enjoyed reading about your experiences with ‘doing’ gender. Like you describe, gender is a rigidly structured construct that depends so much on social norms in order for gender to be understood. For someone to express as a man, they are forced to communicate with forms of expression that society constructs as indicators of masculinity rather than expanding the ways in which people can communicate masculinity.
Despite this, I am hopeful that these gender norms will change and become less rigid. Like you mention, I think there are many people challenging the social norms and people are slowly starting to understand that gender expression can be fluid and dynamic.
I think you bring up a very interesting point about when the boundary is actually pushed. When gay men wear dresses, it is something that is sort of expected for gay men, so it does not present as surprising or pushing a boundary. This idea reminded me of when Harry Styles was praised for wearing a dress and breaking down gender norms, but the same week people were telling Sam Smith to stop wearing dresses and that they wished they had the old Sam Smith back. I wonder to what extent the idea of wearing a dress also incorporates the idea from the Cox reading that the kings were allowed to explore their femininity because their masculinity was not in Question. Since people like Harry Styles (teenage heartthrob from One Direction) and Tom Holland (Spider-Man) have a very well established sense of masculinity, they are allowed to experiment with femininity, but people like Sam Smith or Billy Porter do not. The Tom Holland instance is specifically funny to me because when I first saw that I thought: oh he just copied Glee, but there were people who had never seen it before that thought the performance was the best thing since sliced bread. It makes me think that overall exposure to gender exploration can alter people’s perception for exploratory gender exploration really is.
I LOVE that you mentioned the specific dress you want to wear (with pictures and everything). The machismo culture in Mexican and Hispanic families is definitely something that I can see is hard to overcome. There is such an emphasis on being a “man” and fulfilling the predetermined roles of what it means to be a Mexican man and a Mexican woman that there is no wiggle room to go against that.
Tying this into Wibb’s comment about how straight men are allowed to be feminine because their masculinity isn’t threatened, I think a big part of what keeps Machismo culture alive is men’s own insecurities. There is such a binary in Machismo culture that very rigidly defines what is acceptable and what is not that even “very masculine” men are afraid of showing an ounce of femininity. When you are sure of who you are, there is nothing that can stray you away from that, so these insecurities further fuel that toxic views of men’s roles in Mexican families. I think the fact that you can admit you want to wear a dress is a big step that shows you are secure in your masculinity. I hope you get to wear a big ball-gowny dress soon and I enjoyed your blog!