Chapter
6
CROSS-DRESSING:
EIGHT DIFFERENT REASONS:
MEN
WHO DRESS AND BEHAVE LIKE WOMEN;
WOMEN
WHO DRESS AND BEHAVE LIKE MEN.
Almost every culture has different clothes for
the two sexes.
But these differences have dimmed by the beginning of the 21st century.
For example, in most advanced cultures, women can now wear pants.
But there is still a phenomenon related to sex
and gender
that needs to be added to the list of more common issues.
Every human being has a (1) biological sex, (2) male/female
self-designation,
(3) sex-role, (4) gender-personality, & (5) sexual orientation.
And most of us dress in clothes deemed appropriate for our sex;
but a few people dress in the likeness the other sex.
There are several different reasons for
dressing (sometimes or always)
in clothes that are definitely associated with the other sex.
1. Comfort and Convenience Reasons for Dressing Like the Other
Sex.
Until the middle of the 20th century in
Western cultures,
females always wore dresses, showing they were different from the
males,
even tho dresses are quite inconvenient in many ways.
And even in the winter in cold climates, girls had to wear
dresses.
So they had to supplement these garments by wearing “leggings”,
which were ‘pants’ girls could wear under their dresses
to keep their legs warm when they went outside.
Strict (and different) dress codes were enforced in many
schools:
Boys wore pants and girls wore skirts.
We now find such regulations quaint,
because pants are vastly superior to skirts for most
purposes.
And girls have been dressed in pants since they were
babies.
So pants are no longer considered to be a male garment.
And women’s clothing stores now sell pants or ‘slacks’ for women
alongside the dresses and skirts.
Historical note: Pants were invented by women,
in the harem when all people—male and female—wore cloaks in public.
Wrap-around clothes were the simplest and easiest to make.
So all humans wore togas, mantles, & robes until pants were
invented,
which has turned out to be a major advance for the human
race.
Ch. 6 CROSS-DRESSING: LOOKING AND
BEHAVING LIKE THE OTHER SEX by
James Park 25
Created
1-11-2009; Revised