A man wears a skirt

A man wears a skirt - so what?

There are some women who do not like skirts and prefer to wear trousers. Believe it or not, there are some men who do not like trousers and would much prefer to wear skirts, purely for the comfort they offer. There are men who suffer from skin disorders on their legs and find wearing trousers extremely uncomfortable. Unlike women, if these men should dare to wear a skirt in preference to trousers, they are labelled as cross-dressers, gay, transvestites, to name the politer versions. If a woman wears trousers, well, that's normal. When did you last hear of a woman wearing trousers being called a cross-dresser?

So, these men who don't like trousers are still made to wear them, day after day, while seeing women switch between trousers and skirts as the whim takes them. Hardly fair is it?

These men who like to wear skirts are not transvestites. Transvestites aim to pass as a member of the opposite sex; there are probably female transvestites posing as men, but you rarely, if ever, hear of them. For a woman to dress as a man is, for some mysterious reason, OK.

Cross-dressing might be different. This is wearing clothes designed for the other sex. In the case of skirts, manufacturers of skirts designed for men are few and far between (but there are some), and their products tend to be expensive. So, through no fault of their own, men have no choice but to wear skirts made for women; this could be construed as cross-dressing. However, if a man wears a skirt designed for men, this is still thought of as cross-dressing. Why?

Apart from comfort, why do these men wear skirts? The answer is fashion freedom and choice. We are offered choice in just about everything these days, from utility companies to what we eat. Why shouldn't men have choice in what they wear, instead of being confined to a few more or less standard garments in a limited range of colours? Women have a huge array of clothes and colours to choose from; men don't. Some, possibly most, men are happy with this situation. Indeed, it is probable that these men have never considered wearing anything but trousers, and would not think of wearing a skirt because it is “what women wear”. Consider this: women wear jeans; jeans are worn by women, therefore they are women's wear. So why do men persist in wearing an item of clothing commonly worn by women? Is it women wearing wearing an item of clothing commonly worn by men? Is this cross-dressing, and if so, who are the cross-dressers – men or women?

“Ah,” you say “These jeans are designed for women to take account of their different body shape. So they are women's jeans which makes it OK.” As I said earlier, there are skirts designed specifically for men, who have a different hip/waist ratio to women. These skirts would look silly on most women. But it is still looked on as peculiar for a man to wear a skirt, even if it is designed specifically for a man.

Is society's attitude to a man in a skirt more to do with the fact that women are perceived as the weaker sex, having a lower status and who are traditionally associated with wearing skirts. If a man should dare to wear a skirt and even give a hint of looking like a woman, is he demeaning himself and lowering his social standing? I suspect this is what it is all about; it is a very sad reflection on our so-called civilised western society.

Take it from me, if a 'manly' quality is courage, then wearing a skirt in public takes more courage than most 'manly' men possess. Quite simply, most men are chicken. What they fail to realise is that the skirt-wearing man they look down on is a far stronger person than they will ever be. Wearing trousers every day allows these chicken men to cop out and just blend into the crowd. Nothing wrong in that if you want to be like the rest of the herd.

Fortunately, things are beginning to change, if slowly. There are two rays of sunshine: denim and kilts.

Denim has become so commonplace that no-one notices what is being worn on the legs. Walk down any high street and you'll see a sea of blue denim - almost everyone wears jeans. Men have reported that they have worn denim skirts (long and short) with no reaction from the general public. Indeed, some have held conversations while wearing a denim skirt, and the other person hasn't noticed or, if they have noticed, hasn't given any reaction.

Kilts are being manufactured in non-tartan materials and thereby breaking the Scottish link. Personnal experience has shown that a skirt will be referred to as a kilt if it is pleated, whether it is tartan or plain is immaterial.

Our trouser hating man would love to wake up on a sunny morning, promising a hot day, and decide to wear a skirt instead of trousers to work. He would be relaxed, comfortable, cool and probably more productive. What is so wrong in that?