Wednesday, February 21, 2007

exchanging roles


I am convinced that men and women are in the process of exchanging roles. Since the 1960s, men have become more traditionally feminine, while women have become more traditionally masculine.

By traditionally feminine or masculine, I am referring to what was considered feminine and masculine at the beginning of this exchange, i.e., circa 1960.

For example:

In 1960, men were the breadwinners and women the homemakers.

Today, many women are bringing home the bread to their homemaking husbands.

In 1960, the majority of college graduates were men.

Today, the majority of college graduates are women. In the future, this will result in even more women becoming the breadwinners and more men becoming stay-at-home housewives.

In 1960, jewelry, cosmetics, high heel shoes, pocketbooks, coiffures, pastels, figure-hugging/revealing clothing, foundation garments, etc. were strictly female wear.

Today, males are just as likely to wear these items as females do. During the past decade, attempts to introduce skirts and dresses into the male wardrobe have not been very successful. But, there have been some successes and as the exchange of roles progresses, males in skirts and dresses will be more common.

In 1960, women wore skirts and dresses most of the time.

Today, women wear slacks and trousers most of the time; skirts and dresses only come out for special occasions.

In 1960, male body hair was accepted.

Today, male body hair is considered ugly; so many males remove their body hair.

In 1960, women stayed home and raised the children.

Today, with the ever-increasing number of male housewives, the male is likely to be raising the children.

You get the idea.

I feel that this exchange of roles has had a liberating effect on crossdressing. In 1960, crossdressing was deep in the closet. Few crossdressers went out in public en femme. Today, encountering men en femme in public is more common and has even become acceptable in some segments of our society.

With non-crossdressing men embracing so much of what was considered traditionally feminine, today there is not much difference between a crossdresser en femme and a metrosexual male adorned to the max with the trappings of the traditional female. So, crossdressers feel emboldened to go out en femme.

The big question is what will happen when there is no difference between crossdressers and non-crossdressers. When most males are wearing skirts and dresses, what will crossdressers wear? Will they crossdress by going out en femme wearing slacks and trousers like women wear? Or will they be satisfied with the exchange of male and female roles and continue to dress like traditional females?

1 comment:

  1. Welcome back Staci!

    How about putting those great "femulate this" pictures in your picture folder? They're great, and once you put up a new one the old ones are gone forever it seems. I really liked yesterday's, btw.

    ReplyDelete