What Will Men Wear When Women Wear Trousers? - Part 4 of 4

Embracing my own role reversal

I truly believe what I have written in this four-part series.

Part 1 is historic fact - you can look it up.

Part 2 is also factual -- current events that I have witnessed and continue to witness -- but factual nonetheless.

Part 3 is conjecture on my part based on the trends I described in Parts 1 and 2. Some readers may feel that Part 3 sounds like something out of Fictionmania. Maybe so.

I can clearly remember when the thoughts of role reversal first entered my mind back in the early 1960s. Back then, the state of gender roles today was unimaginable.

Do you remember Cracked magazine? It was a Mad magazine imitation and when I could afford it, I would purchase a copy if there was no new issue of Mad to buy.

An article in Cracked issue #26, dated November 1962, titled "The Gradual Change in Men’s Fashions" had a profound effect on me.

The introduction to the article read, "Through the ages, female fashions have changed with incredible speed. A woman would buy a dress one day and the following morning, it would be out of style. It seems men’s apparel has gone through change also, but at a slower rate. Only recently, has the male really asserted himself in fashion.

"Cracked magazine would like to show what might happen if this trend in men’s apparel continues to gain momentum. Advertising, style, and products would all show the effects of competition with the women’s industry."

The article went on to predict what would happen in the future as the change in men's fashions accelerated. As a budding femulator in 1962, the article fascinated me and I wondered if any of its predictions would ever occur in my lifetime. I hoped that they would occur, but I doubted that they would.

It turned out that almost every prediction made in that article came true! Here are the predictions:

--- Men's slip-on shoes would morph into high-heeled and platformed styles that resemble women's high heel pumps with thicker heels.

--- Men's aftershave products would morph into men's perfumes or "colognes" as the manly men prefer to call it.

--- New products would be available for the male consumer: hand creams ("to keep your hands silky smooth" and "prevent dishpan hands"), hair color ("does he or doesn't he?"), a variety of hair shampoos and conditioners, underpants in a variety of colors, styles, and fabrics.

--- "Hair styles will alter greatly!" according to Cracked and they certainly did. In 1962, most males wore short hair. Need I describe the evolution of men's hair styles since then?

The article also predicted that "Men’s Fashion Ad Illustrations Will Shift." To demonstrate this, the article presented three images.

--- The first had a man, circa 1962 in a manly pose smoking a cigarette while wearing a suit and felt hat .

--- The second image labeled "Tomorrow" showed a thin man with a longer hair style wearing a short-sleeved shirt while smoking a pipe. His pose would be considered masculine, but he stood next to a flowery wall panel that feminized the image.

--- The third image labeled "Day after Tomorrow" showed another thin model in a unmanly pose wearing a striped T-shirt, a style that was not considered masculine in 1962.

--- The article concluded that "Social Customs Will Be Remodeled." It predicted that men will gossip (true), women will give up seats to men (untrue), men will go to bargain sales (true), women will dress alike (untrue), women will act like men (true to some extent), and women will make passes at men (true). (I used some of the images that accompanied this part of the article in Part 3 yesterday.)

And consider the things that the article missed that were totally out of the picture in 1962, but are male consumer items today: jewelry, purses, makeup, girdles, pantyhose, leggings, etc.

Some of my predictions may seem off-the-wall today, but who would have predicted ten years ago that a 21st Century female would ask a male for his hand in marriage, present him with an engagement ring, and after the wedding, the male would drop his surname for hers?

You never know!

Anyway, I recently read another fictional story about a guy, who loses a bet and has to live as a female.

Turns out that the guy enjoys living as a gal. One thing leads to another and he attends a meeting of the local crossdresser's support group.

During the meeting, one of the leaders of the group addresses the attendees.

"As more and more women become the leaders of our society and the breadwinners of our families, we have to fill the vacancies left by the women. Living in the 21th Century, it is our duty to serve. We must become the caregivers, the nurturers, and the housewives in the new women's world.

"As crossdressers, we already are well on our way to becoming the wives in the woman's world. So why not drop the other shoe and start living openly and full-time as a feminine male. By doing so, we will serve as role models of the new male and lead the way for other males to accept their place in the new world."

Wow! That's inspiring. I couldn't have said that better myself.

I believe that every time I go out en femme, I am making it easier for my sister femulators to go out en femme. The more of us that go out en femme makes it possible for more of us to go out en femme as the public becomes acclimated to seeing us.

Our public femulation may also persuade our sisters who are on the brink to come out en femme, too. How many of us were guys for the longest time before we finally sucked it up and acted on our pent up desire to be gals? How many potential gals will never be able to suck it up until they are encouraged to do so by seeing their sisters out there?

And if the world becomes a woman's domain, even better because we will fit right in.

What Will Men Wear When Women Wear Trousers? - Part 3

Roll out the role reversal

Are we on the brink of a gender role reversal?

If the changes in society (described in Part 2) continue on their current path, I expect that in the near future, females will control both the public sectors and the private sectors of our society.

Females will have broken through the old glass ceiling. In its place will be a new glass ceiling that will confront the males who do not have the education nor the status required to compete with females.

As a result, males in the workplace will be stuck with the jobs shunned by the better educated females or they will be working-in-homes-fathers (WIHFs) doing the cooking, cleaning, and child-rearing as females used to do.

Females will probably dress the same as they do today, that is, they will wear some kind of bifurcated clothing most of the time, but they will have the option to wear a skirt or a dress whenever they feel like it.

On the other hand, boys will dress to please and attract a female mate, that is, they will dress to expose and show off their physical assets, which they can best accomplish by wearing tight, revealing, skimpy, and sexy styles of clothing, similar to what females wore when they were in the same position.

When women become the dominant gender, they will act like the dominant gender. They will be strong, self-confident, courageous, assertive, vigorous, bold, virile, and loud (traits that we see in many females already).

Meanwhile, the subservient males will act like the subservient gender, that is, boys will be gentle, weak, submissive, passive, delicate, and soft-spoken (traits that we see in some boys – especially young boys – today).

There will be a turnabout in the gender roles. To what extent the turnabout goes depends on the females; they will be in control and it is entirely up to them how boys will fit in the woman's world.

For example, will females write males out of the Constitution just as females were excluded when the Constitution was originally drafted? Thus, males would lose the right to vote, hold public office, own property, speak freely, etc.; they would become their female’s chattel.

Another example, will female scientists develop a way for males to give birth and rid females of that burden? If male pregnancies are possible, will male breasts be able to become heavy with milk to feed their newborns?

Will the full-breasted male mother define the profile of the post modern male, which will lead fashion-conscious males to seek breast implants?

These and many other questions remain to be answered when the role reversal occurs.

(Part 4 of "What Will Men Wear When Women Wear Trousers?" will appear here tomorrow.)

What Will Men Wear When Women Wear Trousers? - Part 2

When the other shoe drops, it will be a high heel pump.

The predictions of the anti-suffrage propagandists described in Part 1 did not come to pass.

Or did they?

In the U.S., females got the vote in 1919, but they did not immediately drop their skirts and pull up trousers. A female in trousers was a rarity until World War II. During the war, switching from skirts to trousers was a practical choice for females who worked in factories in place of males who were fighting the war.

When females entered the workforce, they not only discovered fashion freedom, but they also discovered financial freedom, which decreased or eliminated their dependency on males for financial support.

After the war, females continued to work and wear trousers as a fashion choice. During the second half of the 20th Century, the popularity of bifurcated female clothing grew steadily.

Today, females wear pants more often than not. I know young females who do not own a skirt or a dress. My female boss has worn a skirted garment to work only once and that was on a "casual dress" day of all days! At all other times, she wears something bifurcated.

Meanwhile, on the male fashion front, most males continued wearing bifurcated garments.

Beginning in the 1960s (at about the time that the woman's liberation movement was put into motion), fashion designers began testing the waters of skirted male garments.

Every few years, a fashion designer or two would introduce skirts for boys. Each time, there would be some (or sometimes a lot of) press coverage about the new male fashion, but that was the extent of it because few males bought into wearing skirts.

Since the turn of the century, there has been a change because females are on the ascent, while males are on the descent.

In the last 30 years, females have replaced males in the workforce at an accelerating rate. This rate will continue to accelerate because more females graduate from college than boys do, so more qualified females will continue to replace the less qualified boys.

Females have the momentum, while the old boys are fighting to protect the status quo, i.e., the old status quo.

We are now experiencing the first generation of working in home fathers (WIHFs). The wihf movement started slowly, but gained momentum as the ascent of females gained momentum.

During the recent recession, more males lost jobs than females and during the recovery, fewer males were able to return to work than females. So even more boys resigned themselves to being a wihf, while more females became the sole financial support of their families.

As a result, there is a growing number of youths, who lived in families where the female was the breadwinner and the male was the homemaker. That is all they know and as a result, those young females believe that it is their duty to be the breadwinner, while those young males believe that being a wihf is in their future.

So, why should a young male bother going to college? All a boy has to do is bide his time and work at some job until a female takes him for her wihf. This is not a fantasy - witness the recent "fad" that finds females asking boys to marry them while presenting their future wihf with an engagement ring. And many a wihf has acknowledged his status in his relationship to his spouse by taking her surname when he marries.

To further affirm the ascent of females, our "father figures" are now female. A few generations ago, Walter Cronkite was America' s father figure. Today, Katie Couric sits in Walter's seat and her sisters proliferate the anchor seats in the majority of America's newsrooms.

And you betcha that it won't be long before a female is president.

Getting back to the fashion designers... they are a persistent bunch. They kept on testing the waters of "skirts for males" and finally, some boys took the bait.

This success spurred designers to offer even more feminized fashions for boys and the past few seasons have been full of runways with male models wearing skirts, dresses, and other items borrowed from milady's wardrobe.

Males also began wearing makeup, perfume, pantyhose, panties, girdles, bras, purses, etc. They might call these items by different names in order to give them a more masculine identity, but a "murse" by any other name is still a purse.

Admittedly, the number of males adopting these styles is in the minority, but the minority is growing, especially among the male youth. Boys now want to look attractive (in order to attract a mate). As more boys realize that their station in life is to attract a female in order to become her wihf, they will buy into the new feminized definition of masculinity.

Who would have thought that males would remove all their body hair because it fits the new definition? But there are products like Nair for males that are intended to remove body hair, not just leg hair.

Personally, what really surprises me are male high heels. If I had to choose the last feminine item that males would adopt as their own, I would have picked high heels just ahead of male tampons. But fashionable boys are wearing high heel pumps right off the shelves of the ladies' side of the shoe stores. If you don't believe me, visit the High Heels for Men blog to be convinced.

On my recent visits to New York City, I witnessed feminized male fashions everywhere, which is no surprise in the Big Apple. But, I have also noticed a growing number of boys in the suburbs of Connecticut dressing in a more feminine style.

Things are changing slowly, but steadily.

Meanwhile, the designers are in a frenzy fielding feminized male fashions like never before. The recent seasons have seen the runways full of boys modeling skirts, dresses and other feminine apparel.

The designers are trying to give boys more choices, but a lot of the choices are skirted. When a boy goes shopping in the near future, he may find nothing but skirted clothing for sale.

Visit The New Male Fashion blog to see what I mean.

(Part 3 of "What Will Men Wear When Women Wear Trousers?" will appear here tomorrow.)

What Will Men Wear When Women Wear Trousers? – Part 1

In the early 20th Century, anti-suffrage propaganda suggested that if women obtained the right to vote, they would not stop there; soon they would displace males in society and become the dominant gender relegating males to secondary status in society, that is, the subservient role previously occupied by females.

For example, an anti-suffrage postcard asked, “What will men wear when women wear (trousers)?”

A German postcard provided the answer. Titled “Modern Marriage,” it depicts a female wearing trousers standing besides a male wearing a dress. The female is holding a hairbrush in an intimidating manner as if she is threatening her spouse to keep him in line, meanwhile, the man is nursing a baby.

Another German postcard titled “Pictures from the Women's State,” portrays various scenes as the matriarchy makes progress in a post-suffrage world.

The left side of the postcard contains images of wives disciplining hapless husbands. In the upper image, a wife threatens her husband with a carpet beater, while he stands in the middle of broken crockery. In the lower image, a wife has her husband over her knee and is spanking him with a shoe, while their smiling daughter looks on being educated about the relationship of females and males in the post-suffrage world.

The caption accompanying the image in the center of the postcard reads, “While the women will wear trousers, the men will wear none at all.” The accompanying drawing shows two dapper women wearing suits with trousers. The women also wear hats (one a top hat, the other a felt hat), carry canes, smoke (one a cigar, the other a pipe), and have short hairstyles. Also, the cigar-smoking woman wears a monocle.

Standing nearby are two post-suffrage males in ankle-length dresses. One male wears a picture hat that matches his dress, which is trimmed with ruffles and lace. He also carries a purse. The other male is lifting the side of his dress slightly to reveal a blue petticoat (blue is for boys).

The scenes on the right side of the postcard depicts further role reversal. The upper image shows a female in a suit with a bowtie carrying her top hat and cane in one hand and a smoking pipe in the other. She is dressed like a professional and is either on her way to the office or returning home. Her husband stands by wearing a yellow blouse and red skirt while holding a baby.

The lower image shows two female chimney sweeps. Perhaps one is married to the househusband in the scene or maybe they have been hired by the househusband’s wife to clean the chimney. The househusband, in a white blouse and red skirt, stands over a wooden tub doing the laundry.

Postcards predicting the ascent of females and the fall of males were typical of the era. I have seen hundreds of postcards from that era sending the same message, but the postcard on the right kind of says it all:

Woman is doing the work of man,
So She’ll wear the trousers, if she can,
And it’s quite easy to prophecy,
What Pa will look like, by and by.

As you know, the anti-suffrage propaganda did not work. Females got the vote.

Folks viewing the propaganda today may find it quaint and amusing. But before you dismiss the anti-suffrage message consider the modern image on the right. Except for the updated wardrobes, there’s not much difference with the postcard above it, is there?

(Part 2 of "What Will Men Wear When Women Wear Trousers?" will appear here tomorrow.)

And, by the way, you can click on any image to enlarge it.

improving his image

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her handy man (in uniform)

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travestis parisiens

Updated Below

I collect female impersonator ephemera. (You can view my collection here.)

During my search for additions to my collection, I often encounter a set of early 20th Century postcards from France titled “Travestis Parisiens,” which translates to “Parisian Transvestites.” The postcards depict a person in various stages of dress/undress being assisted by an angel. The beautiful images are artist signed Jean Tam.

Are the transvestites depicted by artist Tam males dressing as females or females dressing as males or both. The postcards appear below; you be the judge.

By the way, these postcards are too expensive for me and are not part of my collection.

UPDATE: I don't speak French, so I used Babel Fish to translate "Travestis Parisiens" from French to English and it cam up with "Parisian Transvestites."

According to Jamiegottagun, who knows how to mind her French P's and Q's, Babel Fish is wrong and the correct translation is "Dressing up Parisian." Therefore, the persons depicted in the postcard images are not necessarily transvestites, although the females donning men's duds are definitely crossdressing.

 

Tyra Banks, a transwoman???

America's Next Top Model fired Janie Dickinson as a judge on that show because she called the show’s host, Tyra Banks, “fat.”

In retaliation, Janie said that  Tyra used to be a man (not that there’s anything wrong wit that).

"She's huge. She's a big woman. I used to think she was a man. I used to look at her and think, 'Something isn't right here,'" said Janie.

That’s the whole story, but if you want to read the source, go here.

one of my family's issues with my femulating

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femulating in february... not so much

I have gone the whole month without one femulation. And I don't expect to femulate anytime before the month is over unless there is a great gender epiphany and my family and employer inform me that they are ok with me en femme from now on. But that ain't gonna happen!

I blame the weather for my lack of Februray femulation. That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

March is more promising on the femulation front.

On the 12th, I will attend the True Colors Conference, where I will be presenting my "Femulate" workshop. When I am not presenting, I will be working at the Connecticut Outreach Society's booth.

On March 20th, I will attend the annual banquet of the Connecticut Outreach Society, where I will eat, drink, dance, lip sync, and schmooze en femme.

I am so looking forward to March.

Harry has some explaining to do

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An Interview With the Blonds

I have featured Phillipe Blond as The Femulated: model of the day on two or three occasions because Phillipe is a knock-out in my opinion and certainly deserving of The Femulated: spot.

So, you can imagine that I was very pleased to discover “An Interview With the Blonds” (Phillipe and spouse David) on The Huffington Post.

You can read the whole interview here.

you need more filler, fella

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designer makes unisex clothes because everyone is born unisex

Androgyny was at its peak on the Rad Hourani catwalk yesterday. Both the male and female models dressed in tights, high heels, bike shorts, and layers of black on the runway. "Unisex is my main focus," Hourani told us. "All my pieces are unisex so you can wear it feminine, masculine, a guy can wear it, a girl can wear it, at any age, anytime, anywhere."

…it's not a matter of men dressing like women, or vice versa. "I don’t like to put limits to gender," the Canadian-born designer explained. "I think everybody is feminine, and everybody is born unisex." Not physically, of course. "I don’t believe in making differences between women and men. I think we’re born just, like, a human on the planet and it’s just the way we’re conditioned that we create desire."

Read the whole story here.

will The New York Times accept a wedding announcement from a transgender bride?

Planning a transgender wedding went pretty smoothly. Only one question remains: Will The New York Times accept a wedding announcement from a transgender bride?

Read all about it here in Joanne Herman's article on The Huffington Post.

(Photo caption: Georgina Turtle leaving St Margaret's Church in Westminster with her new husband, Christopher Somerset, on October 13, 1962. Georgina, formerly a dentist in the British navy, transitioned in 1957.)

my favorite photos page

In case you had not noticed, I use Blogger for this blog.

The brains behind Blogger are always adding new features to improve the Blogger world. I recently discovered a new feature, i.e., the ability to create up to ten static pages to a blog.

Ever since I abandoned flickr, I had planned to create a Google Sites web page to host my photos. However, being a low priority project, I never got around to it.

When I discovered the new static page feature of Blogger, I figured that It would be a quick way to get my gallery of images back online, until I get around to doing it with Google Sites.

It took about ten minutes to create the page, load it with photos, and publish it. And here it is: my favorite photos page.

girls will be boys

According to The Huffington Post...

"Fashionable women would do well to raid their boyfriends' closets come fall, judging from the looks shown Sunday at New York Fashion Week."

"Menswear influences were everywhere during the week of previews..."

"Diane von Furstenberg confessed to the crowd she has a more masculine side. 'I always wanted to live a man's life in a woman's body...'"

Yadda, yadda, yadda.

If women are encouraged to raid their boyfriend's closets, is that a signal for men to raid their girlfriend's closets?

Not that there is anything wrong with that in this day and age, but it may be problematical for many men because milady's wear is likely to be too small for milady wannabes.

I know that the items hanging on my spouse's side of our closet will not fit me. I learned the hard way that there is a world of difference between a size 6 and a size 16.

Since raiding my spouse's closet will be for naught, I have to buy my own women's wear, which is exactly what I did yesterday.

I have been eyeing the dress pictured above ever since Newport-News began showing it in its catalogs. A few weeks ago, the price dropped from $89 to $39. Then over the weekend, Newport-News had a 25% off sale, which lowered the price to $29.25, so with credit card on hand, I pounced. And in a few days, I will have some new women's apparel in my size to add to my side of our closet.

nice legs

I saw this on Digg yesterday and I wanted to pass it on for your enjoyment. As usual, click on the image to enlarge it.

my fashion modeling

Although I never was a contestant in a womanless beauty pageant, I was a model in fashion shows on two occasions.

In 2007, I modeled in a benefit fashion show for the Connecticut TransAdvocacy Coalition. Eight trans girls and boys each modeled two outfits. We had to provide our own outfits and the venue, a bar, was packed. We models had to walk on the floor space around the bar trying to squeeze by the bar patrons (that's me in the photo). It was not an ideal situation, but it was still a lot of fun.

In 2008, I also modeled in the Fantasia Fair's fashion show with a slew of other girls. We modeled our own outfits at that show, too, but we actually strutted our stuff down a catwalk rather than the floor space around a bar. It was a dark and stormy night and as a result, the audience was small, but enthusiastic, and I had a great time.

don't overdo it

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