Gender and Clothing

This writer recently came across an online acticle that asked "If women can wear pants, why can't men wear dresses?" or something like that.  This writer was confused because the idea of wearing dress is a foreign concept to him, but the question is fair.  Yes, you'll occasionally see a man in a dress but for the most part, men (both straight and gay) just don't wear things like that.

That said, this writer has another question; why would a man want to where a dress? This is a little harder to answer, because every person has different motivations for doing or not doing certain things.  Speaking for himself (because that's the only person this writer can definitively speak for), this writer will say its just because he doesn't want to and beyond that, he doesn't have the legs for it.  Also, where's the benefit in it?  This writer can only assume other males (straight and gay) feel the same way, but he doesn't know for sure.  That would require walking around and asking every man that question, a feat that no one individual has time for.

One thing this writer can say is that when he sees an male in his prime wearing such clothing walking down the street, others (mostly women and teens) will snicker.  Adult males may shake their heads in disbelief, but this writer finds that women (the main ones asking why men don't wear dresses) will take the lead in make such men feel bad about their decision to go fem.  In short, based solely on what this writer has seen, more feminine outfits because women don't want them to.  Women simply aren't choosing those kind of men en masse.

As for why women wear what they wear, this writer doesn't think most people complaining about such things actually care.  They aren't worried about women wearing their dresses or shorts too short.  The real issue isn't why women are wearing these things, but why men aren't.  Deep down, everyone knows if men regularly wore the miniskirts and women covered their bodies, nobody would care.  Just watch pro wrestling.  Men trot out in front of thousands of people in essentially just wearing underwear and nobody complains about how much skin they show.  In fact, there are looked at as badass and masculine.  But if a female wrestler shows nothing but her hands, suddenly it's too sexy and you have to shield your children's eyes.  Is this America or the Middle East?

Speaking of sports, another common question is why female athletes wear less than the male counterparts.  This is particularly prevalent in beach volleyball, especially during the Olympics.  After reading numerous articles, the most common answer is it's because they want to.  These female athletes openly state it's not to be sexy and a study of the rules will show that these women aren't being forced to wear such things.  They can wear as much as the men.  They simply choose not to.

As for why to male athletes don't wear as little as the women, as stated before, this writer can assume that they don't want to and don't see the benefit in it.  Considering how competitive male athletes are, if they knew wearing bikinis and tennis skirts would help them win, they'd wear them.  Once again, there is no rule stating how little they can wear.

So to wrap things up, men and wear what they wear because they want to.  Believe it or not, nobody is forcing women to wear dresses, so why are people trying so hard to cram men into them.  No matter what societal expectations are or changes happen, people ultimately have to decide for themselves.  No amount of complaining is going to change that.  People who can't decide for themselves are either babies or nothing more than living dolls.

Until next time...

Winter

It's that time of the year.  The time for family.  The time for presents.  The time for hot chocolate.  The time for slipping, sliding, shivering.  Yep.  It's old man Winter.  Goodbye, bike.  So long, shorts.  Hello, bus (bawls uncontrollably).

Truthfully, Winter is one of the few times this writer is glad he doesn't drive.  As stated before, this is the season for slipping and sliding.  Heck, this writer just saw someone spinout and he was only going two mph.  He did everything right and still spunout.  Then, there are those who can't stop when they need to and go sliding through a stop sign or a red light.  If that's not scary, the word needs to be redefined.

The few bikers still out aren't safe either.  A co-worker told this writer her husbad was rifing his bike to work, then took a turn and wound up sliding underneath a parked car.  That sound like a deleted scene from the movie Premium Rush, not real life.  Yep, it's time to put away the bike.

Pedestrians suffer Winter's wrath, as well.  It can be scary walking up a steep hill covered in ice or a thin layer of snow.  You have to keep a good pace or you'll be going backwards.  Power on up that hill or fall and slide back to the bottom.

Winter isn't all bad though.  You can have a snowball fight, go sleding, or skiing.  A walk down a snow covered street can be beautiful to look at.  Imagine walking down a side street with snowmen, igloos, and snow fortresses in every front yard.  Plus, the snow itself lights up an area quite well.  Even at night, you can see quite far if it's not blustery.  As you can see, there's good to accompany the bad.  Most if the bad revolve around simply not being able to move the way you want to or just being cold.

Until next time...

Confessions of a Janitor

This writer remembers living the life of a janitor.  You wake up, shower, go to work, and start janiteering (or custodianizing?).  While not the life people dream of, it can be fun and enjoyable work.  Maybe, it's just this writer, but there some there's a sense of accomplishment that comes from walking out of a fresh-cleaned room.  There's a purity about it that feels good to look at and smell.

Sometimes, however, the job was a nightmare.  There were times when this writer wanted to say, "I know I'm the janitor, but I'm not cleaning that."  Then there were times when this writer, in fact, did not clean the mess because the creator of the mess (usually a superior) would create a BS situation for the sole purpose of creating a headache for this writer.

This writer remembers in high school, one his supervisors threw a tantrum in a middle school lunchroom and mess in front of the kids.  This included, but was not limited to throwing a fish sandwich on the ground, stomping on and grindeding it with his foot, then storming off in a rage.  While that supervisor eventually came back to clean the mess, this writer certainly wasn't going to clean it.  It was a BS situation he (the head janitor, mind you) created, so it was only right that he clean it instead of delegating someone else to do it.

Then there are the supermarket women's bathrooms.  O.  M.  G.  These satanic portals to hell are the reason why this writer walked away from janitorial work with his head held high.  The levels of ugh in these place are both dumbfounding and confounding.  This writer already discussed this in the Fairer Sex post, so he'll break down a few particularly irksome repeat scenarios.

First, there are the hand towels in the toilet  This writer would often see the women were passing up toilet paper to use hand towel.  Ladies, these things don't flush.  That's what makes thems hand towel.  They clog toilets and cause overflowing.  Fortunately for this writer, the hand towels were (usually) the only reason the water that overflowed was brown.  Still, this writer wondered how the "more intelligent" gender kept getting it wrong day after day.

The straw that broke the camel's back came in the employee's women's bathroom (keep the word employee in mind).  What straw was that?  A female employee kept sneaking into the bathroom and smearing feces on the toilet bowl.  You read right.  ON the toilet bowl, as in the outside.  An actual human being of the "fairer sex (and an employee to boot) picked up feces and smeared it on a toilet bowl.  Just try to process that for a minute.

What's worse is that by the time this writer got to it, it was already hardened and encrusted on the bowl to where the cleaning chemicals barely had any affect.  So this writer had to spend twenty minutes scraping S off of a toilet bowl.  After doing this about four times, this writer looked himself in the mirror and asked himself Chris Hansen-style, "What are you doing here?"

This writer could go on talking about how bad experiences at an admittedly good job, but this writer believes the message has been received.

Until next time...