I want men to try and imagine going about your day–working, running, hiking, whatever–and not being allowed to wear pants under threats of violence or total social and economic exclusion.
That’s the kind of irrationally violent and controlling behaviour women have been up against.
Also for anyone who thinks it’s easy for women to be gender non conforming because we can wear pants.
The only reason we can is because we fought tooth and nail for the right to! Any rights we take for granted today we’re the result of a prolonged, bitter battle fought by our predecessors for every inch of territory gained. Never forget that.
Title IX (1972) declared that girls could not be required to wear skirts to school.
Women who were United States senators were not allowed to wear trousers on the Senate floor until 1993, after senators Barbara Mikulski and Carol Moseley Braun wore them in protest, which encouraged female staff members to do likewise.
This was never given to us. Women have had to fight just to be able to wear pants. Women who are still alive remember having to wear skirts to school, even in the dead of winter, when it was so cold that just having a layer of tights between them and the elements was downright dangerous. Women who remember not even being allowed to wear pants under their skirts, for no other reason than they were female.
So don’t talk about women wearing pants being gender nonconforming like it’s easy. It’s only less difficult now because your foremothers refused to comply.
My mother spent her entire school career up until high school having to wear skirts, no matter how horrible the New England winters got, because she was forbidden to do otherwise. There were times when the weather was bad where my grandmother kept her home rather than make her walk to and from the bus in a skirt.
They rebroadcast a few old interviews with Mary Tyler Moore, and in them she addressed the pants issue. There was a strict limit on what kind of pants she could wear (hence, always Capri pants, nothing masculine), and to use her words, how much cupping the pants could show. A censor would look at every outfit when she came out on stage, and if the pants cupped her buttocks too much, defining them rather than hiding them, then she had to get another pair.
bella was lucky she didn’t have a cell phone of any kind because you know ya boi edward would be blowing up that phone 24-7 going “saw a snail today…. effervescent” or some shit equivalent
This is Fjord – I met him earliest. He is a half-orc and he’s
growing his teeth back and he’s very very handsome.
Beau
This is Beau. She’s really strong – she’s the one I was
telling you about that can fight things with a stick.
Caleb
This is Caleb. He’s a wizard. He has a lot of fire and stuff…
he likes his books, and, um… he used to smell bad but he doesn’t anymore – he
likes water now.
Nott
This is Nott. She is very very very brave even though she’s
very small. Be careful of your rings.
Caduceus
And this is Caduceus. He’s got pink hair! He used to live in
a cemetery, he doesn’t know a lot of things – he doesn’t know anythingabout sex – and he drinks dead-people tea.
my favorite kind of fanfics are “canon divergence” because it’s always like handing back a reviewed essay with comments like “I enjoyed the strong beginning but here is where you lost me, I’ve made some notes”