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UPSG -> RE: feminization (1/31/2009 10:25:50 AM)
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Nikitaa is right in her assessment as far as social customs go. Men are not suppose to dress as women.
There is nothing intrinsically female about a skirt or blouse or anything women don including makeup. However, it is per social custom recognized - and communicates - feminine gender.
Sex and gender are not exactly the same thing. But social custom and mores shuns - at least for males but this is no longer true for females - males who dress as the gender opposite their sex.
Historically men throughout most the world wore skirts or tunic and robes. Trousers actually originated among the nomadic warrior tribes of the East (e.g. Scythians etc.). Like the stirrup and armor, the "Western European" world eventually adopt the trousers as normal wear for men. In my opinion it is more suited for combat (be that in rural or urban areas). Eventually women began wearing trousers as well, but this was not normative or socially acceptable until perhaps the 20th century, indeed, most men did not even wear jeans originally (that being confined to lower class mine workers and gold rush seekers out West).
Today it is largely socially acceptable for women to dress as men - especially butch lesbians known as "studs" within Black-Americana.
My point is, when a man dons "female clthing" it doe's not insinuate he is of the female sex. What it suggests is that he is being feminized, or that is to say he is taking on attributes of the female gender e.g. "sissy."
Many women in say.... the United States today are increasingly masculinizing per gender - not not. Their sex remains female but their gender becomes more masculinized year by year. Masculinity is seen by both men and women (this especially so includes feminits of both sex) as the harbinger trait of "strength," capability, and what encapsulates all that is honorable and good within the world. Feminity, because it is correlated with reception and compromise, is regarded as weak, by many.
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