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4:50pm March 12, 2014

➸ http://kaninchenzero.tumblr.com/post/79312939452/the-problem-isnt-that-clothes-are-gendered-i

kaninchenzero:

the problem isn’t that clothes are gendered. i mean, we wear clothes to communicate with each other much more than we use them as protection from the elements. it’s fine to communicate “i’m feeling particularly feminine today” by wearing a pretty frock.

it’s the hierarchy of gender, the…

I don’t know.

For me there is a problem with clothes communicating gender.  I mean I guess it’s not a problem if you have a gender you want to communicate.  But if I have long hair and wear skirts it doesn’t mean I want to communicate anything feminine, and I get annoyed at the presumption that I do want to communicate anything of the sort.  There’s nothing about a lower garment with one hole for both legs that is more feminine than a lower garment with two holes, one for each leg.  And I’m starting to get annoyed at the amount of people in the world that presume I want anything to do with femininity just because of some of my clothes and actions.  So for more, that presumption is itself a problem.  Even without feminine being considered inferior.  Because I’m not communicating “I’m feeling particularly feminine today”, I’m communicating, if anything, “I like the way this looks”, “I like the way this feels”, or “There’s a reason that I’m wearing this and it has nothing to do with gender”?

If I change from one set of clothes to another, one hairstyle to another, people practically perceive me as a whole different person because of the way they attribute gender to these things in a way that I don’t.

Someone said of me to a friend of mine recently, “She’s wearing skirts, she’s grown out her hair, she’s learning to crochet, she even shaved her armpits… do you think maybe she’ll shave off her beard?”  Um… no.  Because none of those things are even related to each other, let alone through gender, and they’re not somehow in opposition to having chin hair.

I don’t mind the fact that other people communicate gender through clothing, but it’s a pain in the ass when you don’t relate to gender that way at all and everyone insists on interpreting you that way.  

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