From The Department of Rhetorical Questions: How Come Women’s Clothing Is So Much More Important Than Men’s?

0 Responses to From The Department of Rhetorical Questions: How Come Women’s Clothing Is So Much More Important Than Men’s?

1. tg says:

   February 27, 2007 at 7:49 am

   Melissa Etheridge certainly landed on one of the E commentor’s worst dressed: worst dressed man, he dubbed her. So, tuxedo + lesbian = poor imitation of a man. Sheesh, and this from the queeniest of men. Perhaps that gives him license? Perhaps he was further subverting gender stereotypes? Perhaps it was just funny? I don’t know. It troubled me.
2. Ann Bartow says:

   February 27, 2007 at 8:10 am

   I wince at your description of someone as “the queeniest of men” but if you mean that an openly gay man was making homophobic comments about Etheridge, that stinks too.
3. Diane says:

   February 27, 2007 at 10:49 pm

   There is a difference between real black tie and fake black tie. Call me old-school, but few fashion flubs offend me as much as fake black tie. At least two of the men pictured above are dressed correctly. The men who show up in regular suits–or worse–for what is known as a formal occasion certainly do deserve a worst-of-the-worst-dressed list. One incorrectly dressed presenter even had his tie loosened at his collar.
4. tg says:

   February 28, 2007 at 8:17 am

   I only described him as such because he describes himself that way. I’m trying to look at the whole situation as positively as possible. He is one who relishes breaking traditional gender roles and considers himself a queen in the most positive genderqueer sense of the word. I’m hoping that his commentary was intentionally as meta as it could be interpreted and not just a quick way to get a laugh at the expense of a lesbian who chose a comfortable tux over a gown that, I’m guessing, might have made her feel as if she were in drag.
5. Ann Bartow says:

   February 28, 2007 at 9:36 am

   tg – fair enough; I don’t watch “E’ so I’ll defer to you on this.

   Diane – I know even less about men’s clothes than I do about women’s clothes. What is a fake black tie?
6. Diane says:

   February 28, 2007 at 11:53 am

   Not “a fake black tie”–“fake black tie.” A man in a tuxedo wears a black tie, studs, a black cummerbund, and a tuxedo-style spread collar shirt. What you see a lot are colored, or even patterned, ties and cummerbunds, shirts without studs, wing collars, and even the vulgarity of ruffled plakets. Parents, apparently, do not bother to teach their sons how to dress for formal occasions.

   With a tuxedo, it is the fit that matters, and that is all that matters.

   When I got married, I planned an afternoon wedding, and I practically had to file a lawsuit to get the correct clothes for the groom, etc. The idiot clothing people kept insisting I needed tuxedos, and men do not wear tuxedos for formal afternoon weddings. I went through hell convincing these people–the formal clothing “experts”–that they were giving me the wrong clothes. Finally, they presented me with cutaways and striped trousers (much more elegant that tuxedos!).
7. Ann Bartow says:

   February 28, 2007 at 3:56 pm

   Ah. Well I guess you probably won’t be knitting this:
   http://youknitwhat.blogspot.com/2005/12/want-to-scar-kid-for-life.html
8. Diane says:

   February 28, 2007 at 8:56 pm

   I won’t say what those children look like, but let it be a warning to parents….