In New York City, we're just getting over a heatwave. In the past I've had male-bodied friends tell me I was lucky because, as a female-bodied person, I "could wear a skirt." Now, I don't like skirts. I wore them when I needed to in private school, but I feel much more free--and cool--in long pants. I'll wear a skirt if I have to, but I always feel more formal in a skirt. It's always a days-in-the-making decision to wear a skirt because of the social stigma that women still face regarding unshaved legs. I am not one of those women who chucked away the razor forever, although all the more power to them. I'm just lazy about it, sometimes.
I cut my hair last year (hair…on my head, if that wasn't clear) and have kept it short because caring for it is easier now. I will go to great lengths not to spend more time on preening. And though the new trend is maxi skirts, I've always been more about bohemian-style skirts and those are long too. I know what you're thinking: "But maxi skirts can hide your legs!" Not when you're a leg crosser like me! What I'm saying is skirts are more work than they're worth sometimes. Yeah, they might feel like they keep you cooler, but at what cost?!
But men don't have to deal with that. There's no social stigma for male-bodied people to worry about body hair for the most part. It might even work in reverse for some men who aren't hairy enough! But it's not socially acceptable for men to wear skirts unless that skirt is actually a kilt; and even then, they have to either be Scottish or Kanye West. And that second one is still debatable and fodder for cultural appropriation columns, and something I will not get into here. However, I will say that the equality of the sexes has a very long way to go. And while no one wants to hear that men need to be given more freedoms ("they already run everything, why do they need more?" "how about women catch up with their freedoms before we hand out any more?"), I think in this instance they do. Women can--and do--already wear typically men's clothes (suits, sneakers, pants, ties, suspenders, jeans) without being seen, for the most part, as a lesser woman. Gone are the days when women who wore pants or even jeans were ostracized. I think the same time has come for men.
In Sweden, train conductors were forbidden to wear shorts on the job and men started coming to work in skirts. That made international headlines this year. It was a hilarious comment on men beating the system. But why is something like that considered funny? Why is a man in a skirt still funnier in 2013 than a woman in pants? Where are we in the fight for equality that a hint of femininity in the most basic of expression--fashion--is cause for laughter? Just because they want to be as cool, temperature-wise, as female-bodied or female-presenting people? Those Swedes aren't trying to express their gender in an alternate way than what society deems appropriate, although that would be less of a problem in Sweden, one of the top countries for gender neutrality, one which only recently added a gender-neutral pronoun to their national encyclopedia. If that's still making headlines in Sweden, we have a very long way to go. I look forward to a time when I can wear my pants, smooth legs or not, and a man on the subway can wear a skirt and not also have a bagpipe on his shoulder or shutter shades on his face.
But just remember to keep your legs shut. Shaved or not, no one needs that on their daily commute!
