So as of yesterday, I am now the proud owner of two suits. I could not be happier. I have a smart black tie number, and a blue one that I'm hopefully going to wear to the weddings I'm attending this summer. Yes, I am a woman, and yes, I wear suits now. Even though that shouldn't be such a big deal, some people seem to think it is. But it feels so, so right.
I've never felt comfortable in dresses, for as long as I can remember. I shunned the primary school summer dress as soon as I could speak and decide for myself what I wanted to wear, for the main reason that you simply couldn't play football properly with a dress and white knee-high socks on. As I moved to high school wearing school skirts was the norm, so I conformed, as the majority of teenage girls did in many ways at that age where you're trying to figure out how to fit in. It didn't help that the trousers were hideous, and I think they were made like that on purpose. I continued to wear a skirt in Sixth Form and when I became Head Girl because I thought I'd be taken more seriously if I dressed in such a way, and I believed that I was expected to demonstrate a certain kind of femininity to set an example to the rest of the school. I wore dresses to most things, and I even managed to build up quite a collection that I'd alternate for different events. But it never felt like me. I'd be parading this image of my self that didn't reflect who I was; it reflected what people wanted to see, what was expected of me as a woman dressing up for a formal occasion.
Now you might be reading this thinking that it isn't important at all, that how I dress is a completely minor and irrelevant issue in my life. But since having my eyes opened at university, I've come to acknowledge that in a world that is obsessed with appearances and materialism, how one dresses and presents themselves contributes to the way that society is constructed in similar ways to how we act and speak. Specific modes of masculinity and femininity are so entrenched in how we perceive and understand the world around us that we don't notice that that particular binary that we all adhere to completely dominates our lives. It starts when we're young: boys wear blue, and girls wear pink. This simple colour assignment then transforms into what activities we should and shouldn't like, how we dress, how we talk, what career paths we follow and even how we interact with each other. Thus, men wear suits, and women wear dresses.
Because this distinct gender binary is implemented as soon as we're born, what society seems to ignore is that actually, we all start as blank slates. A person is a 'tabula rasa' as Aristotle might postulate; their gender doesn't automatically define how that person expresses themselves, and it doesn't determine the choices they make. It shouldn't, anyway. Where does it state in this life manual that the general population seems to be carrying around that I'm born to wear dresses and love pink and hate blue? Where does it state that men consequently have to wear suits and hate pink and love blue? Somebody needs to point this out to me if I'm missing something, but I don't get it.
Personally, I love suits, and the colour blue, and you know what? I'll leave wear the odd pink shirt or sock every now and again. To me, this is what makes me feel comfortable. Yet, when I walk into a room at a club wearing a suit, where the football has just finished and people are drinking, hundreds of pairs of eyes follow me across the room because I make them uncomfortable, and for some reason that matters more than what makes me feel comfortable.
Women can be feminine. Women can be masculine.
Men can be feminine. Men can be masculine.
And you know what? The world isn't going to end because we don't all conform to the stereotypes we've been forced to comply with. People should feel good, and look good, in whatever they choose, and that's exactly what I plan to do.
The fact that I wore a skirt when I was Head Girl even though I hated every second of it because I thought I'd be taken more seriously, and because I had a role that I thought I needed to play is a travesty. My belief before I knew any better just shows how this world sets some young people up to fail; I felt as if my masculinity wouldn't be accepted or respected, and I couldn't be myself. Furthermore, the way I looked on the school prospectus photographs was more important to me at that time than everything I achieved in that year. Maybe we place such a high value on appearance because as a society we're scared of what might happen if people stopped giving a damn about fitting into these gender roles that dictate how the world is supposedly meant to function. Well, I for one don't give a damn about those people that all did second takes when they saw me in a suit, and if they felt scared on threatened then maybe they should consider why.
Even though she's been incredibly supportive and is coming to terms with everything, my mum still thinks I want to be a man, and that the term 'androgynous' is a synonym for intersex. Bless her, she's getting there. At least she's trying. That's all I'm trying to ask of myself and the world around me at the moment: not to suddenly throw caution to the wind and personally stop conforming to these gender roles, but to simply understand that they're not for everyone. Tolerance is the first step, acceptance comes next, and then maybe we can get somewhere in this binary-manic world.
For now though, I'm just going to wear my suits and be happy. I finally know what it feels like to be me.
I've never felt comfortable in dresses, for as long as I can remember. I shunned the primary school summer dress as soon as I could speak and decide for myself what I wanted to wear, for the main reason that you simply couldn't play football properly with a dress and white knee-high socks on. As I moved to high school wearing school skirts was the norm, so I conformed, as the majority of teenage girls did in many ways at that age where you're trying to figure out how to fit in. It didn't help that the trousers were hideous, and I think they were made like that on purpose. I continued to wear a skirt in Sixth Form and when I became Head Girl because I thought I'd be taken more seriously if I dressed in such a way, and I believed that I was expected to demonstrate a certain kind of femininity to set an example to the rest of the school. I wore dresses to most things, and I even managed to build up quite a collection that I'd alternate for different events. But it never felt like me. I'd be parading this image of my self that didn't reflect who I was; it reflected what people wanted to see, what was expected of me as a woman dressing up for a formal occasion.
Now you might be reading this thinking that it isn't important at all, that how I dress is a completely minor and irrelevant issue in my life. But since having my eyes opened at university, I've come to acknowledge that in a world that is obsessed with appearances and materialism, how one dresses and presents themselves contributes to the way that society is constructed in similar ways to how we act and speak. Specific modes of masculinity and femininity are so entrenched in how we perceive and understand the world around us that we don't notice that that particular binary that we all adhere to completely dominates our lives. It starts when we're young: boys wear blue, and girls wear pink. This simple colour assignment then transforms into what activities we should and shouldn't like, how we dress, how we talk, what career paths we follow and even how we interact with each other. Thus, men wear suits, and women wear dresses.
Because this distinct gender binary is implemented as soon as we're born, what society seems to ignore is that actually, we all start as blank slates. A person is a 'tabula rasa' as Aristotle might postulate; their gender doesn't automatically define how that person expresses themselves, and it doesn't determine the choices they make. It shouldn't, anyway. Where does it state in this life manual that the general population seems to be carrying around that I'm born to wear dresses and love pink and hate blue? Where does it state that men consequently have to wear suits and hate pink and love blue? Somebody needs to point this out to me if I'm missing something, but I don't get it.
Personally, I love suits, and the colour blue, and you know what? I'll leave wear the odd pink shirt or sock every now and again. To me, this is what makes me feel comfortable. Yet, when I walk into a room at a club wearing a suit, where the football has just finished and people are drinking, hundreds of pairs of eyes follow me across the room because I make them uncomfortable, and for some reason that matters more than what makes me feel comfortable.
Women can be feminine. Women can be masculine.
Men can be feminine. Men can be masculine.
And you know what? The world isn't going to end because we don't all conform to the stereotypes we've been forced to comply with. People should feel good, and look good, in whatever they choose, and that's exactly what I plan to do.
The fact that I wore a skirt when I was Head Girl even though I hated every second of it because I thought I'd be taken more seriously, and because I had a role that I thought I needed to play is a travesty. My belief before I knew any better just shows how this world sets some young people up to fail; I felt as if my masculinity wouldn't be accepted or respected, and I couldn't be myself. Furthermore, the way I looked on the school prospectus photographs was more important to me at that time than everything I achieved in that year. Maybe we place such a high value on appearance because as a society we're scared of what might happen if people stopped giving a damn about fitting into these gender roles that dictate how the world is supposedly meant to function. Well, I for one don't give a damn about those people that all did second takes when they saw me in a suit, and if they felt scared on threatened then maybe they should consider why.
Even though she's been incredibly supportive and is coming to terms with everything, my mum still thinks I want to be a man, and that the term 'androgynous' is a synonym for intersex. Bless her, she's getting there. At least she's trying. That's all I'm trying to ask of myself and the world around me at the moment: not to suddenly throw caution to the wind and personally stop conforming to these gender roles, but to simply understand that they're not for everyone. Tolerance is the first step, acceptance comes next, and then maybe we can get somewhere in this binary-manic world.
For now though, I'm just going to wear my suits and be happy. I finally know what it feels like to be me.
