This strategy makes a lot of sense, but I wonder whether it’s applicable to professional settings. Jeans and a hoodie don’t just signal nongirliness; they also signal casualness. Does anyone know of equivalently gender-neutral clothes that are appropriate for formal settings? Or is it unnecessary because the formality prevents people from making unwanted advances anyway?
I don’t have much experience of professional settings, but from my knowledge of women’s clothing: you can get tailored shirts in fairly male cuts and straight-leg trousers or long skirts that don’t hug the figure. I’d imagine one would be received differently for wearing a very modest shirt and trousers combo vs a v-neck blouse and pencil skirt.
In most places, I think it’s now acceptable for women to wear a tuxedo for black tie, if you go to that kind of thing and feel that cocktail dresses attract too much attention. Alternatively, keep a modest dress in your wardrobe.
It’s worth mentioning that even in quite progressive circles, women in traditionally male-style suits tends to cross into that transgressive genderfuck aesthetic. There are a small but significant number of men and women who are really into that, and as a result I imagine this plan would backfire quite badly.
Right, ok. The question is then if these people are sufficiently less common and/or less annoying than men who give unwanted attention to feminine women to make it a worthwhile plan for avoiding attention nonetheless. The exist many situations where there are a significant number of people who react in a way that might be considered undesirable to feminine women.
Also, if breaking out of gendered roles is a big problem in some workplaces, there are ways to dress very modestly while still looking feminine.
I’m not suggesting the general idea of dressing gender-neutral isn’t a good one; I am largely un-knowledgeable on the subject and can’t really comment on that aspect of it. But a woman wearing a suit in a cut traditionally for men carries connotations a naive wearer may not be aware of.
It’s a bit like wearing a collar. It has a specific meaning in BDSM subculture, and signals membership to that group. Someone naively wearing a collar is going to get a lot of unwanted attention at a social gathering. Wearing a suit isn’t quite that specific, and doesn’t belong to a specific subculture, but if your goal is to not have people come up to you and start talking about sex, it’s going to fail in a whole bunch of ways.
Ah right, I see what you’re saying there. I have loose women’s jeans and I have men’s jeans and agree that the implications are rather different.
In this instance I was intending to convey the “modest, but nevertheless womens” trouser suit, as exemplied in theselinks, rather than “a suit that looks like a mens suit”.
What prompted me to respond was the “tuxedo for black tie” comment. For business-formal, there’s obviously a variety of tasteful and subdued options. I don’t believe there’s such a thing as gender-neutral evening wear.
Oh! Ok, fair enough, that makes even more sense. Though I think that’s much less of an issue now than it would have been 5 years ago, because ladies tuxedos have been incrediblytrendy for about 2 years now. I normally dress very feminine and I still have a couple in my wardrobe. Obviously most of the examples given are still styled in the “sexy” direction, but it’s easy to modify that into positive “stylish” but negative “sexy” (by, say, ditching the high heels and switching the short skirts and tight trousers for flowing skirts and palazzo trousers).
It would be like if collars suddenly became fashionable, and celebrities started to wear them to red carpet events all the time.
This strategy makes a lot of sense, but I wonder whether it’s applicable to professional settings. Jeans and a hoodie don’t just signal nongirliness; they also signal casualness. Does anyone know of equivalently gender-neutral clothes that are appropriate for formal settings? Or is it unnecessary because the formality prevents people from making unwanted advances anyway?
I don’t have much experience of professional settings, but from my knowledge of women’s clothing: you can get tailored shirts in fairly male cuts and straight-leg trousers or long skirts that don’t hug the figure. I’d imagine one would be received differently for wearing a very modest shirt and trousers combo vs a v-neck blouse and pencil skirt.
In most places, I think it’s now acceptable for women to wear a tuxedo for black tie, if you go to that kind of thing and feel that cocktail dresses attract too much attention. Alternatively, keep a modest dress in your wardrobe.
It’s worth mentioning that even in quite progressive circles, women in traditionally male-style suits tends to cross into that transgressive genderfuck aesthetic. There are a small but significant number of men and women who are really into that, and as a result I imagine this plan would backfire quite badly.
Right, ok. The question is then if these people are sufficiently less common and/or less annoying than men who give unwanted attention to feminine women to make it a worthwhile plan for avoiding attention nonetheless. The exist many situations where there are a significant number of people who react in a way that might be considered undesirable to feminine women.
Also, if breaking out of gendered roles is a big problem in some workplaces, there are ways to dress very modestly while still looking feminine.
I’m not suggesting the general idea of dressing gender-neutral isn’t a good one; I am largely un-knowledgeable on the subject and can’t really comment on that aspect of it. But a woman wearing a suit in a cut traditionally for men carries connotations a naive wearer may not be aware of.
It’s a bit like wearing a collar. It has a specific meaning in BDSM subculture, and signals membership to that group. Someone naively wearing a collar is going to get a lot of unwanted attention at a social gathering. Wearing a suit isn’t quite that specific, and doesn’t belong to a specific subculture, but if your goal is to not have people come up to you and start talking about sex, it’s going to fail in a whole bunch of ways.
Ah right, I see what you’re saying there. I have loose women’s jeans and I have men’s jeans and agree that the implications are rather different.
In this instance I was intending to convey the “modest, but nevertheless womens” trouser suit, as exemplied in these links, rather than “a suit that looks like a mens suit”.
What prompted me to respond was the “tuxedo for black tie” comment. For business-formal, there’s obviously a variety of tasteful and subdued options. I don’t believe there’s such a thing as gender-neutral evening wear.
Oh! Ok, fair enough, that makes even more sense. Though I think that’s much less of an issue now than it would have been 5 years ago, because ladies tuxedos have been incredibly trendy for about 2 years now. I normally dress very feminine and I still have a couple in my wardrobe. Obviously most of the examples given are still styled in the “sexy” direction, but it’s easy to modify that into positive “stylish” but negative “sexy” (by, say, ditching the high heels and switching the short skirts and tight trousers for flowing skirts and palazzo trousers).
It would be like if collars suddenly became fashionable, and celebrities started to wear them to red carpet events all the time.