Kilt controversy points up need to expand male dress choices
- From: "ddnoe@xxxxxxxxxxxxx" <ddnoe@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: 28 Feb 2006 13:20:36 -0800
By Denise Noe
Teenager Nathan Warmack of Jackson, Missouri recently tried to attend a
high school dance in a Scottish kilt. The school's principal ordered
him to change into pants. Warmack would like to be allowed to attend
the prom in his kilt. Other teen boys have tried to wear kilts to
school or school functions and been sent home because of it.
While some observers might be tempted to dismiss Warmack as a
stereotypically rebellious teen trying to get attention, it appears
that his kilt wearing comes out of a healthy historical interest and
ethnic pride. Of Scottish descent, he became interested in his heritage
after seeing the Mel Gibson film Braveheart. He began reading books
about Scotland, visiting websites to trace his family's genealogy and
sometimes donning a kilt.
That his kilt wearing has caused controversy is symptomatic of the
limited clothing options considered acceptable for boys men in American
society. Women and girls can show up to almost any function attired in
pants, skirts, or dresses. We can wear ribbons and lace and ruffles and
we can wear starched shirts, jackets, and ties. By contrast, boys and
men have much less freedom of choice. Their clothing tends to run a
narrow range between the t-shirts or turtlenecks and pants of casual
attire and the coat, shirt, tie, and pants that is the quasi-uniform of
male business and formal wear.
It might help those trying to expand the choices of boys and men in
this area to e reminded that American women have not always had the
freedoms we now enjoy. Indeed, we have clothing liberty because our
courageous foremothers fought long and hard for it.
On December 29, 1852, Emma Snodgrass was arrested in Boston for wearing
pants. Throughout most of the 19th Century and to some extent into the
20th, a woman in trousers was someone rebellious and scandalous. Mary
Walker Edwards, a physician who was awarded a Congressional Medal of
Honor for her service during the Civil War, found the acceptable
apparel for women of her time period overly restrictive and
"immodest" so she often dressed in slacks. As a result, she was
frequently arrested for impersonating a man. During the same time
period, suffragette Amelia Bloomer won notoriety for championing
women's wearing of the ankle-length loose-fitting pants that would be
called "Bloomers" after her. Many suffragettes took up wearing
Bloomers but most soon abandoned it because women in pants were subject
to so much ridicule that they feared they harmed their other causes by
it.
Within the lifetimes of many of us, women wearing trousers were
sometimes disdained. Boze Hadleigh in Hollywood Lesbians quotes famed
costume designer Edith Head as speaking derisively in the 1970s of
"women's libbers in pants." An online article called "Trousers
in History" notes that "Until 1970 it was not fashionable and
sometimes against the law for women to wear pants in offices,
classroom, and restaurants in the U.S."
American girls and women have achieved clothing liberation. Let's
hope our boys and men win a similar freedom.
.
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