Why Men In Skirts Are Dangerous

Damn right I'm a man in a
skirt! Click to enlarge.

Two years ago today, I returned from my first trip to Kansas City Irish Fest, bearing an armload of CDs and a new kilt. This was my third kilt, but my first patterned one, with a blue tartan inside black pleats. And of course, what do you do when you have a dashing new garment, designed to make a splash? Why, you wear it out in public, of course.

So I did.

Back in college, I wore Utilikilts so often, I became known around campus as “the kilt guy.” But when you get older, the opportunities to do something countercultural, like go out wearing unbifurcated leg garments, become less common. You get used to going along and fitting in, because you have to, because some conformity makes society possible. Grown-ups don’t get to dress funny for laughs.

Thus, when I casually mentioned getting yet another kilt to one of my co-workers, I probably shouldn’t have been surprised when he pulled a face like he’d just smelled a turd. “I don’t think I could ever wear one of those,” he said. I asked why not; he just stammered. He literally couldn’t explain why he felt unable to wear clothing that didn’t fit in. So I started attributing.

In my self-superior way, I assumed, for over a year, that my co-worker couldn’t wear something that so closely resembled a “skirt,” because he had internalized society’s gender norms, and he couldn’t bear the thought, even for one moment, of being mistaken for a woman. Especially in construction, a field that prizes highly demonstrative displays of masculinity, I found it easy to attribute my co-worker’s intent to deeply assimilated transphobia.

The longer I lived with this explanation, however, the less satisfying I found it. Yes, this co-worker, and several others, flippantly use homophobic and transphobic language, so that probably contributes. But I’ve come to realize something different also comes into play: people who stand out, often get knocked down. My co-worker has a wife and kids, and cannot afford to draw certain kinds of attention to himself.

In the summer of 2018, in protest of a “no short trousers” rule, a crew of British construction workers arrived to work wearing dresses and skirts. As summers continue getting longer and hotter, under the pressure of global warming, rules that prevent men working outdoors from wearing cooler clothes become more onerous. Rising temperatures may soon make such rules downright dangerous. So the men wore skirts in civil disobedience.

Equally important to wearing skirts, though, the men wore skirts in unison. They all arrived wearing gender-nonconforming clothes on the same day, having coördinated their protest in advance. Thus, men wearing literal dresses, wearing clothes actually designed for women, didn’t become something that undermined their masculinity. It just became a thing they did, together, to make a unified point.

Construction workers in dresses, summer of 2018. Photo via The Times of London.

That’s what my co-worker fears: not being mistaken for a woman, but being mistaken for somebody who rocks the boat. He wants to make a living, have a beer with the fellas, and come home to his family. The controversy which follows looking different, the consequences of being so non-conformist that everybody stares when you walk into the room, impedes my co-worker’s ability to simply be normal and live quietly.

I don’t have a wife and children. And realistically, I probably don’t have a future career in construction; this remains something I do to pay my bills until I can return to my teaching track. So if I look different, it won’t hurt my standings; indeed, if people notice me for simply walking into the room, why, so much the better. If future employers notice you, they remember you.

Of course, it’s easy to say that. Because I’m writing ahead, I don’t know whether I’ll return from this year’s Irish Fest with another new kilt. Probably not, because they’re expensive, and at my age, I have few opportunities to wear them. See, I’ve become just as conformist as my co-worker, even without the obligations of family and career. A working man can afford to look funny in his twenties.

(Edit: ha ha, fooled myself. I couldn't leave without buying a slick two-tone black and grey model. I guess I need to find places a grown man can wear a kilt anymore.)

I’m not special just because I own kilts and my co-worker can’t. I’m not free from the social pressures to look a certain way, and the consequences if I rebel. And, like him, I have to choose carefully which fights I embrace. Because like him, I have work in the morning. So like most blue-collar fellas, I cut my hair, buckle my belt at the waist, and assume my role.