The Happy-Dance of Fake Gender Roles

Rigaud's portrait of Louis XIV
(click to enlarge)

Whenever I get entangled in discussions of gender, my mind inevitably drifts to Hyacinthe Rigaud’s legendary portrait of King Louis XIV. Louis, the “Sun King” responsible for the Rococo atrocity that is Versailles, commissioned several paintings of himself, though Rigaud’s is probably most famous. Rigaud depicts Louis, like nearly every portrait does, wearing high heels, leggings, a fur-trimmed wrap, heavy cosmetics, and a wig.

This painting depicts one of the most powerful men—and, for this discussion, I do mean “men”—who ever lived. Louis commanded a global empire with an iron hand, untrammeled by the oversight of any parliament or circumscribing aristocracy. He controlled France’s political, economic, and even religious culture with absolute authority. And he did so while wearing clothing that, to modern eyes, looks like a woman’s, if not a drag queen’s.

I recalled this painting again recently when a tweet went viral. Ashley StClair, a woman who calls herself a “freedom fighter” and “patriot,” shared an Instagram video of a father and son, prancing happily in off-the-rack Halloween versions of the protagonists’ dresses from the movie Frozen. StClair captioned the video with “The testosterone is being sucked from our men right before our eyes.” Because obviously one Instagram video is a universal data point.

The testosterone is being sucked from our men right before our eyes 🤦🏻‍♀️

pic.twitter.com/SMM4FLgq8K

— Ashley StClair 🇺🇸 (@stclairashley) November 24, 2019

The reaction has been both swift and predictable. Defenders of the status quo have condemned the father for not forcing his son to adhere to masculine stereotypes, by requiring him to play catch or work on a farm. Progressives have called for people to let families have fun, or insisted that gender inclusiveness is sexy. I can’t help thinking they both miss the point: this post is built on entirely wrong premises.

StClair’s whole “testosterone” comment implies that gender, or anyway sex, is biologically determined. If that’s the case, why must we police gender roles, and punish anybody who transgresses? Is biology so brittle that it could be shattered by children being happy while trying on possible identities for size? Of course not. StClair feels compelled to enforce gender standards because she knows she’s protecting something artificial, for artificial reasons.

Louis XIV demonstrates this artificiality. High-heeled shoes, a fashion accessory connected today with women, were invented at Versailles, specifically for Louis, who, at five-foot-five, was shorter than most of his courtiers. He feared his height made him look weak when holding court, so he ordered shoes designed to protect his image. Only after he abandoned wearing them, late in life, did women inherit this formerly masculine fashion accoutrement.

Medieval illustration of peasant dress
(click to enlarge)

We invent gender standards, just like standards of class, race, and nationality, to defend power arrangements. Medieval illustrations show that, though the sexes didn’t dress exactly alike, the differences were much slighter than we expect today. Billowy skirts allowed workers to move freely in an economy where both sexes did manual labor, while lace-up leggings protected workers from nettles and insects. Clothes weren’t gender markers, they simply existed.

So gender standards, as we understand them, are fake. Yet the opposite also isn’t true. I have the same attitude regarding gender that Ibram Kendi has regarding race: the distinctions might be artificial, but their consequences are real and lasting. Working construction, a heavily gender-segregated occupation, I see men rigorously defending their gender identities, because it’s frequently the only credential they have for wage-earning in a stagnant labor economy.

Therefore, gender roles both are, and are not, real. And don’t bring me examples of traditional societies which had more than two established gender niches. Unless they had the same gender definitions, and those definitions never changed—which isn’t so—that doesn’t tell us anything useful. It only reinforces my position that gender roles are socially conditioned. Those who police categories, and those who contravene them, operate from the same expectations.

King Louis adopted his look for specific political reasons. He wanted kings of other nations (Rigaud’s painting was originally commissioned for Philip of Spain) to understand his wealth, power, and eternal youthful vigor. His laborers, wearing skirts to work the fields and vineyards, needed no such cultural reinforcement. They dressed in ways that freed them to work, and made them happy.

Happy. Like a little boy dancing in a dress.

I’m sure the anonymous father didn’t intend a political protest against intrusive gender standards. But he gave us one anyway. He showed us that one needn’t obey somebody else’s socially conditioned categories to be happy. The rules don’t objectively exist; they need self-righteous censors like Ashley StClair to police them. And if we don’t need those rules, we don’t need the rule-keepers, either. Maybe we’d all be happier dancing in dresses.