Is this Mens or Womens?

I have worked in retail for a good portion of my life  (more than I would ever have liked) and have encountered numerous occurrences involving gender and sexuality that baffle and intrigue me. The one question I’m going to be focusing on today has not ceased and seems to get more desperate with every passing year, “Is this the mens section?” I’ll get that question from some girl who has stumbled into the aisle of flannels that look surprisingly like every other flannel because they’re flannels and when I tell them they have in fact picked up a mens shirt it’s almost like they’ve touched fire and throw the garment down or shove it back into the rack as if it’s covered in syphilis.

My favorite encounter, though, happened recently when a dude came into the store and began looking around with a completely befuddled look on his face. I asked him if he needed any help and he responded with a little anecdote about how he was in another one of these stores and was accidentally shopping in -gasp- the womens section and failed to notice though the clothes “seemed to be super tiny.” He told me he asked an associate there and they directed him to the mens section to which he responded to the associate, “I was just testing you.” Wow. They guy was that embarrassed by being in the womens section that he cracked an awful joke so as to conserve his ego? Sad. WHO CARES?! If I find something cute and it fits me the way I like it then I’m buying it regardless of what section of the store I find it in. I even accidentally gave some dude a sweatshirt I thought was mens, but it turns out, it wasn’t! HA! And he lovedddd it. This just goes to show how stupid it is to separate mens and womens clothes because really, they’re just clothes. Putting all these connotations on cotton is just plain ridiculous, but here I go again with not understanding society and all these gender binaries and sexual inferences. 

I used to dress in boys clothes in high school because I found them a lot more comfortable and made me feel less like a sexual object and more like a human being. And no I’m not saying ladies who wear ladies clothing are sexual objects, I am saying in high school I was a nervous nelly and didn’t like anyone looking at me in a suggestive way, it embarrassed me. Now however, I am all about the short shorts and crop tops, but the attention is still unwarranted and makes me ill. I’m just a lot more comfy with my body now than I was in the past. 

Anyway, there was another incident where a customer was visibly disturbed by shopping in the wrong section. A woman came into the store browsing lazily, picking up a few items here and there. She (OMG OMG OMG) wound up in the mens section and picked up some article of clothing, I can’t remember exactly what, and asked me if it was a mens item. Yes, I responded. She curled up her nose as if she smelled the bowels of Shelob’s lair and tossed the whatever-it-was back on the table with pure disgust. It made me think, Do people actually believe someone else will be able to tell whether or not what they’re wearing was made for men or women? Do they believe others are that invested in their personal appearance? Or what is it really that incited this unfathomable fear? Is it the thought that someone may think them queer (and yes I mean that in every way the word is/has been used)? Ugh, so stupid. 

With this refreshing new stance on masculinity and the (finally) sort of kind of change in the way women are portrayed in pop culture, I hoped this question would all but cease to be asked. Oh how wrong I was. OH! And I won’t go into the dress code of this company because quite frankly it borders on discrimination and well, that’s a completely different topic for a completely different time. I will just say, men are not allowed to wear womens clothes, which I find absurd on so many levels. Again, I won’t get into it (yet), but hold on to your panties y'all because I feel it comin’.

Marriage Equality And Guidelines

I just read this article on Thought Catalog posted to Facebook that basically stated how straight people, who among advocating for marriage equality, stick their own sexuality into their supportive statements, like “Straight, but not narrow,” or “I’m a straight person who just supports love,” ultimately “hurting the LGBTQ cause.” The article, I gather, was prompted due to the influx of people who changed their profile pictures on Facebook over the past few days to equal signs in a red box to support marriage equality. I can understand how interjecting your personal (hetero) identification can make it seem like you’re scared of being identified as queer, but sexuality is still a touchy subject even for people who support human rights. Going to the hippy-dippy liberal arts school I did, being exposed to a plethora of sexual orientations and lifestyles, it has taken me some time to realize I am NOT “the norm.”

Here’s an interesting few lines from the article:

“Allying with the queer community means embracing the endless combinations and permutations of sexuality, orientation, and gender expression human beings experience. Being comfortable with this idea means being comfortable with the reality that some people – gasp — might think you’re gay.”

Or not. In this country of millions of people who have, plainly, not been exposed to nearly the same experiences that have molded my view of the world. It’s easier to immediately jump to blanket statements or assume the worst of people, instead of accepting the reality that not every straight person is irrationally terrified of being called gay. I’m hoping America is moving in the direction of blurring lines and accepting people as people, but we’re not there yet… and won’t get their for a while if these are the strict guidelines every ally has to fit in order to be a suitable advocate. I would like to rush this entire process as well and if it were up to me there would be a major overhaul of American culture in general, but I have come to terms that it’s going to take some time to break these ridiculous barriers keeping us from seeing each other as the beautiful individuals we are and not labels. This is merely a baby step. The amount of people who changed their profile pictures and proudly remarked that marriage in fact does equal love means something. Some straight people who were discerning about their sexuality may have done it in order to show other straight people they need to support this cause because it’s a problem we should all be facing together as a unifying whole, not just the queer community.

Personally, I could care less what any of my friends on Facebook or otherwise think my sexual orientation is because they absolutely should not be my friend if that’s even a blip on their friendship radar. This article has a lot of really valid points in it, and I think it is such an important sentiment to be published for everyone to read. More people should be talking about gender and sexuality and the hardships that going along with identifying as LGBTQ, because regardless of all of these new sources of information and even the media attention, we are still a long, loooooong ways away from equality and in some situations mere understanding. Throwing up an equal sign in your profile does not automatically make you an aficionado on the subject, but it does mean moving towards a positive goal. I hope in the coming months there will be more platforms where these discussions can be had, and I hope EVERYONE joins the conversation.

Let’s all follow the day and reach for the sun: