Gendered [Adventure]

[Adventure 52]

I have to admit that, when I'm in pain and need rest, I find myself curled up in bed either with a good book or scrolling through TikTok. I'm not on dancing teens TikTok ... I'm on LGBTQIA+ / Progressive Christian / Dungeons & Dragons / Geek / BLM / Art  TikTok. As the result, I get to hear from many interesting people, including many queer people, about their experiences. 

I see people doing all sorts of things - sewing, crocheting, painting, building, and doing all sorts of creative things. People of all genders or no gender at all doing these things because passtimes and careers don't have gender. 

I see people cooking all sorts of things and making different types of beverages - and eating and drinking them and sharing them with people they love because food doesn't have gender.

I see people with all sorts of haircuts, hair styles, and hair colors because none of the above have gender.

I get to witness the joy on children's faces as they play with trucks, dolls, play kitchens, tool boxes, and action figures because toys and vehicles and tools and don't have gender. 

I see men wearing clothing and women wearing clothing and nonbinary people wearing clothing and agender people wearing clothing. I see feminine people wearing two-legged items of clothing from the waist down and masculine people wearing flowy twirly bottoms. Because clothes have no gender.

So why do we assign them gender? 

Why are dolls considered a "girl toy" when fathers exist? We want all parents to be nurturing. And it's handy for all people to be able to cook, drive, fix things, and use their imaginations. 

Why is a pink colored fruity tasting alcoholic drink considered feminine when a smoothie containing the same fruits or the fruit itself isn't assigned gender? 

Why is a skirt or dress considered feminine when there are men in many cultures who wear what qualifies as a dress or skirt? Why are they only for women when men look so gorgeous wearing them? Why can feminine people wear slacks and skirts and dresses and culottes and capris and shorts and pajama pants and have them all be considered appropriate clothing (even if lacking in pockets) but masculine people are limited to garments that envelop each individual leg? 

In this day and age, dresses and skirts on masculine beings have become a bit more acceptable, especially when some popular masculine celebrities have embraced them as a fashion choice. However, I've witnessed transgender men (who are in fact men) get criticized for embracing the same aesthetic. Some have even gone so far as to say that their "feminine" clothes wearing proves they're "still" female. I'd like to say that a man - any man - wearing a skirt or dress is no less of a man because of a piece of cloth. Men can wear a kilt, cassock, sarong, chiton, robe, dhoti, ceshti, lungi, lengyi, kanga, lappa, lamba, mundu, baana, chola, ihvam, futah, qumbaz, lava-lava, sulu, qun, chang, hakama, or any other of a range of bottoms in different cultures without the lack of fabric separating one leg from the other making it somehow feminine. 

That a woman can wear trousers without being considered any less feminine, but a man wearing a skirt is somehow less masculine is a double standard. Why assign gender to inanimate objects in the first place?