Okay, I guess I should qualify it by saying some lesbians, but really, what’s the conflict?
I’m thinking about renowned lesbian Ellen Degeneres hosting the Emmys the other night. She was wearing a sharp suit, unlike nearly every other woman there sporting a very formal and/or dressy dress.
I’m not looking to debate anything about homosexuality or gender here, rather I’m curious about the answer to why some lesbians seem opposed to what is traditionally the dress for their gender. I suppose some lesbians tend to see themselves as more “butch” than the average woman, and therefore not at home in a dress. But that wouldn’t seem to apply to someone like Ellen who, for all I can tell, is just as feminine and not stereotypically butch as 99% of the women in dresses that night.
So is there something about beng lesbian that makes you say, “I’m gay so I can’t wear a dress?” I mean, you don’t see a lot of gay guys (not talking about transgendered, etc. here) who refuse to wear a tuxedo because that’s what straight men wear.
I supposed I’ll be flailed for some type of anti-gay ignorance or hatred, but I’m honestly just curious about this.
People adopt signature styles over the years, and despite being “cute” she has always dressed quite butch via her signature pants & vest look. Also she made something of a big deal about coming out as a GAY woman a few years ago. Lesbians in general aside (and many do wear dresses) I think she might have seen trading her “signature” pants & vest for some girly frou-frou dress would be seen as not “real” to her style and who she is. It’s less about lesbians and more about her show biz and personal image.
Meh, who cares. I know plenty of straight women who never wear dresses.
I’m not sure about Ellen, but my best friend is a lesbian and she would look ridiculous in a dress with her hairstyle. She has them use the #2 clipper guard for her sides/back and then has the top cut to about 1.5".
I cannot think of a dress that would look better than a pants suit with hair like that. Hm.
Anyhow, that might explain why ONE lesbian doesn’t wear a dress. Not sure about Ellen, but I thought she looked phenomenal at the Emmys.
Astro, that makes some sense. Guess I can see it’s partly her style regardless of sexual orientation.
Scarlett69, what’s the point of chiming in to say “who cares?” If you’re not interested or find the question pointless, I think there are few thousand other posts you can comment on. I mean, c’mon, I tried to frame it as a legitimate question in General Questions because I think there probably is a real answer that I’m just not aware of.
So, aside from Ellen, how about the question in general? Am I misguided in thinking that lesbians often eschew dresses, at least more than straight women would in the same situation?
I know a lot of women who only wear dresses because it’s expected of them. Out lesbians are already bucking a passel of tradition, so those lesbians who would rather not wear dresses are probably more likely than the average heterosexual woman not to mind bucking the trend.
I am not a lesbian, but I don’t wear dresses either. I hate them.
She probably knew she had no hope looking as good as her girlfriend, so why bother?
I imagine comfort’s a big thing. Comfort, convenience, mobility, and style (assertion of personality).
That’s an interesting thought. I tend to think of dresses looking good or not based on the wearer’s body rather than her hairstyle. I’ve seen plenty of women with crew cuts look as good in dresses as they did before the short hair.
I’ve seen plenty of lesbians in dresses. However, far more often than not they’re mostly the “Earth Mother” type; the dress will usually incorporate a long, almost knee-length skirt. I’ve seen some lesbians wear plain, simple dresses, but I 've never seen any wear the equivalent of a “sexy black dress” or mini-skirt. Even then, I can’t provide any empirical evidence that lesbians are less incluned to wear dresses than straight women.
In the real world around here, outside of formal events or church/temple, the sight of women wearing dresses is uncommon. Even in a corporate environment, dresses are more the exception than the rule. Almost all of the employees of the government agency in the office next to mine are women, and I’ve never seen one of them wear a dress to work.
Sometimes people organize into subcultures with dress codes. I don’t think the “dress” thing has as much to do with sexual orientation as it does with some flavours of feminism, which has a natural appeal for some lesbians, what with them being women and all.
For many people, radically different styles of clothing for the sexes suggests an artificial imposition of gender roles. In this view, dresses are submissive garments designed with the aim of permitting easy access, and pants are power symbols: “Who wears the pants in this family?” To someone with this point-of-view, a dress might as well be a burkah.
Of course, other people can be just as committed to gender equality without seeing traditional women’s clothing as instruments of repression, and focus on things that they see as more practical.
This sometimes creates friction between people of generally sympathetic points-of-view.
I’ve seen my wife in a dress exactly three times. They don’t suit her. She’s the furthest thing from a lesbian there is (meaning no good college stories from her).
This is the main reason that I wear fewer dresses and skirts than I used to. The process of coming out helped me to question all sorts of traditions, including dress code. Now I typically only wear a dress or skirt if it is more physically comfortable or convenient than pants. For example, I have a skirt made of some miracle fabric that can be scrunched into a suitcase for days and come out perfectly wrinkle free! It also looks great without heels, which is another fashion tradition that I have gleefully abandoned (sort of).* Sometimes a dress can be nice and cool, and catch the breeze just right for a refreshing updraft on a hot summer day. Otherwise, I wear pants. Unless I’m going to an opera gala. In which case I wear a formal gown, with heels and the works. But that’s just because sometimes my inner opera queen is stronger than my outer lesbian. And I like to play with gender codes.
But 99% of the time I wear pants, at work and otherwise, because they are comfy and I don’t care so much about the cultural pressures any more.
*Notice that my liberation from the demands of fashion is not complete. Some dresses should just not be worn with flats!
This thread is so in pants.
My sister (who is a lesbian) wears a skirt or dress 5 days a week. She could get away with an “Ellen” type taylored pant suit, but she prefers skirts Many of her professional gay friends were skirts all the time, too. If you’re a laywer it’s the uniform.
I think there’s one of those statistical answers to your question which would explain how there’s no easy way to know if your question is based in fact or not. Something about self-fufilling prophecies the bottom line being there’s no way to know if lesbians are more or less likely to wear skirts than heterosexual women if you use your impression that somebody “looks” like a lesbian to identify her as such. You might walk by 100 lesbians every day, but because they dress up you’d never identify them that way and go on thinking that all lesbians wear pants.
Something along the lines of - If you identify that every Zebra you see has stripes, then it’s an easy but fals assumption to say that every striped animal is a Zebra.
She also wore a dress for real on some long awards show and looked ludicrous. Leno showed a picture of her in the dress and with award-show hair and she said it explained why she never wore a dress again.
There are certain body types that don’t look good in dresses, or at least don’t look as good as they do in pants. Ellen is one of those people. There are pictures of her in serious dresses, they don’t look good.
I’m straight and haven’t been in a skirt or dress since 9-11-04
This is the stupidest question I’ve ever heard.
OK, then let me rephrase. I don’t think sexual orientation has anything to do with whether a person chooses to wear or not wear a particular style of garment. (As several others in this thread have said.) Plenty of straight women choose not to doll themselves up in “girly” clothes. And I also know lesbians who frequently wear dresses.
Or, what ratatoskK said. It’s a baseless question.
Yes.
Union regs?