![\"victor-victoria\"](\"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/10\/victor-victoria-590x295.png\")
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Source<\/a>.<\/p>\n In this fantastic interview<\/a> for Rawr Denim, William Gibson talks about clothing and fashion: \u201cThere\u2019s an idea called \u201cgray man\u201d, in the security business, that I find interesting. They teach people to dress unobtrusively. Chinos instead of combat pants, and if you really need the extra pockets, a better design conceals them. \u2026[T]here\u2019s something appealingly \u201clow-drag\u201d about gray man theory: reduced friction with one\u2019s environment.\u201d That made me wonder: \u201cWhat does a \u2018grey woman\u2019 look like?\u201d, which made me think about how Deborah Tannen used the linguistics terms marked and unmarked to describe gender and clothing. Just as many English words are default male (unmarked), with a changed ending to connote female (marked; think ‘actor\u2019 vs ‘actress\u2019), she argued<\/a> that men\u2019s dress can be unmarked but women\u2019s dress is always marked. That is, there are decisions that men make about what they wear that are defaults, that aren\u2019t even seen as a decision. In contrast, every decision that a woman makes about what she wears\u2014heels vs, flats, pants vs, skirts, the length of a skirt and the height of a neckline, haircuts, jewelry\u2014is freighted with cultural baggage. Take makeup. Especially in professional settings, for a woman, not wearing makeup is a noticeable, and notable, decision: marked. But for a man, not wearing makeup is not a decision\u2014nobody notices when men aren\u2019t wearing makeup: unmarked. (Of course, a man wearing makeup is very marked indeed.) [\u2026]<\/p>\n The roots of the \u2018Grey Man\u2019 lie in the Great Male Renunciation<\/a>: the period around the end of the 17th century, in the middle of the Enlightenment, when society collectively decided that men\u2019s clothing, previously as colourful and ornamented as women\u2019s, was to be dark, sober and serious. What\u2019s kind of astonishing is how we\u2019ve never really gone back\u2014a quick scroll through red-carpet photos makes that clear\u2014and how we mostly just accept this sexual dimorphism as the norm. Just why men\u2019s clothing has never returned to pre-GMR levels of finery is something I\u2019ll leave to historians and sociologists, but it\u2019s almost certainly related to the harsh enforcement of gender norms\u2014while women can wear colours and clothing styles indistinguishable from men\u2019s (as I write this, I\u2019m wearing black jeans, a black t-shirt, and Camper high-tops), the slightest hint of femininity in men\u2019s self-presentation elicits verbal abuse at best, and the worst is far worse<\/a>.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Read the whole thing.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Source. In this fantastic interview for Rawr Denim, William Gibson talks about clothing and fashion: \u201cThere\u2019s an idea called \u201cgray man\u201d, in the security business, that I find interesting. They teach people to dress unobtrusively. Chinos instead of combat pants, … Continue reading