I was thinking of precisely this yesterday, when I found myself a bit bummed out about the choices and the progression of mens’ fashion for the past few centuries — which have essentially led nowhere. And I can clearly see how this carries the torch of patriarchy and western idealism proudly, save for many half-hearted attempts which verge on cultural fetishism, which tells the man: you really don’t have to try, as long as you put a suit on, you’re a hot product — the top of the food chain. As long as your suit and shoes are top-of-the-line, you’re in the uniform, and you bear the semblance of the archetypal independent man, the pinnacle of humanity. It’s a disgrace that while male fashion has remained almost exactly the same, womens’ fashion has been necessarily defined by constant evolution, progress, and the following of ever-’revolutionary’ trends. The pressure is immense and women around the world are told by society at large that ‘a woman has to put on her airs, otherwise she isn’t worth a thing’. It’s an absolute disgrace. And in the last few decades, the ‘invention’ of metrosexuality (which, news alert, is no invention at all — as the crossing of gender boundaries has been around since the dawn of humanity — but really just that, an invention and a hype) has been plagued with marketing strategies based upon regressive, nostalgia-ridden fallacies that the ‘man of yore’ was a far more powerful and desirable image to put forth. Does it not ring any bells that this nostalgic longing itself is based upon male insecurity — a longing for a past where man was the breadwinner, the head of the house, the executive and the natural leader — that the marketing strategies are literally attempting to put back in place what we have worked so hard to even make a fraction of the way undone: the throne of patriarchy and white supremacy?

Nonetheless, read on. I wear my ‘male uniform’, every day — and yes, I do recognize that I inhabit very clearly a place of privilege in which I am not expected to put forth even a quarter of the effort of that of a woman when dressing and grooming — and I groom myself — and yes, I keep a beard and a moustache, but really, it’s just because it’s fun and actually just easier than shaving all the time; the joys of having a beard easily outweigh that of the alternative — and I do lament that my position in society makes no progress along the way, that I am essentially expected to wear the uniform of the white male, and that even in this position of privilege, this expectation is as much an enslavement as it is a privilege and empowerment. And this is exactly why, in my heart of hearts, I wish so badly to rid ourselves of the patriarchy and the old, ongoing story of master-and-slave. Because having titles like such impressed as birth rites is getting really damn old.