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Richard Glover shares his feminine side
Richard Glover – presenter of the Drive ABC Radio show and columnist for the Sydney Morning Herald has been highlighted before in these columns for his attraction to things feminine.
http://forum.tgr.net.au/cms/forum/F132/2466-466In his book “The Mud House” (HarperCollins 2009) Richard describes an adventure building a house with four friends. But of particular interest (to me) was the final chapter where he reflects on what it means to be a man.
He writes:
Quote:OK, maybe my issues with masculinity have not been completely resolved by my time spent building. I still see masculinity as some sort of protective disguise that I can pull on; out on a lonely road at night with piggers, I don’t quite feel confident enough to just be myself.All these years on, I remain a girly man. Building a house or two doesn’t change that. I find it comforting to wear ribbons around my neck, like a festooned princess. I still think PG Wodehouse is a hoot. I can’t be bothered watching sport. And I still adhere to most of the values I acquired in the feminist collective of Canberra Youth Theatre. In so many ways I’m still the boy I was in high school.
But, truckloads of piggers aside, there’s more confidence. Most of the time I don’t feel I have to hide the sort of man I am. I’m quite proud of the mix that I have within me. If people think I’m effete, or ‘not a proper bloke’, I can toss my head, flounce off and mutter, ‘Bet you haven’t built a house with your own hands.’ More importantly; I’ve realised that plenty of men have this sort of mix. That I’m nowhere near as different or as odd as I thought.
It’s an immensely enjoyable realisation. Why did I have to wait until I was 50 to figure it out?
Maybe this is the great Australian secret (a secret a younger generation already knows): most Australian men don’t match the ocker ideal which was sold as normality. At school, I’d always felt that I was not part of the mainstream; that I was on the outer. In retrospect, I now understand that nearly every young man felt like this. The ‘mainstream’ came down to a handful of guys – maybe five percent of the school population. They were good at sport, confident around girls and appeared to be entirely free of self-doubt. How they managed to be free of self-doubt is one mystery; The other mystery is how this five percent managed to convince the majority that they were the odd ones, while the five percent defined normality.
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It still seems to me that things we define as ‘normal’ and ‘mainstream’ are at loggerheads with the people I see everywhere, in all their delightful, sexy and eclectic oddity. -
4 Replies
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I have to admit I never did pluck up the courage to personally invite Richard Glover along to TransFormal as a celebrity guest. But in this weeks Sydney Morning herald he once again taunts me to try….
He writes:
Richard Glover wants to dress gender neutral
Fellow man, break the shackles of the suit and tie – unisex is on trendhttp://www.smh.com.au/comment/richard-glover-wants-to-dress-gender-neutral-20150130-12z248.html
Quote:I’ve long thought women’s clothing offered too many choices, and men’s clothing too few. It’s why women get grumpy about the ease with which a man can get dressed for a big night out – “it’s easy for you, you just put on clothes” – while the man is left feeling he’s just a dark-coloured accessory, on-hand to provide a pocket for his wife’s phone.The woman, browsing in the clothes shop, has to make a thousand choices about the depth of décolletage, the length of skirt, the puffiness of sleeve, the degree to which the waist will be cinched. While the man … well, the man has no choice at all
Quote:There are pants to cover his bottom half, identical in design, and a cotton thing with a collar and sleeves for the top half. Then – if you are in business – you have the right to go crazy and get yourself a colourful tie.The tie is the only bit with which the man is allowed to express his personality. It’s a few square centimetres of coloured cloth which is then placed in a noose around his neck in order to prove that, even if he has a personality, it is well and truly under control.
As a man, try anything remotely unusual and you’re instantly in comedy territory. You’re suddenly starring in Seinfeld, wearing the puffy shirt.
Meanwhile, women are in an equally bad place. If you look too comfortable, too at ease with yourself, then you “haven’t put in much of an effort”; while if you stand out at all, and are over 25 years old, then – in that awful phrase – you are “mutton dressed up as lamb”.
It doesn’t have to be like this. Selfridges in the UK has just opened its “gender neutral” range of clothes. Three floors of its London store will have clothes that suit either men or women. Women will find clothes that are simpler and more comfortable than those traditionally on offer; while men will finally be afforded a little variety.
“We want to take our customers on a journey where they can shop and dress without limitations or stereotypes,” was the way a spokesman put it, “a space where clothing is no longer imbued with directive gender values, enabling fashion to exist as a purer expression of ‘self’.”
I can’t wait. Personally, I’ve always wanted to dress festooned in ribbons like a Balinese princess, but it takes more courage than I currently have available.
Also, I don’t care that much about looking like a Balinese princess. I don’t want to make it the centre point of my identity. I’m happy for friends to think, “here’s Richard, he does a terrific barbecue” or “here’s Richard, have you heard his great anecdote about the Postmaster General and the donkey?” I don’t necessarily want their first thought to be: “He really does look like a Balinese princess. A fat one, admittedly, but still …”
This is where it’s hard to buck the trend when it comes to gender stereotypes. Making waves can get you into deeper water than you desire. Sometimes it’s better to wait for the world to come around to your way of thinking.
Which brings us back to Selfridges. The store reports increasing numbers of women are already buying men’s clothes to wear themselves, while men stock up on women’s knitwear. Meanwhile, the perfume and shaving counters have also been merged. Within a month, we’ll all – male and female alike – be allowed to dress like Eddie Izzard. Well, that’s my hope.
There’ll be some advantages. No longer at the clothing store will the man be stuck in the man-chair while his wife tries on four seemingly identical dresses, indulging in that much-repeated conversation:
Her: What about the fourth dress?
Him: Yes, the fourth one was terrific.
Her: Really? The fourth one? That made me look hideous. Is that how you think I look? Really, I don’t know why I bother. Personally, I preferred the second one.
Him: Yes, sorry, I meant the second one. My mistake. The second one looked terrific.
Instead, it will be her in the chair, lolling comfortably in her Fletcher Jones slacks and Wallaby jersey, while he ums and ahs over three different expressions of the concept that is the tartan smock.
Certainly, in this new world of variety and self-expression, we’ll enjoy less drama at formal functions, especially at the end of the night.
Currently, when a bit pissed, it’s almost impossible for the typical Australian woman to pick her husband out from the 200 other monkey-suited men on offer. Inevitably mistakes are made. Half the women end up at home, snuggling in bed with the wrong bloke, with all sorts of implications for the divorce rate.
Under the new system, a woman can confidently say “mine’s the one with the great legs, wearing the tartan smock”, knowing that, while he may not be perfect, at least he’s the one with her phone in his pocket.
Do send him a text as you travel home together, reassuring him it was all worth the effort
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I don’t see why you can’t invite him, possibly as a speaker at your main event. Perhaps it will give some publicity and promotion to our lifestyle preferences. But I wonder if he would go to the extent of participating as a Balinese Princess.
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June wrote:I don’t see why you can’t invite him
We could all be far more active in seeing publicity and promotion to our lifestyle preferences. It is a shame it always falls on a few shoulders.
So it isn’t that I can’t invite him, but rather that I didn’t get round to it with all the other “stuff” that calls for my time. Maybe this time….
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Richard is only expressing what most of us men feel, totally frustrated at the narrow pigeon hole of acceptance we have ended up in. And I refuse to wear a Penguin suit!!
ANd no offence to Amanda but even though our community here have a wonderful experience at Transformal, it is very inhouse and I doubt many people even understand where and what we are even those who meet us.
While it is not a secret event very few people know about it and what is achieved.
I totally agree with getting a bit of mainstream publicity and finally getting us Males OUT THERE!!
and we know the ‘No Pics’ tags work!!
Jennett
