petticoating boys? is this a thing?

[JaChelle Sugar]

A young sheltered fundy acquaintance posted a pic (from mra page 'a voice for men') that was railing about petticoating and how that was what feminism was. I have never heard of this practice. Think its just mra bitching about nothing again?

[Black Aliss]

A young sheltered fundy acquaintance posted a pic (from mra page 'a voice for men') that was railing about petticoating and how that was what feminism was. I have never heard of this practice. Think its just mra bitching about nothing again?

I just assumed it was a figure of speech, but noooo. According to the internet, which is never wrong about such things, "Petticoating, or pinaforing, is a kind of child discipline that revolves around a male's being made to appear nude, before being dressed as a girl, either in front of his stepmother, his sisters, or, in some cases, girls of his own age whom he has offended by his boorish behavior. As a form of child discipline, such forced feminization is employed, usually by stepmothers,to dress unruly boys as girls."

But it gets worse. Here: http://uncyclopedia.wikia.com/wiki/Petticoating

Disclaimer: I have no idea if this is a real thing or just an MRA fantasy.

[RachelB]

I just assumed it was a figure of speech, but noooo. According to the internet, which is never wrong about such things, "Petticoating, or pinaforing, is a kind of child discipline that revolves around a male's being made to appear nude, before being dressed as a girl, either in front of his stepmother, his sisters, or, in some cases, girls of his own age whom he has offended by his boorish behavior. As a form of child discipline, such forced feminization is employed, usually by stepmothers,to dress unruly boys as girls."

But it gets worse. Here: http://uncyclopedia.wikia.com/wiki/Petticoating

Disclaimer: I have no idea if this is a real thing or just an MRA fantasy.

I do not understand how petticoating, if it is a real thing, has anything to do with feminism.

Because that practice seems to assume that (1) being female and being feminine are the same thing and (2) there's something wrong and humiliating about being female, which is a precept of misogyny, not of feminism. (Some women living in a society that values women for being quiet and decorative internalize misogyny. But I see feminism as an antidote to that dynamic.)

[ViolaSebastian]

I'd never heard of it. Evidently, it was used, rarely, it seems, as a form of punishment in the Victorian era. Evidently now it's all about the secks and is a humiliation/sexual gratification method.

Petticoating, also called pinaforing, is a type of forced feminization that involves dressing a man or boy in girls' clothing. While the practice has come to be a rare, socially unacceptable form of humiliating punishment, it has risen up as both a subgenre of erotic literature or other expression of sexual fantasy.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petticoating

I get the impression that this is more in the minds of MRAs than an actual punishment used on children--although evidently it can be combined with humiliating children for sexually purposes, but that's a whole different ball of wax.

[OnceModestTwiceShy]

Yes, it's a thing.

In the BDSM community. Some guys will pay good money for it. ;)

[Burpies]

When I was in middle school one of the boys told me when he and his brother did poorly in a wrestling match their father used to make them sit on the toilet with their penis tucked between their legs. I assume to shame them for being womanly? I don't think he made them dress in dresses, though. Fucked up.

[dawbs]

so basically it's all things that Sheriff Joe Arpaio does.

But I figured MRAs would be all about licking that assholes boots.

[Hane]

In one of the Anne of Green Gables books, Marilla once punished Davey for misbehaving by making him wear his twin sister Dora's apron.

When I was in middle school in the mid-'60s, one of the boys kept forgetting to bring in his gym suit, so his phys ed teacher brought out a girl's one and threatened to make him wear it if he didn't bring his gear to class.

Yeah. The good old days.

[artdecades]

This definitely seems like a kink. The type of men who like to be dominated.

To make it into some way that women are attacking men when its something that gets the man off once again is just a way to place blame on women.

[feministxtian]

And what does that have to do with feminism? I did it the easy way when my kids were little...if one of the boys was picking on the girls, I let the girl put the boy in his place!! Even now, my 9 year old granddaughter has no problem with whooping up on her 14 year old brothers if they drive her too crazy.

I would think that the MRAs and their ilk will just use anything to try to talk shit about why they feel emasculated. It has nothing to do with feminism and everything to do with their own insecurities.

[jerichojones]

It doesn't sound like a feminist thing at all to me. Can't imagine it would actually be effective anyway because we all know how humiliating children goes...

It does remind me of when I was younger in school. My mum was teaching a year one class and one of the boys went from always having his shirt untucked (tucked in shirts was part of uniform policy) to having the shirt tucked in all the time. Turns out the mother was sick of nagging the son to tuck his shirt in so she sewed some frilly lace along the bottom of all his school shirts and he was sure to never let them come untucked again!

[Hane]

It doesn't sound like a feminist thing at all to me. Can't imagine it would actually be effective anyway because we all know how humiliating children goes...

It does remind me of when I was younger in school. My mum was teaching a year one class and one of the boys went from always having his shirt untucked (tucked in shirts was part of uniform policy) to having the shirt tucked in all the time. Turns out the mother was sick of nagging the son to tuck his shirt in so she sewed some frilly lace along the bottom of all his school shirts and he was sure to never let them come untucked again!

I read this suggestion about lace on boys' shirttails in a household hints column some 50 years ago and cringed. What is UP with this obsession with tucking in shirts as part of a dress code? Is it a Southern thing? I live in the Northeast and have never heard of such a thing here.

[DomWackTroll]

The only person I've ever seen do anything like this is Sarah at Romantic History, and she sure ain't no feminist!

romantichistory.blogspot.com/2010/08/galesburg-heritage-days.html

Edited to fix link.

[jerichojones]

I read this suggestion about lace on boys' shirttails in a household hints column some 50 years ago and cringed. What is UP with this obsession with tucking in shirts as part of a dress code? Is it a Southern thing? I live in the Northeast and have never heard of such a thing here.

Well I lived in regional Australia (basically out in the bush if i'm honest) at the time so it certainly wasn't a southern thing. I went to 5 schools and I had to tuck my shirt in at 4 of the 5, and that went for girls and boys. The other one had a shirt that was designed not to be tucked in. Our uniforms looked much nicer with the shirts tucked in than without.

I tuck my shirt in a lot of the time now anyway because my professional clothes look much better with a top tucked into the skirt/pants than out loose.

[polecat]

Well, I don't know if it's a widespread "thing" re: child discipline, but I do know of at least one boy in my past who was forced (by his father, Roger Voegtlin, grand poobah of Fairhaven Baptist Church, College and den of abuse) to wear a dress as some kind of punishment.

[thekate]

The only person I've ever seen do anything like this is Sarah at Romantic History, and she sure ain't no feminist!

romantichistory.blogspot.com/2010/08/galesburg-heritage-days.html

Edited to fix link.

I don't think she was punishing her son, just being historically accurate. Young boys wore dresses because it was easier to change diapers/potty train. For example, this pic of a toddler FDR from the 1880s.

andrewgelman.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/fdr.jpg

[ViolaSebastian]

Or my personal favorite, a young Ernest Hemingway:

[MamaJunebug]

I don't think she was punishing her son, just being historically accurate. Young boys wore dresses because it was easier to change diapers/potty train. For example, this pic of a toddler FDR from the 1880s.

andrewgelman.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/fdr.jpg

Replying just to plus-one thekate's info (I might be related to some reenactors, heh).

Also to say that I am ready to quit this mortal coil more, every day. Seriously? People dress boys who misbehave as girls because being a girl is a horrible, terrible, shameful thing?

No words.

[thekate]

Or my personal favorite, a young Ernest Hemingway:

Awww! I'll keep him in mind if I ever teach sociology again for the unit on gender.

[RachelB]

Yes, it's a thing.

In the BDSM community. Some guys will pay good money for it. ;)

There's a chapter of James Joyce's Ulysses that's centered on forced feminization, too. But again, that's in a kink context, not a feminist one.

[DomWackTroll]

I don't think she was punishing her son, just being historically accurate. Young boys wore dresses because it was easier to change diapers/potty train. For example, this pic of a toddler FDR from the 1880s.

andrewgelman.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/fdr.jpg

I know. I was just kidding because her estranged husband is such an over-the-top "manly" man that you'd think he'd forbid it, no matter how "accurate."

[Mama Mia]

Yes, it's a thing.

In the BDSM community. Some guys will pay good money for it. ;)

But it's pretty hysterically funny that these people are taking it as some sort of real thing involving children and feminists. They must have stumbled across some fiction that appeals to that kink and taken it seriously. :lol:

[thekate]

I know. I was just kidding because her estranged husband is such an over-the-top "manly" man that you'd think he'd forbid it, no matter how "accurate."

Gotcha.

[Flossie]

Regarding petticoating, never heard of it being used as a punishment for boys. However, the father of a friend of mine told me that when his grandfather went to war in WWII, he left behind a wife and a year old son. When he returned four years later, he found his wife had been dressing the boy up as a girl.

That was one very confused kid who grew up answering the the feminized version of his name, sat on the toilet, and was proud of his long curly hair. Then a stranger comes into the home, yells at his mom, cuts his hair and makes him change into boys clothes and answer to a boys name. Family members thought that the boys mother wanted a girl so badly that she decided to turn her son into one the second her husband shipped out. She didn't stop calling the boy by her 'daughters' name until she finally had a true daughter.

The practice of dressing boys as girls wasn't completely unheard of though: http://histclo.com/essay/e-mothers.html

History suggests that there has frequently been an inclination (evident in Greek and Christian mythology, for example) for some mothers to crossdress their young boys to protect them (in fantasy) from the perils of war. They hoped by doing this to delay their child’s identification as fully male and postpone his entrance in the male "realm". The mother’s fantasy was that if they could make their son temporarily a female, they might "protect" him from being male and from having later to fight and kill. Though not well known among the general public, it appears there was a similar (though much more covert) phenomenon during and after World War I and World War II. Psychologists have encountered a number of male clients whose mothers quietly dressed them as girls in the period from 1910 to 1950 --sometimes presenting them as "real" girls in public during early childhood.

I read this suggestion about lace on boys' shirttails in a household hints column some 50 years ago and cringed. What is UP with this obsession with tucking in shirts as part of a dress code? Is it a Southern thing? I live in the Northeast and have never heard of such a thing here.

Around here, a ton of the fast food restaurants have button up shirts and slacks for their uniforms, and they all make their employees tuck the shirts in. They believe it makes their employees look (and presumably behave) more professionally. Even a pregnant-out-to-there woman has to dress that way. I'm telling you, that look is fine on the average sized person, not too bad on a slightly larger person, but the bigger the belly or butt, the worse it looks.

[Trynn]

I find tucked in shirts uncomfortable, and they always magically come untucked anyway....

If my mother had sewed lace on my shirts, I'd promptly find a seam ripper or scissors and make short work of that nonsense.