Persuasive Essay On Crossdressing

Cross-dressing is when a male or female wears clothing that is commonly associated with the opposite sex within society. Since cross dressing goes against social norms, it is seen as deviant behavior. Men are supposed to wear pants, but in Scotland they wear kilts. Cross dressing was highlighted during the eighteenth century, when female would dress as males to enlist within the military. Some were even known to go years without being discovered. Some women did it for protection against their male counterparts and to avoid harassment, rape or marriage. Women also did it to earn wages during the time when women were not allowed to work, if their spouse died they were just expected to remarry, so they would dress up like a man and make their own living. "Not a quality of an act a person commits but a quality of the reaction of the audience who interprets it as deviant or not" (Howard Becker, 1963). Cross-dressers are in no way violent and in no way relate to terrorist, who use violence against civilians as a political expression. If the act is not harmful to civilians or a threat to the government then it is not an act of terrorism. Some people have the same views on cross-dressing as they do on tattoos and piercings, if it doesn’t affect them they don’t care, while others are astounded by how anyone could go against societal norms.
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Cross-dressing is about the phallus as constitutively veiled. Cross-dressing is about the anxiety of economic or cultural dislocation, the anticipation or recognition of "otherness" as loss." (Vested Interest, Garber) Cross-dressing has been around for many centuries but is still not accepted fully into society as a way of life. In today's society it is more so accepted, we've seen it in movies such as Mrs.Doubtfire or Big Mama's House but no one really made a big deal out of it until your average person did it. It's different when things that are on TV become an everyday