I've been thinking about drag queens lately, and how I envy them. Ever since Meera's bachelorette party (can I use that word one more time in the same day?) I have been pondering gender stereotypes and other things.
The main observation is this: it is brutally unfair that men get to have so much fun when they dress up as women. If you think about it, women's clothing has so much more to offer to those who want to express their personalities and creativity. More colors, styles, fabrics are "acceptable." Not only this, but there are such incredible personalities to take on. Think about the women we think of as sort of belonging to gay culture (and many a drag show or gay pride parade seems rife with imitators); Madonna, Cher, even Liza Minneli. They are all strong, expressive, and wonderfully obsessed with costume. So when a man chooses to dress in drag, the fantasy seems to be to step into the life of dominant, traditional-gender-role-threatening women, powerful women. There must be men out there who don the Land's End women's polo shirt and khakis and do housework, but that's not such an appealing fantasy.
My point is, when a man dresses up as a woman, he does it to become a diva, a queen. When I've seen women in drag they seem to do it to hide themselves, to obscure the discomfort they have with their bodies. There doesn't seem to be a fantastical equivalent to Cher for women. There's no Drag King to the untrumpable Drag Queen.
Unless, of course, you dress up as Elvis.
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