Women in Kilts

[macwilkin]

Could kilts become associated with male bonding, if worn as part of rituals?

Check out the book "Highland Heritage" by Celeste Ray. She has a lot to say about Highland Games in the American South & the rituals associated with them, especially when it comes to kilts & tartan.

Cheers,

Todd

[Geoduck]

Could kilts become associated with male bonding, if worn as part of rituals?

Check out the book "Highland Heritage" by Celeste Ray. She has a lot to say about Highland Games in the American South & the rituals associated with them, especially when it comes to kilts & tartan.

Cheers,

Todd

Also, the boderland segment of David Hackett Fischer's "Albion's Seed"... Great study of cultural shifts from the Scotish Borderland to the American South.

[macwilkin]

"Albion's Seed" is a great book, but it deals from a historical perspective. "Highland Heritage" deals with a modern perspective; the author is a sociologist who travelled to various Highland games & Scottish festivals.

I want to get back to one of Alan's posts:

I'd say it this way. If the girls want to join the Boy Scouts, then how come the boys don't want to join the Girl Scouts? If women file suit to join a men's club, then how about a few men file suit to join the local women's club? You know...just on principle.

Ironically, when I was in high school, my school had an all-girl drum & bugle corps called the Lassies -- in fact, all five high schools in Springfield had Scottish drum, bugle & pipe corps -- The Central High Kilties, the Glendale Glengarry Scots, The Parkview Lassies, the Kickapoo (Brad Pitt's alma mater, ooh!) Bonnie Buchanans and the Hillcrest Highlanders. The original group, the kilties, was started by a Scottish immigrant named R. Ritchie Robertson, who also started a boy scout band. The corps all wore Scottish "kit", and each school had a different taran: Central (Royal Stuart), Glendale (Lindsay), Parkview (Gordon), Hillcrest (Dress Stuart) and Kickapoo (Buchanan). Many of the kilts had been turned into "mini-kilts", which was nice to look at, but it would make any kilt-wearer cringe to think of what had been done to the kilt!

Anyway, when I was in high school, I half-jokingly asked the Lassies sponsor why guys couldn't join, since technically, the girls were all wearing men's attire -- men's kilts, sporran, glenarry, fly plaid, etc. -- I was told that I couldn't because it was a "all-girl" organization, and that male membership had never even been talked about.

Imagine -- an organization with kilts and highland attire that didn't allow the very people it was designed for! It staggers the imagination.

Cheers,

Todd

[highlander_Daz]

its how you define a "kilt" basically must peoples (the man in the street) perception of a "kilt" is a garment with a pattern "Tartan" pleated at the rear and worn by scotsman. As we know a "great kilt" strictly speakning does not have pleats sewn into it, buts its obviously a "kilt", so the word "kilted" must mean "wearing a kilt" so "kilted skirt" means a skirt thats wearing a kilt ! so I suppose a "Kilt" is a mans garment that wraps around the waist, and a when worn by a lady it ceases to be a "kilt" and becomes a "tartan skirt", the ladies lacrosse teams dont wear "kilts" they wear "pleated skirts" - a lassie shouldnt wear a "kilt" except when pipeing or Highland dancing as part of a uniform . to do so would be like a man wearing a skirt!!
am I makeing sense?

[Satirist]

... Men need to get away with the boys, to have a rites of passage, to let a boy know what it is to be a man, from a man's point of view...

... If men can't get together without women around to censure the behaviour they don't like, they will be changed into plain old males. Drones. Sperm producing machines.
Wearing the kilt is a start to reversing this trend. Living as a man, not just a male, and teaching our sons how to be men is the only way to truly fight it.

I couldn't have said it better myself. The PC crowd, and the BS judges who believe the dribble that women are oppressed don't help matters. It is men who are being oppressed in our day and time, and you are right, we need to reverse this trend, and taking our stand in kilts is a good start.

[Hamish]

.................................................. .................- a lassie shouldnt wear a "kilt" except when pipeing or Highland dancing as part of a uniform ..............................

This is something that has troubled me for some time: I remember the days when Lassies competed in Highland Dance dressed as "Lassies" - flowing white, just below the knee, dresses with little velvet waistcoats and tartan sashes or plaids, and with their hair dressed naturally. Now they all look absolutely identical, apart from the colours of their 'uniforms' of what was once male attire: boys' kilt, tartan hose and waistcoat, and with the hair tightly pulled back and dressed into a 'bun'. My question: why on earth the male kilt and tartan hose? What's wrong with lassies looking like lassies?

When they did, there were plenty of male Highland Dancers in competition too - dressed as men! Now, it is extremely rare to see male dancers competing. My theory is that laddies, seeing the lassies wearing 'their' kilts, are not prepared to appear in public in what is now considered to be a lassie's costume!

Many years ago, I studied Highland Dance for my own enjoyment, not competition, but had I taken it to that stage, I believe I too would have had some reservations had the competing lassies been dressed as they are today!

[Alan H]

its how you define a "kilt" basically must peoples (the man in the street) perception of a "kilt" is a garment with a pattern "Tartan" pleated at the rear and worn by scotsman. As we know a "great kilt" strictly speakning does not have pleats sewn into it, buts its obviously a "kilt", so the word "kilted" must mean "wearing a kilt" so "kilted skirt" means a skirt thats wearing a kilt ! so I suppose a "Kilt" is a mans garment that wraps around the waist, and a when worn by a lady it ceases to be a "kilt" and becomes a "tartan skirt", the ladies lacrosse teams dont wear "kilts" they wear "pleated skirts" - a lassie shouldnt wear a "kilt" except when pipeing or Highland dancing as part of a uniform . to do so would be like a man wearing a skirt!!
am I makeing sense?

Yes, you're making perfect sense. The answer is that the kilt/skirt debate is all just semantics. It's words that we're concerned with. Others may disagree with my viewpoint of course, but honestly it seems to me that there's just not that much difference between a kilt and a skirt, and to 99 percent of the world casual observers, there's esentially NO difference.

That's just reality. So live with it. When I put one on, I call it a kilt. someone else might call it something else.


cheers...Alan

[Alan H]

I guess it comes down to this, and I know I'm preaching to the choir here.

Do we want kilts to continue to be articles of clothing that men can wear?

Yes.

Well then, go WEAR ONE.

[kiltie as charged]

Here is my two cents worth.

This is how I see it, I am a hairy chested ape! It is bad enough that mens clothing is becoming feminized.Heck women are even wearing our underpants! I once asked my daughter when she was a teenager
why she started wearing boxers, she said that it was more comfortable.

My wife even wears men pants for the asme reason! But when I mention that I want to wear my kilt for the reasons that she uses It is a NO, The reason,"It is not a special occasion!" Sure she "lets" me wear my kilt
as long as she is not with me or we are out with our friends,But then it is a controlled situation.

I told my wife after I had surgery for my brain anyurism. That I want to wear my kilts more often. I don't care what anyone says about what I'm
wearing.Most of the negitive comments are usually from a bunch of pinheaded rednecks that are trying to show off in front of their idiot friends.

Sorry I got carried away,but as far as I'm concerned women should stay out of mens clothes.They have their own they don't need ours too.

[Rob Wright]

I personally don't have a problem with women wearing kilts(ducks behind a log ) but I must add ,one of the reasons I started to look into purchasing a kilt was in part due to a female friend who on occassion wears a men's kilt(plus she looks bloody hot in it ).

There have been several good points made in this thread but no matter how you slice it, a kilt ais a skirtlike garment and the general public doesn't want to be bothered with the details about the differences between a kilt and a womans kilted skirt.

Rob