I say yes, that is one of the essential functions of a healthy society. I think Billy Porter disagrees with me.
Obviously there has to be room for the oddball, the nonconformist, and the unconventional. But I don’t see that as being in conflict with the more general rule that convention is useful, and people should be steered towards it.
Convention is what makes us feel comfortable in the world.
If you’re sitting in a theater, and everyone is facing the screen, except the guy in front of you, who has turned around in his seat and is staring at you, that makes you feel uncomfortable. Conventions are what makes for a polite and harmonious society.
One of those conventions is that men don’t wear dresses.
There’s nothing inherently wrong with a man wearing a dress. Just as there’s nothing inherently wrong with someone turning around the wrong way in a theater. But respect for other people requires us to obey certain conventions, and efforts to brainwash children against that idea are more than misguided.
Porter said, “As a man, I really want to make a different kind of statement and show up in a way that could also be transformative, that could also be political.”
Fine. Be cutting edge at the Oscars. That’s where all that weird stuff is supposed to happen, because it’s basically a circus.
But when it comes to raising children, we want to teach them the conventions. If they want to be weird when they grow up, that’s their business. But they need to learn normal first.
If someone stares at you, it makes you uncomfortable, but not simply because it is unconventional. An animal feels threatened when stared at. A man in a dress or skirt is offensive to some people, but again not merely because it falls outside the conventional zone. Those people usually regard femininity in a man as a grotesque perversion. If you were to wear unusual attire, e.g. a plaid shirt, striped pants, a polka dotted football helmet, and combat boots, such people might laugh at you, but they wouldn’t usually see that as disgusting.
You’re right that there are different reasons for the discomfort we feel in different situations, and that disgust has something to do with reactions against homosexuality. The larger point is that in training children, we should focus on teaching them the traditional and conventional.
But why should we stick to convention and tradition? Just because we should? And don’t they sometimes have bad effects? One of the defenses of Jim Crow was that it is about “our way of life.” I think that the LGBTQ people will likewise say that forbidding men to wear dresses and skirts will support a bigotry that is actually not good for society.
Convention and tradition are what hold society together. It’s what makes a “we.”
If everyone does their own thing, it’s not really a society or a culture.
Convention and tradition are not perfect, and there are things that have to be changed from time to time, but that’s something that’s done by the collective wisdom of the whole culture. We don’t allow marginal weirdoes to impose their views on children. That’s just dumb.
I think you don’t need to make an effort to get convention and tradition. They just come naturally. The weirdos, however, are fragile and therefore need protection, especially those of us who come across as weird even when they making every effort not to be weird. (When I moved to Europe I tried really hard to eat with my fork in my left hand and my knife in my right, but it just didn’t work.) But the ones trying to be weird deserve some consideration.
Yes, they do, and children need to be taught to tolerate weird people. But it’s one thing to ask to be tolerated, and it’s another thing to be “transformative.”