Modern Man, Gender Roles - Lee Patrick Wilson

We are what we wear

The clothes we wear can speak volumes about us they can influence our actions influence how others perceive us identify our position in the world & symbolise what we stand for believe in & represent. We make our own choices on the clothes we buy the styles we choose, but these are only from a small selection of what is available to us in the market place and of this selection how many clothes are styled, inspired & created on Gender Roles that have been allocated to Modern Man in modern history.

Clothes where firstly functional providing protection from the elements then as a banner of status showing importance within the tribe or community, dress identifies who we are, where we belong and how we should be treated; within the tribe, within the country, within religion, within security forces, for Modern Man within every day life identifying our occupations, tribal wear never really leaving us only changing appearance instead now identifying which street gang a person belongs or team they support, all clothes identifying what type of person we are and how we should be treated.

Clothes have historically identified wealth, before mass production and modern manufacture clothing especially with deep colours would be a real rarity and status identifier as in the natural world colour is so rare to acquire and produce, only a person of high social status or power would wear deep coloured attire the gods amongst men.

I look at the clothes available the advertisements, the expectations, the roles set for us on TV & within fashion industry, especially young people & the Gender Roles assigned to them, Modern Women expected to be scantily clad in mere strips of polyester, high heels, expensive designer shoes, faces plastered with makeup, heads full of hair dye, unwittingly conforming to roles established on reality TV and dating shows. Love island & internet porn assigning Modern Women with whole new Gender Roles, instead of self respect and equality that generations of women prior fought selflessly & fiercely to achieve, progress so easily stripped by turning young women into walking consumers, pride ebbed away by Gender Roles of self destruction, body and beauty shaming, dreams of freedom and opportunity quickly switched for boozy weekends and lonely walks of shame, as we live to the gender roles assigned to us by the few in media & fashion industries lead by those who appear to care nothing for people, for ethics, for morality, for history, for self worth, only what will sell and make a return, even if that's the soul of humanity. Young men equally confused by how they are to treat their fellow human, male or female, instead of seeing a mother, a sister, a daughter, a wife, an equal and treating them with the upmost respect and decency, they see only the gender role assigned to each of them, taught to treat a person as an object for nothing other than to be used in one way or another, as they are taught through gender roles assigned by mainstream media and fashion.

Men and Women, teeth pulled from their heads and new ones inserted, faces filled with botox and fillers, faces lifted, hairs transplanted, chests filled with silicone, muscle implants all reflecting the gender roles assigned to us and an expectation that we should all conform too, an expectation to look a certain way, to act a certain way, roles devout of any meaning or substance where no one is happy we only consume and self loath.

In a world where roles of character and integrity are low on the agenda. In a world where the constant beauty that youth provides us all in abundance is ignored and covered over not valued or advertised as its free and can't be bought, yet these industries need us to consume to sustain them so youth and natural living is cast aside and re branded instead sold in bottles and tubes.

In a world where middle aged humanity is made to regret the loss of youth that was unknowingly wasted, never seen for what it was and now in middle age instead of celebrating the height of life and peak of existence is again tainted with self loathing and an un-realistic perception of what life should be about, the many still striving to fill their lives with consumer goods.

In a world where the survivors, the wise elders of humanity, those reaching the glory of old age with so much to teach, proofed with wrinkles, scars and lines of a life lived, fought & experienced are instead pulled tight, nipped and tucked, self loathing reaching a fever pitch the final product of a fickle society & the result of a lifetime of gender roles creating Modern Mans identity with its only aim to sell goods, causing only emptiness, denying truth of character, potential of all people, age, time and nature.