> Also, we haven't come that far in regards to gender roles. Women wearing pants and going to work, and men wearing nail polish is the extent of what was normalized in society. Anything else and we still view it with very traditional lenses.

Even this is an optimistic lens: a man wearing nail polish at work is likely to play very differently between a coastal city and a small "heartland" town.

The truth remains that women can and do get pregnant.

Very true. My son is six months old and as we've chosen to breastfeed half the time I'm completely useless to my son. I can change nappies and comfort him but most of the time he needs his mum. I can see why society developed the way it has. If you remove birth control and baby formula people would be forced into traditional rolls during their child bearing years.

Business must accomodate humanity, and not the other way around. Silicon Valley utopians would like everyone to be a fungible unit of productivity. If your culture does not produce healthy children, your culture is going away.

That's not the Bay Area, mate, that's just Capitalism.

SV just like to put their own veneer on it to make it seem kinder and gentler than the NYC screw-you-pay-me approach, but make no mistake it's the same stuff.

The SV utopians are firmly in control of technology with the most leverage to define the future.

Men wearing nail polish is definitely not normalized in our western or eastern society.

It's normalized to the point where it's not likely to attract attention but still not common. I'd say it would be vastly more normalized than a man wearing a skirt for example.

I have literally never seen a man wearing nail polish.

I see them every day. We must live in different places.

I would argue that for a thing to be normal both of you would have to see it at least sometimes, unless OP lives on the moon and you live on mars.

Kenji Lopez-Alt wears nail polish in most of his videos.

Kenji does it when he's playing with his daughter, he polishes her nails and she polishes his -- I think this explanation would fly even in the most uptight and puritanical of the conservative crowd. I do wonder whether he'd bow to the pressure of being more "professional" if he was still making videos under the seriouseats or ATK banner.

Maybe he would, but he is quite an oddball in more ways than one. Both of his parents were Harvard/MIT professors, he is not silent about his political views (he at one point literally forbade anyone with a Trump hat to come in to his restaurant) so we shouldn't extrapolate from this one singular case one way or the other.

You've never been to any concert by an artist born after 1960?

(excluding classical music)

* * *

Just attended a high school event. I guess 50% of high school boys wear nail polish.

This seems very bay area bubble to me.

Not 'round these parts they don't

They wear it on their toenails, where you can't see

I thought that one specifically was a non-hetero signaling device?

Or goth

Yeah mostly where I've seen it on guys is in the metal / goth / punk / i'm-in-a-band-but-not-really scene. No connotations to homosexuality AFAIK.

Close, I think it’s more about signalling you’re not into traditional gender roles. There are women who are into that, just like there are gay men who don’t like effeminate men. If you live in a place with enough potential friends and lovers it saves everybody time, and you look fabulous to boot.

The issue I think is more that women have been fighting for rights while men aren't really allowed to do that in western society. There are countless examples. Women can wear mens clothing and no one bats an eye, but men can't wear womens clothing. It's now normal for women to work, but stay at home men are almost non-existent. Teenage boys kill themselves many times more often but the main thing you hear about in the news is how social media effects teenage girls.

> men can't wear women's clothing

Regarding men's fashion, I find it interesting that:

Long robes are still worn as formal/professional attire in certain contexts: judicial robes, academic regalia, clerical robes, etc..

Wigs seem largely out of style, with the professional exception of British judges and barristers.

Kilts are still around, but tunics are out of fashion and tights/leggings seem to be relegated to sports/athletics and dance.

None of those are women's clothing. They're formal clothing used for status signalling.

One of the messages is "We are not here to do manual labour, fight physically, or display overt sexuality."

(Kilts are something of an exception, but they're dual-use.)

Re Kilts, I'm reminded of that scene in _Braveheart_ where the Scots start flashing and mooning the English before a battle starts.

there is nothing in Braveheart that should be thought of as historically accurate

Academic robes and hoods were originally practical for keeping you warm in a freezing university. I can't imagine churches or abbeys were particularly well heated either. Another advantage of robes (or kimonos) is they can trap heat from external sources.

Athletic/gym gear, tank tops, bike shorts/leggings, speedos, etc. aren't really formal clothing, and they are practical both for physical activity and for fitness signaling (e.g. attracting mates and discouraging rivals.) (And sports from football to martial arts are a sort of ritualized fight.)

But I think you are on to something - men's attraction strategies are often via resources rather than health/fitness (or overt physical conflict with rivals.)

I'm somewhat upset that tunics are not really a thing any more. Wearing an overly-long tee-shirt is almost the same thing, but only almost.

Reminiscent of Roman togas, the clothing for aristocrats and magistrates. Much of today’s western culture is derived from Rome.

I'm sure it varies widely by region, but men (not trans women) wearing eg. skirts, and stay-at-home men, are both things I've encountered here and there. Not common, maybe, but not unheard-of

Who is “we”?