In Her Shoes - Chapter Four - Slugs & Snails and Puppy Dogs' Tails

"In Her Shoes - When a Man lives as Woman" Chloe Bright & Leo Cavendish

There is an age-old childhood mantra, which goes as follows:

"Slugs and Snails and Puppy Dogs' Tails, that's what little boys are made of! Sugar and Spice and All Things Nice, that's what little girls are made of!"

It points out to boys and girls, early on in their lives, that there are fundamental differences between being a boy and being a girl. Gender characteristics are strongly reinforced. Boys are characterised as rough and unruly, but as leaders and adventurers. Girls are portrayed as sweet and innocent, nurturing and pleasing.

Feminists have decried such propaganda, no matter how old or how childish, that so strongly seeks to keep girls in their proper place and preach equality between the sexes. Anti-feminists, a force which is gathering strength in the wake of the diminished power and authority of the male, are trying to turn back the clock and put women back in the kitchen.

Whereas the feminist movement is built on truth and confident assertion, the Anti-feminist cause is built upon one thing only. Fear.

Admittedly, they have much to be worried about. The old patriarchal system that favours men is under assault from all sides. Male underachievement at schools and universities has long been a source of concern, and the problem is getting worse with every passing year. The old manufacturing economies of the past, the mainstay of male employment, has also been shrinking for decades, whilst the service and information technology industries where women are thriving, are rapidly expanding.

More and more women are occupying higher status positions than ever before and more and more women are now the main breadwinner within their family unit. Men are increasingly finding themselves the ones who are now the secondary wage earner or even completely dependant upon his female partner's earning power. The number of househusbands is rising steadily.

There is a quiet revolution occurring here where the old patriarchal system is remaining largely intact, but with the only real difference is that the men and women are gradually changing places. Woman emerging as leader and breadwinner and Man ending up as homemaker and chief childraiser.

All of these developments has put the fear of god into the anti-feminist movement and they lay the blame squarely at the door of the "insidious" force that is feminism.

I'm personally more inclined to believe that the problems faced by males today have nothing to do with feminism. The problem, I'm afraid to say, is with men themselves. In general, men are lazy, inflexible, immature and they are failing to accept that society has fundamentally altered in the last three or four decades, and they have failed to adapt to an altered world. Until they adapt, the male gender will continue on its downward spiral.

That men are losing their traditional roles in society is bad enough for the anti-feminists, but what they fear more than anything is not feminism, but feminisation. The spectre of man not only losing his role, but losing his clothes and thereby his masculinity, to woman.

This outcome might seem unlikely. Gender has been deeply entrenched in our society for so long that it seems inconcievable that it could be turned on its head. Masculinity becoming the new Femininity and vice versa. Yet, not so long ago, it would have seemed inconcievable for girls to become 60% of all graduates leaving university, or for large numbers of women to earn far more than their male partners.

It is entirely possible for the anti-feminists' worst nightmare to come true and for the once proud, dominant male to lose his trousers, the symbol of his mastery, to the female of the species and for him to adopt the skirt and other traditionally feminine accroutrements in acknowledgement of his decline and fall to womankind.

In a special exclusive experiment, my colleague, Leo Cavendish, has volunteered to experience the possible life of the male of the future, in the traditional dress and role of woman. Just what happens when man lives as woman?

What follows is Leo's experience.......