News & Blogs - Gender Free World — Opinion

By Beth Kennedy We’re here, we’re queer...but how can we signal this without saying anything? Queer signalling has been around for decades. In the 70s, LGBTQI+ signalled to one another using a handkerchief system. They would put hankies in their back pocket or their waistbands and each colour signalled a specific sexual preference and specific kinks. There were several variations of the hanky code, so if you’d like to find out more about this slice of LGBTQI+ history, take a look at this great article about flagging (TW: lots of very explicit sexual language). Flagging is not so common now,...

  In years gone by, the classic short back and sides was the ultimate way to identify a lesbian - because it was a way of expressing the individual which wasn’t conforming to feminine cultural norms.  But over several decades we’ve seen more diversity with regards to hair length on women, regardless of sexuality. Think of the 80s when Annie Lennox (or just Annie Lennox in general), Grace Jones and Alison Moyet all sported beautiful ‘butch’ haircuts. Or how about Sinead O’Connor’s iconic shaved head style? Annie Lennox. Source: RCA Records The point is, ever since the 80s hair length...

Women have to put up with rubbish (and even useless) features on women’s wear. It’s like the person in charge of all women’s wear said “Let’s make the clothes as impractical and....

You know how it goes - in H&M you might be a size 14 but in Primark it’s an 18 (or vice versa). So why are women’s clothes sizes so inconsistent? Plus sizes are defined differently too, it’s not just in the UK, the US have the same problem as us... and much of it can be attributed to vanity sizing.  What is vanity sizing? In short, it’s a marketing tool. Clothing companies wanted to compliment shoppers by reducing the sizes to make women feel they’re a size or two smaller than they really were. Well, it was a marketing tool but apparently...

Women wearing men’s clothes is fast becoming more widespread than ever before. Around 64% of women have worn men’s clothes before. But what are the things that change for women shopping the men’s section? As a fan of wearing ‘mens’ clothes, I’ve noticed a number of things...

Ride a bike, work on a farm? This bread is for you (but not if you are a women). First, there were gendered shower gels, now there seems to be gendered everything. In many ways society seems to be travelling backwards...and here's one reason why, if you can sell the battleships game in pink for girls and in blue for boys you can sell 2 per family instead of one! Here are a few social posts calling out the bullshit that sums up the insane world of gendering anything and everything...   Men! Listen up! Wearing a mask is for women....

Why should gender have to be defined by clothing? How one expresses themself should not be dedicated, or more importantly restricted by them begin male or female. Clothes may look like a small part...

For a long time, being fat/plus-size/curvy/whatever you want to call it, has been mutually exclusive with keeping up with fashion trends. With a recent surge in followers, although fatshion has been around for a while, it’s now that brands are really starting to take notice of it.