Five things still makes a post
- Mongol garb is awesome.
- But it’s the ultimate cold-weather garb.
- It’s been 90 degrees* for somewhere between one week and eighty-seven months, or possibly forever OMGGGGGG. The exact timeframe depends on how much input my inner 13-year-old is allowed.
- Having failed at T-tunics, Viking, Ottoman Turkish, and Mongol, the time has come for me to set my sights on a higher goal. Yes, it’s time for me to fail at Tudor.
- Once I figure out what Tudor is. There’s a chemise on the bottom and a gown on the top, and in the middle is a corset/pair of bodies, which might be on its own or might always be a separate garment or might be part of a petticoat which might be a visible garment or an undergarment or maybe it goes under the kirtle which might be boned or might be the petticoat under a different name and sometimes there’s just a jacket but aaaaaaaaaaaaaaagh. Basically, people looked back on 1500 years of chemise, underdress, overdress and said, “We’ve got loads of sartorial credit in the bank, let’s spend it all. Right. Now.” Layers multiplied so quickly and fashions changed so rapidly that terminology didn’t keep up, and later scholars had to repurpose words in ways the garments’ contemporaries never intended, leading to the equivalent of hair-pulling fights over ladies’ inventories. It’s glorious, as are all historical disciplines that involve slap-fighting,** but it doesn’t lead to quick and easy reconstruction, unless you want to fail a lot. And while I fully expect in going into this enterprise that I will fail, there are ways in which I’m willing to fail and ways in which I’m not. Wearing my skivvies in public is a way in which I am not.
* Fahrenheit. Equivalent: 383 degrees Celsius.
** Egyptology, for instance. It’s impossible to evaluate a find until you know who found it and who they were quarreling with at the time. If there was any reconstruction involved, you also have to know who reconstructed it, who they were quarreling with at the time, and how long they were left unsupervised with the artifact. This is, I’m afraid, not a joke.
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A tangentially related subject, but… Do you have any advice on starting out in SCA stuff?
I’m a huge history nerd, but I’m also ftm and largely interested in fibercrafts, so the prospect of an activity with strong gender roles makes me really nervous.
SCA culture is dictated largely by geography, but in my neck of the woods, people are generally accepting of gender diversity. There are a lot of men involved in the arts in my barony (and a fair number of female fighters). Things here are sort of, um, pagan-y, so not super conservative. I don’t participate anymore for geek fallacy type issues, but I don’t think you would get any static for playing with string. I brought a trans friend to a few events and she didn’t seem to have any problems.
Most geopolitical units have an office called the “Chatelaine.” This is the newcomers’ officer and he or she can help you get familiar with your area. There is usually an email for that person on the website for your kingdom, if not on the one for your smaller geopolitical unit (barony, canton, etc.). My barony is huge so it has its chatelaine and an extensive web presence.
What she said. In my experience, New England SCAdians’ interests tend to divide along gender lines, but there’s a lot of support for people who want to cross those lines. The traditionally female crafts I’ve done–textile arts, cooking–have been welcoming toward men who wanted to join. I couldn’t say how men acted toward men who did “female” crafts; I get the impression that it’s accepted, but there’s a whole world of interaction there that I’m not privy to.
If you want to get your feet wet without plunging into an entire event, see if there are activity groups in your area. Most areas have groups that meet once a week or once a month, sans garb, to practice, do projects, etc. They welcome newcomers and are very informal. The keywords you’re looking for are “arts and sciences” or “guild.”
You’ve seen the Welcome site, yes? http://welcome.sca.org/
(Don’t worry about all the talk of competitions that you’ll see on websites. They’re completely optional, and you can craft to your heart’s content without ever entering a competition.)
I’m on the West Coast for comparison and information.
If you’re talking about more “medieval” traditional roles, well, there’s some of that but they’re not really any kind of a requirement where I am. I think we’ve recently had same-sex couples for the crown list (king and queen are determined by combat in my kingdom, on a six month rotation). We’ve had female knights for awhile. There are some people that object, but most of us are also fond of indoor plumbing and no plague, and generally recognize that the SCA is more of an educational organization than a strict reenactment one. I’m a feminist myself and the worst gender issue I think I had to deal with was the tendency for men to come to my defense if they felt I had been slighted in some way (hail, chivalry). I’m pretty good at handling that myself and prefer to. On the other side, I was definitely encouraged to take up fighting by my husband’s fighter friends (no thanks!) and there were plenty of other women doing it in his household (informal and unofficial social/camping group — there’s no requirement to join one, but a lot of people tend to for social reasons. I was in one only briefly and otherwise ran a newcomers’ camp or crashed with friends.).
I’d encourage you to at least check it out and see what you think. I miss the history and costuming stuff a lot.