Why do men not wear leggings?

Answer 1

Boys can wear tights more freely today in the form of boy’s leggings or sport’s tights. However, the social norm is that he wear them under a pair of shorts.

The reason boy’s can’t wear tights whenever they want to is the evolution of women’s fashion. Women adopted tights/pantyhose in the middle of the last century. Women were required to wear them with rising dress and skirt hemlines. This was to remain decent. Women could not show bare legs. As a result, tights became strongly associated with women and girls.

As the 20th century continued, it became inappropriate for boys to wear tights, except for dance. Even then he might be teased for it.

Girls wore tights. Women wore tights and pantyhose and doing so was seen as feminine. The white tights with a fancy dress, or princess costume, became popular for young girls to wear. As girls grew they switched over to pantyhose and it was often seen as a rite of passage into womanhood. This became the social norm of tights and hose for the last half of the 20th century.

However, leggings, a new, thicker form of tights, was becoming popular. They could be worn as pants. Women over the last thirty years began to wear the style. As of this post, leggings or yoga pants have taken the place of tights in most circumstances. Women are still wearing tights and occasionally pantyhose.

It takes several generations for fashion to run its cycles. Right now we are still in tights are worn by women and girls cycle. Men today grew up with their sisters wearing white tights and their mothers wearing pantyhose.

The next generations moved to leggings and yoga pants.

Boys can’t wear tights whenever they want to because we spent several decades normalizing that women and girls can wear tights whenever they want to. It takes several generations for something to become a norm and boys and men are just starting to put on tights again. Men can’t easily put on pantyhose without their wives taking issue with it and boys can’t simply put on white tights or leggings without their mom’s being concerned. You have to remember, she probably wore tights as a girl, hose when she got older and she wears leggings now. For most of her life she wore tights, not the males in her life. There will naturally be push back.

Answer 2

Boys dont wear tights, even if they want to, because they thing it takes away from their manlyness! :p