Last Saturday, a few hundred men met in New York City and walked from the Guggenheim Museum to the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Many of these men came from foreign countries like Sweden, Germany, France and the United Kingdom, and many were from right here in America. Most of them had talked over the Internet but had never met in person.

These were men from various backgrounds, races, age groups, social classes and political alignments. There was really only one thing they all had in common; they were all wearing skirts.

That’s right. On Feb. 7, 2004, these men participated in what they dubbed, “The Million Skirted Men March.” OK, perhaps they were a little over ambitious with the number, but then again, one skirted man in public is a rare enough sight, let alone several hundred. You might think the purpose of this column is to make fun of these guys. You’d be wrong. I find it pretty interesting.

It was an interesting enough event to merit over a half page of press in the London Times’ World Events section. It was even on AOL’s main welcome page right underneath President Bush’s Meet the Press interview.And yet what I find most interesting about this event is that it has been deemed interesting at all. After all, this hardly seems like it should be a major social issue, it’s almost ridiculous.Not men wanting to wear skirts, but that it is a big enough deal to get media coverage.

It has been decades since women gained the ability to wear pants, and I know several girls who do not even own a skirt.

While in the 1950’s Mary Tyler Moore wearing Capri pants on the Dick Van Dyke show was quite controversial, it is old news now.But men wearing skirts merits coverage in a national newspaper.Why? Why did one sex get to cross the garment line but if the other does it, it’s an oddball move?

It’s not like men in skirts is a new idea.In fact, the reason for the MSM March was to attend an exhibit at the Met entitled Bravehearts: Men in Skirts. The exhibit ran from November through last Sunday and displayed various male skirts from throughout history, such as kilts and sarongs, and the various modern male unbifurcated garments or MUGs, such as the Utilikilt found at www.utilikilts.com – a tough, handmade kilt-like garment from Seattle.Utilikilts, along with other similar companies, have for the past couple years been manufacturing skirts for men; skirts with a distinctly masculine look.

So why would a men’s skirted march even seem necessary?

I mean seriously, don’t we have better things to be concerned about in the world today than whether or not a garment has a division in the legs?Are we still this far behind in gender issues that there’s something threatening about a man in a skirt? Is it some sort of deep seeded misogyny that suggests that a skirted man is being girlie and therefore weak? Try telling that to the warriors in the movie Braveheart, or for that matter, the large amount of women who wear skirts and could mop the floor with me any time.

Then of course there misogyny’s ugly cousin, homophobia. It is true, however, that some of the men marching Sunday were gay, some of them were bisexual, but most of them were straight.It would seem sexual orientation doesn’t really have anything to do with clothing preferences.

But the fact is, it is a big deal, even though there’s no reason for it to be.

I actually own two kilts.I bought one at Hot Topic, who were so afraid of the word skirt they sold a longer, non-pleated version to guys as a one-legged pant.

I’ve never worn my kilts to class.It’s mostly a lack of courage on my own part. I’m aware of that.But I’m not a rock star, and I’m not Sting who wore a jet-black kilt to the Grammy’s on Sunday and can get away with it.I’m not a celebrity. I would just be that kilt guy, and I don’t really think I want to be him.

I didn’t buy them to be a revolutionary, I bought them because they looked comfortable.I would just prefer if the world ,for the most part, felt the same way as an Internet poll that accompanied a copy of the NY Times article, in which 53 percent gave a resounding who cares.

Ryan Silverman is a senior in English. He can be reached for comment at [email protected].