I'm still female, no matter what I wear

I have been, periodically, attempting to recapture some femininity in my wardrobe-I seem to be desperate for it, and every time this happens I look at traditional skirts and dresses etc. and find something I like, buy it and never wear it once because I'm too afraid to wear the darn thing out the door. The only time I actually wear anything remotely "feminine" is to the Renaissance Festival or something special, like a wedding.

This is really odd and frustrating for me. I know I am feminine no matter what I wear, but there is some sort of fear that wearing such a thing will make me more of a sex object rather than just a person. My jeans are my comfort clothes and no matter what sort of resolve I make to wear a skirt or dress the next day to work, inevitably I end up putting on my jeans and covering that offensive piece of cloth I thought I would wear with something else so I don't have to continue looking at it.

Lately, as in the last year or so, I have been really interested in saris. I had a silly idea to wear togas around town to get people to do double takes (a favorite pastime of mine since high school-getting people to do double takes, not wearing togas) and unfortunately there just were no togas for women in ancient Rome, so I looked to saris. I found this great place online called Sari Safari and was entranced by the culture and mystique around the sari. Well, long story short, it will have been an entire year this summer and I still have not bought a sari from that place because I know I'll buy it and it will sit around my closet or chair and never be worn.

This whole thing goes completely against all principles I have about changing people's ideas of women in our culture, and yet I am still paralyzed with fear every time I go out the door in something that is not trouser like. I mean seriously, Queen Elizabeth I wore dresses that could be used as weapons if she were ever in a tight spot and she was not necessarily considered a sex object. She is, in fact, one of my heroines. Cleopatra, another heroin of mine wore dresses-heck, the men of the time all wore kilts-and I'm cringing about people seeing me as a baby-machine. What the heck is wrong with me? Even in high fantasy novels the heroines, whether substantial or not, wear dresses. Science fiction women wear dresses and have no bones about killing, maiming or flying space ships. I feel, at this moment, like such a dweeb. I am unable to stand myself-in fact I am so very annoyed, disgusted and frightened that I fear I will take off the sarong I am currently wearing, don the jeans I had earlier and go to Starbucks.

Great-just what I need, more coffee and comfort clothes.

THESE women are not afraid of their femininity, why the heck am I?