The habit of ladies cross-dressing, or dressing in "drag" is not a new one. History tells stories of women dressing as men for protection or social advancement[although I've never met a cross-dressing woman that has fooled me, or any other man I know...so I have my doubts there], there are even stories of women being fined or punished in previous centuries for doing so [one of St. Joan of Arc's charges was "refusing to wear the dress of a lady"], still men's fashions and style are something designed to make the man look more elegantly virile, and a woman wearing mens' fashion is to give women the swagger which the men's fashion compliments for a man. The wearing of men's clothes for women also carries the  difficulties, of needing to be tailored to the woman's form which being rounder than the man's does not lend itself to the square lines typical of men's wear, and so does not provide the same swagger.The question comes then, does the wearing of masculine clothes and the portraying of masculine elegance and swagger suffice for a lady to be called a Dandy, or must one be a man to truly be a Dandy?

One of the key elements to Dandyism is it serves as a man's revenge on ladies place as style icon. Ladies have been dressing up since time began, and being fashionable has at times been the sole domain of women. Not so with men who have, in history, had to put style aside for some practical reason of work or other such. The Dandy reclaims the place of style icon up to an including his distaste for work and bourgeois values; he is akin to the Bohemians in their rebellion, except he imitates the aristocracy [or upper class if aristocracy is lacking]. For a woman to dress seductively is in her nature and best interest in order to catch a man. For men however style is not as essential an element to either social advancement, nor sexual attractiveness; the Dandy proves that Men can not only be fashionable, but can be things of beauty, and proves that style is key to true masculine swagger.

Oddly, the loudest protest against women as dandies come from the dandies themselves chez whom is a long line of misogyny.  Baudelaire himself wrote “La femme est toujours vulgaire, c’est-à-dire le contraire du dandy.”, and a modern "wannabe" dandy,  Sebastian Horsely yet who's opinion runs inline with the couple hundred year history of the movement touts  "The key attribute of dandyism — detachment — cannot come from someone with a womb.”

The feminist establishment would insist, after much unbiased and scholarly research,  that a woman can be a Dandy saying that a woman can be anything she puts her mind to. Jack Dandy a feminist writer and would be Dandy states that not only are women dandies; they're better at it than men...I see. Interestingly enough it's all centered around being "one of the boys".

 As far as I'm concerned when a particular movement is focused on being a man [or a woman], the opposite sex may imitate, but can never be the true article. As Dandysim.net aptly asks "can a man become a nun"?