okay, so i was finishing up last minute christmas shopping just a couple of days before christmas…everyone was looking stressed and hurried…and i don’t know if it was just me, or what, but there were a lot of women wearing pants that just did not fit properly…we’re talking camel toe galore…and then there was this one guy with so much butt cleavage i had to avert my eyes…now, i do live smack dab in the middle of the midwest, so fashion is not a priority for most…however, people should take more pride in their appearance…and that made me think, are pants a right or a privilege?..if they are a right, then i guess they can be worn any way the wearer wants to wear them…but if they are a privilege, like driving, then perhaps there should be some groundrules…or something like that…uh…yeah…gimme some feedback
I think it depends on whether one is a house-elf.
well, i believe the individuals i happened upon were all humans…but these days, one can not be too sure
Is it a right or privelege? when the law forbidding it is gone?
I think neither. It is not in the Constitution that women can wear pants or men skirts. It is forbidden in the Bible - but that rule only is for orthadox Jews.
Is it a “right” or “privelige” for “men” to wear pants?
Neither.
As one of the original womens libbers, and an avid womens historian, I can tell you that it was illegal!!! for women to wear pants in most states until the 1970’s.
It was considered “sexual perversion” by everyone for any woman to wear, or want to wear pants, or for that matter, for any man to wear a skirt, until Marlene Dietrich started wearing pants in public in the 1930’s.
A few states legalized pants for women and skirts for men in the 1960’s, but most of them did not actually repeal those laws that forbid women from wearing pants or men from wearing skirts(crossdressing) until in the mid-1970’s.
My own state legalized pants for women in 1974. My church admitted pants wearing women in 1972. The nicest restaurants in my location, started admitted women in 1969, the last one in gave up forbiding women in pants in 1973.
World war 2, allowed many women to wear pants without being arrested, as long as they were going to work, or engaged in some activity that could be used as an “excuse” as to why we needed or wanted to wear pants(work, snow skiiing, hunting, etc).
Starting in the 1940’s, and increasingly thru the 1950’s, women were arrested less and less frequently up until the 1960’s, when arrests virtually ended.
Wide spread crossdressing of many many women in the 1950’s, and esp. after the 1960’s, made further arrests and convictions of pants wearing women nearly impossible once the 1960’s began.
The last arrests and convictions that I remember, in the 1960’s, were of women who were wearing slacks that had zippers in the front(clearly not womens slacks, or so the court said).
Prior to 1974, women wearing were legally refused entry into churches, restarurants, were suspended from school, and were fired fom their jobs if they showed up wearing pants. I witnessed it. Even famous female movie stars were refused entry into the classiest restaurants in California up thru the late 1960’s and early 1970’s.
The women who I personally knew, who were fired or refused entry into restaurants had no “legal recourse”, they could not sue, or complain to the union, because the company, the church, or the business, was just “following the law”.
Women are now allowed to vote(1850’s-1920), smoke(1920’s), go into a bar(1920’s), wear pants(1970’s), ride astride a horse without a sidesaddle, go to medical school, etc. You could say that voting is a right, but I dont think it is a “right” to ride a horse without a sidesaddle.
These are more accurately called social mores or social customs, not rights, nor priveleges, and is what is considered “perversion” by our state legislators.
I had NO idea that it was that recent with pants for women. Geez, that’s only 8 years before I was born!
I was “there” also. I have worn pants from the 1940’s until the present.
In my particular school, girls weren’t allowed to wear pants unless the weather was really cold. Even then, we had to wear them under dresses. Usually only elementary students did.
But in public we wore them.
In the early 1960’s, women in the colleges I attended were not allowed were not allowed to wear pants unless they were on their way to a physical education course. (And even then, we had to wear a coat over them. But when we were not enrolled, we wore them freely.
Women teachers in my school district were not allowed to wear pants until 1970 when pant suits were allowed. And some restaurants did refuse service to women wearing pants.
By custom, we did not wear pants to church until the last fifteen years or so.
I live in the conservative South. But I have not been aware of wide-spread state or city laws forbidding the wearing of pants. Would you mind citing a reference?
Also, why would you as a “women’s libber” refer to wearing pants as “cross-dressing”?
Finally, most feminists that I know avoid the term “women’s libber” like the plague. It has been considered a put-down for perhaps as long as the past twenty years. I am not criticizing your use of the word at all. I just find it unusual.
Because I am old, my dear.
I have not been involved in the womans movement for the past 20 years, and dont keep up with it any more since the ERA failed. In the 1960’s, it was the term we all used, and I guess I am still using it.
I dont use the term:“feminist”. That is a “new” term to me, and had bad connotations to some of us.
I used the term “crossdressing”, because that is what those laws against women wearing pants were commonly called: “crossdressing laws”. Women in pants, back then, were considered to be “crossdressing”. We got the same insults, discrimination, innuendos, bible quotes, and the same criticisms, that todays men who wear skirts get now.
The fact is, that women WERE actually arrested for wearing pants, and later for wearing pants with no side zippers. The very first womens pants/slacks all had side zippers, to differentuate from mens pants.
You would have to go into those old state laws, but nearly every state that we looked at, at the time, had state laws against women in pants. There were a few city laws that also prohibited crossdressing. I used to know what the number of my states law against crossdressing was, when we were active in getting it repealed, but I forgot it now.
In the 1950’s and 1960’s I could have given you a complete list of all the state laws, but now that they are gone, I dont remember what the old numbers were. YOu could look at some old newspapers though, for stories of those laws getting repealed.
Things could have been worse in my time. Ever hear of Joan of Arc? do you know why she was burned at the stake?
As a side note, check out the August issue of 1938 Life Magazine, to see the first “men” who went in public, topless, and did not get arrested. Life did a feature article on a few topless men on one beach in New Jersey or New York, and were not arrested. I still have that magazine upstairs if you want to know the exact date of the issue.
It is a divine right akin to Manifest Destiny.
Reflecting a second time on this immortal issue, I realized there was an aspect undealt with.
I find it completely criminal when men wear pants and when you view their posterior, you find that they have no butt. It is is a void where cheeks should be.
Remember: “Gay guys don’t make passes at men with no asses.”
Look at your old family photos.
See for yourself when the photos of grown women of your own family in pubic stated showing appearing in pants and report back to us.
Most people I talk to know soemthing of the laws against women wearing pants, but ALL are surprised to find out that men could not go topless until the very late 1930’s.
Also find the first photo you can find of a man in public who is topless. See if you can find one prior to 1938.
July 18, 1938 is the date of that Life Magazine issue showing the first men who went topless in public on a beach, and did not get arrested.
The article mentions that a few beaches in Californian just previously, allowed topless men, but that on any other beach, even one a few miles away, these same topless men would be promptly arrested for public nudity.
Because you have now caused me to think of my family in pubic, my therapy bills will now be coming to you.
That’s horrendous! I don’t know what I would have done without my nice black pants which go with everything. I suppose I would have had to have worn stockings/tights every day with a skirt…muchos uncomfortable. Myself, I would have taken up residence in a cave, but that’s just me.
Now, say it with me, up with short-shorts! That’s a crusade worth fighting for in this day and age!
wow, i never dreamed this topic would inform me on so much…it’s been interesting to read all of this…
dahempfaerie, you might consider visiting this site. I know I’d appreciate it.
It is not so long ago that women were hauled out of bars, strip searched and jailed if found wearing any piece of clothing deemed to be for men, even underwear. Lesbianism may not have been against the law but they found a way to lock up the perverts anyway.
My Grandma has never really talked about the pants thing… but I do recall her talking about when she and Grandpa went out they had to go to St Albert to sit in the same room and drink together as it was illegal in the city of Edmonton for men and women to sit in the same room and drink with each other.
I agree though… this is an interesting thread. I’ll go check out the link.
lol… never mind. I didn’t look at the link before I posted. Interesting still though!
No matter how offensive the camel toe, let’s not go back there ok?
In the 1950’s Eddie Fisher came out with a song called “Dungaree Doll” – a reference to the trend of wearing pants. And remember Bermuda shorts? Pedal Pushers? Jodpurs? Where were you?
When we rode quarter horses, I never saw anyone who used a side-saddle.
You were right about Diedrich’s influence in the 1930’s. But it didn’t take thirty years to catch on.
Things were not as bad as you have described, IIRC.
Many states did have laws against cross-dressing – but to the best of my knowledge those laws referred to men dressing as women.