A woman in Lewinsville, Virginia, 1910

IF  THIS WOMAN had been wearing pants, would she be the same?

— Comments —

Fred writes:

You and modest women everywhere will win the battle of dress versus pants. The fashion industry will support any change in style. What is revealed will be covered, what is covered will be revealed. The nature of women’s fashion is constant change. Pants have ruled for decades. I’m tired of them. I long for the sweet movement of a dress or a skirt. And yes, such an outfit can flatter the figure of any woman in a way that is wholesome and appealing.

Woman can be very beautiful. They are far more beautiful than men. The beauty of a woman is natural, but with the enhancement of techniques which remain a mystery to me.

The beauty of women can be a great pleasure. And there is a way to notice a woman’s appearance which is not leering, but agreeable to both parties.

True, many woman dress very badly today — to put it politely. But it is the nature of fashion to change. I am not putting this in moral terms — that women ought to wear dresses and dress more modestly. Rather, I am suggesting that a sound and morally-empowered movement take advantage of the swings of fashion, and say something like “pants aren’t cool anymore.”

Laura writes:

The modern fashion industry is committed to change but is feminist in its inclinations, with an emphasis on sex and power. Even dresses (think of the power suit) can be masculine. No matter what our fashion engineers produce the average woman does not equate beauty with modesty and tends to reject modest clothing.

I love the beautiful dress of the woman in this photo.

Brendan writes:

I think the woman in the photo looks beautiful as well.

I think that the issue of fashion has a couple of permutations to it.

The most obvious is that the trend towards women wearing pants pretty much most of the time, with skirts/dresses for “special occasions,” is simply indicative of the grinding, over-arching push towards androgyny our culture has experienced in the past few decades. Women and men basically dress the same now for everything other than “dressy” occasions. Sure, women wear tighter clothing than men (if they want to, and they often do, I think, in an effort to secure male validation of their attractiveness, even if they are wearing pants), but otherwise it’s more or less the same clothing. Everyday clothing has become largely androgynous as a result, which is yet another factor in de-masculinizing men while masculinizing women.

On another level, however, it’s of course true that skirts have been retained in female fashion. The context for them, however, is often the hyper-racy side of things — sexy clubwear and so on. Skirts are becoming reserved for those occasions where women want to be feminine in a hyper, amped-up sexual way (i.e., “dressed to kill”).

Another context for them, paradoxically, is certain professional wear for women. I have worked around professional women for about 20 years now, and there are a few general approaches they take to dress. One is to be masculine/androgynous — the pantsuit look. Another is to be somewhat feminine yet conservative — think skirt suit with a modest length and not revealing top. Yet another, which is more common among younger professional women, is the “sexy professional” look — think “power suit” except the skirt is mid-thigh, the heels are 5 inch stilettos and the top has a plunging type neckline. This is communicating both “professional power” and “sexual power” at once, and a certain type of professional woman can pull this off very well. although the resulting look is a kind of sexualized masculine femininity, if that makes sense. Of course, it’s quite ironic that such a woman would be most feminine (even if it’s in a “power feminine” mode) at work — I suspect that these same women wear jeans and sweat pants when they are at home with their boyfriends and husbands, as is commonplace today.

In all, I think it’s just another symptom of the drift towards increasing androgyny, in general, and in particular the masculinization of women.

K. writes:

There is something very, very funny that happens in the endless argument over whether trousers are acceptable on women.

People on the pro-pants side always bring up the fact that there are East Asian forms of traditional dress that look more or less like Western ladies’ trousers, therefore pants are fine.

This is hilarious to me every time, because it indicates the person making the argument is so completely divorced from physical reality they probably have trouble dressing themselves. East Asian women have no butts, to put it very crudely. It’s a very rare white or black woman who can even get her bottom half into a traditional East Asian garment intended for that portion of her anatomy.

Hurricane Betsy writes:

When men have to do outdoor chores in the winter, wearing skirts or dresses, with the the temperature sometimes going down to -30 degrees Celsius, plus a nice strong wind 9as I do), then I will hold still for arguments on wifely submission, deference to men, the proper re-feminization of women, and so on.

When men and the pro-female-deference camp, wearing skirts, have to wait for a bus for 1/2 an hour in the sort of weather mentioned above, then I will shut the big fat yap that I am known to exercise on this topic and countless others.

But not until I see those lovely skirts swirling around my betters’ well-developed, hairy calves.

Laura writes:

Pioneer women did chores in skirts. There are ways to keep oneself warm, especially if one wears leggings. My biggest problem with full-time skirts is that I do not have attractive working shoes I can wear with them. Sneakers and dresses are a hideous combination.

Jenny writes:

Try a pair of Mary Janes. Works for me, and I’m all dresses/skirts all the time, even in the dead of a Colorado winter shoveling snow and playing with my little boy. Of cours, I don’t wear the Mary Janes in the snow!

Hurricane Betsy writes:

Both my grannies (one born c. 1878, the other 1895) never wore pants, and did plenty of outdoor work. But they didn’t have to cope with the dangers of long skirts possibly getting stuck in a PTO (driveshaft) on a tractor or working with a logsplitter, and other machinery. I hope you grasp my point. Pants, tightfitting, and made of clingy knit-material, is the safest for some purposes.

Now, as to “other ways to keep warm” than pants if you are in the city, regular-length skirts just won’t wash no matter how thick your leggings are. You need pants with long thermal underwear to be sufficiently warm where I reside. Also, storms come up and the car gets stuck in the snow. You have to get out and shovel. You have to walk a mile from the car to the house. There is nothing antifeminine or hostile about proper clothing suited to the specific occasion.

In my part of the world, there’s lots of Hutterian Brethren women who never, ever wear pants. In the winter I see them shopping in the city, then walking some distance to their van or truck, in the most hideous weather, wearing their thin cotton skirts and regular shoes. And small jackets, not full-length winter-type coats. And they are generally a prosperous bunch. I’m sure they have leggings or long underwear underneath, but what point is being made here? The Hutterites have modernized in a hundred different ways, but still stick with the long skirts.

I don’t quite understand your concern regarding suitable shoes. I mean, with everything else that you do going against modern social norms, why would you care the least bit about this minor factor?

All other things being equal, I would love to be able to wear nice skirts and dresses. But it is not always practical.

Laura writes:

Pants are not immoral. You seem to be suggesting that I am arguing that they are. I have never said so. And I haven’t taken the ludicrous position that a woman should wear skirts even at the risk of getting them caught in logsplitters. I have said no such thing. In fact, I have said that I myself wear pants often. I believe skirts are preferable. They help to remind the world of femininity; they are more attractive than pants on most women; and men like them.

Almost any group of people that recognizes the spiritual aspects of male and female demands a different style of dress from men and women. Only societies that are soulless and arid tolerate unisex clothing. You ask of the Hutterites, “What point is being made?” The world has changed and they themselves have changed, but they are not so different from their forbears. That is what they are saying. Why don’t they wear warmer dresses? That seems like a separate question. I don’t know why, and I have not advocated that women today dress like pioneer women.

I don’t quite understand your concern regarding suitable shoes. I mean, with everything else that you do going against modern social norms, why would you care the least bit about this minor factor?

I have never said that aesthetics or fashion are not important. A dress worn with athletic shoes is ugly.

By the way, much of what I say was accepted as common sense as little as sixty years ago.

Nora writes:

Beautiful photo! She would not project the same romantic aura in pants. She looks like an upperclass lady of leisure or a lady in her Sunday best. I remember reading somewhere that white clothing used to be considered a status symbol because it was high maintenance and had to be replaced more often than any other color. Even today, with modern detergents, washing machines, and Clorox, my white blouses have to be replaced the most often because they get a dingy look after a while that nothing will remove.

I wish people would drop the utilitarian approach to dress and start dressing up again where appropriate. Nothing wrong with pants on women if the occasion is casual and the pants fit properly (just because you can zip it up doesn’t mean it fits!), but the gold standard for women’s dress in more formal occasions is still skirts. I have a female lawyer friend who has told me she would never show up in court dressed in anything but a skirt suit. A pantsuit would be seen as more casual, less professional, and not showing proper respect to court proceedings. Personally, I favor pants in winter but skirts the rest of the year. I have a hard time finding pants that fit well.

A word on the androgyny that Brendan mentioned: Contrary to what many people think, I get the idea that the androgyny in women’s dress got started as a way to accentuate, not deemphasize, femininity. It’s a look that works by contrasts. A woman with a pretty face and slight build in a man’s shirt is going to look even slighter and more feminine because the looseness and masculine details of the shirt will emphasize it. The slenderness of her neck and wrists are more noticeable against a substantial collar and cuffs than they would be in lace and ruffles. Think of Audrey Hepburn in Gregory Peck’s shirts in Roman Holiday. Or Jean Seberg’s boyish haircut showing off her delicate face and neck. Because of the need for contrast, it’s a look that only works on women who are naturally very feminine and fragile-looking. But many women tend to adopt a fashion indiscriminately, without thinking whether or not it suits them. If she has a heavier build, strong jaw, or other masculine traits, she’ll look like a man if she dresses this way. There may be a few (usually lesbians) who really want to look like a man, but I think most women are just unaware of what really suits them.

Laura writes:

Masculine dress does beautifully accentuate the femininity and delicacy of some women. That’s an excellent point. Audrey Hepburn in a shirt and slacks is a good example. However,  masculine dress was not adopted on a large scale for this reason. It was adopted for ideological reasons. Shirts and trousers are not appealing on most women, as becoming as they are on Audrey Hepburn, and this fact was disregarded in the widespread acceptance of the masculine look. The adoption of masculine dress paralleled the growth in feminist thinking; suffragettes made a point of rejecting traditional feminine clothing. Their ideas spread and were accepted by the masses.

All of us are, to some degree, slaves of fashion. For instance, I would not wear the dress in the photo above, as beautiful as it is. It is not practical to expect women to choose whatever is best for their own physique because they will largely choose from what is popular and what is available in the stores. It is too difficult and time-consuming for most women to set their own style. Today, clothes are either masculine or hyper-sexual, with lots of cleavage and exposed flesh. Most women look awful with lots of exposed flesh. Masculine dress is feminine on some, but it makes the majority look worse. It also destroys the feminine sensibility. A woman in pants moves more freely and is more inclined to sit with her legs spread or move in ways that are more assertive. A woman in pants strides more freely. (Although long loose skirts and dresses do allow for striding.) I enjoy striding myself and admit pants create a feeling of freedom. But something is lost. Our wardrobes embody our ideas.

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