General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsWomen Who Wear Pants: Still Somehow Controversial
Just ask a flight attendant. Or Hillary Clinton.
http://www.slate.com/articles/double_x/doublex/2016/02/women_wearing_pants_are_still_controversial.html
"Female flight attendants at British Airways just spent two years fighting for the right to wear pants on the joband they finally won. The airline crews union, Unite, celebrated the triumph earlier this month, saying, Female cabin crew no longer have to shiver in the cold, wet and snow of wintery climates, but also can be afforded the protection of trousers at destinations where there is a risk of malaria or the Zika virus. Good news all around! Unite also declared, Not only is the choice to wear trousers a victory for equality it is also a victory for common sense.
But wait. Isnt the equal right to make the common-sense decision of wearing pants a victory that women had already won? (At British Airways, trousers have been accepted wear for established crew since 2003, but the airline has applied different rules to attendants hired since a set of strikes in 2010.) Why are we still talking about womens right to pants? Like many of womens battles, pants-related activism stretches back centuries and continues with no sign of abating in the present day.
In America, the first women to seek pants also sought power. In addition to suffrage, 19th-century feminists such as Elizabeth Cady Stanton advocated what they called rational dress, a costume with a short skirt over loose trousers that was pioneered by the activist Elizabeth Smith Miller. In 1851, Amelia Bloomer famously defended the pants against social ridicule in her newspaper, the Lily, the first ladies journal in U.S. history; thereafter, both the clothes and their wearers became known as bloomers. But the fashions run was short-lived. As Kathleen Cooper has noted in her excellent short history of women and pants at the Toast, Prominent feminists were more concerned with gaining womens rights than dress reform, and most of them dressed like ladies to avoid detracting from their main cause of securing the vote.
...
When will we be finished advocating for womens right to wear pants? Doesnt mens right to wear skirts deserve some love after all these centuries? At the Toast, Cooper suggests, Mens skirts are in the ridicule stage now, just as trousers were on women 150 years ago. Celebrities like Jaden Smith and Jared Leto have signaled an interest in this fashion-forward cause. Meanwhile, I fully intend to wear pants on my next flight, and I hope the crewmembers will have the option to do the same."
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struggle4progress
(118,301 posts)HuckleB
(35,773 posts)Wow.
Manifestor_of_Light
(21,046 posts)Yes I remember that.
I think men should have the right to wear kilts, especially if they have nice legs.
Dale Neiburg
(698 posts)underpants
(182,839 posts)gratuitous
(82,849 posts)Blazing a trail for all mankind.
LanternWaste
(37,748 posts)And in trivializing an actual concern, you continue to advertise your character, regardless of smilie.
davidn3600
(6,342 posts)It would be quite controversial if male flight attendants showed up in skirts. Perhaps even more controversial than if women showed up in pants.
What dictates gender-based dress habits is social traditions and culture. When we grow up we are told, "Men wear this.....and women wear that..." and that's how we grow up. It's what we become accustomed to. When we see women wearing something men usually wear (or vice-versa) we stare and find it strange and out of place.
The point here is the culture is what determines this. And our ideas of what constitutes feminine or masculine clothing is taught to us by society, parents, and the media. We are all born naked. We don't come out of the womb knowing ties are for men and skirts are for women.
Odin2005
(53,521 posts)Sure, there are pants designed for men and pants designed for women, but for us "pants" as a general thing are completely unisex. Even us guys are completely mystified by rules not allowing women to wear pants.
Rex
(65,616 posts)That is one stupid hang up for men imo.
HuckleB
(35,773 posts)I have to post a shorts vs. pants OP. That's always big fun!
DO ITT!
Jim Beard
(2,535 posts)Warpy
(111,283 posts)because his mommy couldn't tell the difference between a doctor in scrubs and a nurse in scrubs, even though each had introduced him/herself to her and was wearing a name tag, besides.
Doctors wanted us all in starchy little white dresses with caps. Every single one of us said we'd quit. Needless to say, the doctors did not get their wish.
Honestly, I am so sick of this shit.
That CEO definitely needs some lackeys who are willing to say, "No!"
backscatter712
(26,355 posts)...they solve that problem with different color scrubs - doctors may wear blue scrubs, while nurses may wear green scrubs or something.
Making them wear "Nurse Ratched" dresses sounds utterly ridiculous.
HuckleB
(35,773 posts)nadinbrzezinski
(154,021 posts)Yes kids, has to do with the starch.
Warpy
(111,283 posts)We called them "porno nurse getups."
nadinbrzezinski
(154,021 posts)In some places by the way
malthaussen
(17,205 posts)You could tell where the R.N. took her training by her cap.
-- Mal
Manifestor_of_Light
(21,046 posts)Because her cousin had a Master's degree from Yale University in nursing, and she had a navy blue stripe on her cap. She also had a Master's degree in Public Health and a BS in Chemistry from Incarnate Word College in San Antonio. She helped me with my chemistry homework in high school.
Mojorabbit
(16,020 posts)for years and years. Before I retired we had graduated to scrubs. I did miss wearing the cap though.
Warpy
(111,283 posts)There's too much grubbing around on the floor to read collection containers.
nadinbrzezinski
(154,021 posts)Mojorabbit
(16,020 posts)Odin2005
(53,521 posts)...and the woman is the nurse. My grandma, a former nurse, gets confused like this when she has been hospitalized and she still has trouble comprehending the concept of male nurses.
RobinA
(9,894 posts)to the problem of going into a hospital and not knowing who is who, there are certainly ways of solving the problem without returning to the '50's.
Warpy
(111,283 posts)and we kept our scrubs with white scrub tops and white lab coats. It was a compromise that kept us comfortable and covered when we were doing things on the floor.
Any man who insists women wear dresses should have to wear them, himself. They are simply impractical for real work.
MissB
(15,810 posts)to inspect or troubleshoot. I wear jeans, because the folks I meet with are wearing jeans, and I'd look out of place - and frankly prissy- if I wore anything other than jeans. I might be wearing a sweater instead of a tshirt but I'm basically ready to crawl into small spaces as needed.
So a few years ago I was out working for a few days troubleshooting at one location with someone from the federal government. She was appalled that I wasn't wearing a skirt like she was. Um, so you don't get out much do you, I asked. No, she was usually behind a desk. I could understand that but she went on about how women shouldn't wear pants.
I drank every night. She was a sweet lady but goodness she got on my last nerve with her outdated ideas of gender roles.
Early in my career I was used to men looking at me askew until I proved my worth in their world. But to run into such outdated thinking only a few years ago - from a woman- just really blew my mind.
HuckleB
(35,773 posts)Odin2005
(53,521 posts)Because the only people I know who have hang-ups about women wearing pants are extreme fundamentalist evangelicals.
Warren DeMontague
(80,708 posts)malthaussen
(17,205 posts)Judy Carne, of Laugh-In, dared to wear a tunic and pants to a chi-chi NYC restaurant, and was turned away by the maitre-d' for wearing pants. So she stood right there in the foyer of the place and stripped off the pants -- and was admitted, since she was now wearing a perfectly-acceptable miniskirt.
Sumptuary tabus are stupid.
-- Mal
HuckleB
(35,773 posts)RobinA
(9,894 posts)for the days when I was young enough to wear a tunic for a dress.
Odin2005
(53,521 posts)I've heard several stories of schools with school uniforms not allowing girls to wear pants, and many workplaces require women to wear high-heels
Runningdawg
(4,520 posts)my father died a few years ago. Up until then women wearing anything other than a modest dress were not allowed into his house.
His house, his rules, we met other places.
valerief
(53,235 posts)the office place. We all bought matching polyester jackets and pants. They had to match, else they weren't considered pantsuits.
I can't remember when it was okay to wear a blouse and slacks (as opposed to a pantsuit). I think by the mid-70s. It also depended on how big/conservative the employer was.
Manifestor_of_Light
(21,046 posts)They didn't let girls wear pants to school when it was cold until several years after I graduated.
I graduated from high school in the early 70s.
Needless to say, I got to college and it was jeans and t shirts all the time for years! I was SICK of dresses.
My mother was furious with me for not wearing makeup (which to her meant red lipstick) and not wearing dresses. I had to explain to her that we didn't have formal dress balls like they did in her day (the 1940s).
kskiska
(27,045 posts)We lived a mile from my elementary school and there were no buses. This was in New England, and even in the coldest weather, or in the snow, I had to walk to school. I'd wear wool slacks underneath my dress, removing them at school. In junior high, boys weren't allowed to wear jeans. The purported reason was because the rivets would damage the school furniture.
Manifestor_of_Light
(21,046 posts)We used to have about four hard freezes in Jan and Feb. and it would get in the 20s for a couple of days and then thaw.
I had to wear a dress from 1960 to 1972. Then in high school when we would wear a long dress to school, they tried to ban those, and I can't figure out why unless it was controlling us, and that that was considered hippie.
Glimmer of Hope
(5,823 posts)I was so humiliated.
qwlauren35
(6,148 posts)for speaking up in this post.
qwlauren35
(6,148 posts)people in this thread who seem to be dismissing this issue, and not understanding its impact. Pants are practical; long dresses, dresses below the knees, or dresses which restrict the parting of legs (unlike kilts) are not practical. What does it say about a society that does not want women to wear practical clothing? It means that they will be restricted from certain jobs.
Now, on top of this, try to envision the difference in warmth between a short dress and long pants in 0 degree weather. Why is it more important to be "pretty" than practical? Under pants, you can wear thermal underwear. Under a dress, at best, you can wear tights. I'll take the thermals.
I went to Catholic school in the 1970's. Until the doors opened, the kids hung out outside. Some days it was cold. There was nothing to do, unless you were the type to run around... and girls had to wear skirts with no pants.
I know there are more men on DU than women, and some men just can't see that clothing is a feminist issue. No, it's not up there with abortion rights, or fair pay, but it's an issue.
One that men really don't have to deal with. So please, let us women rally and cheer for this victory, those of us who know what it was like to wear skirts in the cold, those of us who wanted to take long strides but could not, those of us who understood that women wearing skirts weren't supposed to have dirty jobs, and therefore, were ineligible for certain career opportunities.
It's the lack of understanding that I see in this thread that makes me understand why it is SO important to women like Gloria Steinem and Madeleine Albright that Hillary is running.
noamnety
(20,234 posts)to Hillary's pantsuits as if she is defined by the fact that she's female but wears a suit with *gasp* pants.
I'm for Bernie all the way, but that shit still makes me mad. I've been wearing pants for 50 years, when is it going to stop being an issue???
HuckleB
(35,773 posts)The issues should be plenty. Leave the sideshow nonsense to the other "party,"
TexasBushwhacker
(20,204 posts)I do.
1) I have never had great legs. At 59 and overweight, I really don't have great legs. If she wore skirts, she would probably get comments about her legs rather than her pants.
2) I think high heels and pantyhose are a Communist plot. You can't really look stylish in a skirt without wearing heals. At unless you are blessed with the perfect skintone to go without stockings, you either have to wear pantyhose or get a spray tan.
Personally, I mostly wear long flowy skirts because they are cooler in Texas' hot summers. But I admit they don't look as professional as a tailored skirt or pantsuit.
snooper2
(30,151 posts)Like she is saying-
Set Phasers to Stun!
Orrex
(63,216 posts)Who's with me?
HuckleB
(35,773 posts)ProfessorGAC
(65,081 posts). . .who did that amazing dunk with skinny jeans on.
So, no skinny jeans unless you're wearing them to dunk a basketball.