What? There Was a Time When Women Didn’t wear the Pants in the Family?!

Amazon wearing pants. Source: Smithsonian

It’s 1903. The heroine of my new historical romance, The Art of Love, has been invited on a mysterious outing, and after telling the hero she doesn’t own any trousers, he has a pair sent to her. No big deal today, right? We’d just slip on our most comfortable pants (Mom jeans, anyone?) and head out the door. But back at the turn of the twentieth century it was practically unthinkable for women to wear pants.

Evidence from ancient Greek pottery shows that at least some women wore them (okay, they were Amazon warriors), but the practice must not have caught on, because with few exceptions (like women ranchers), it wasn’t until World War One (nearly 2400 years later!) that some women started wearing their husbands’ cast offs in order to work certain male-dominated jobs while their menfolk were away fighting the War to End All Wars. Perhaps they were inspired by the Puerto Rican labor and feminist activist Luisa Capetillo, who was actually arrested in 1915 in Havana for walking down the street dressed in a suit and tie (yes, the charges were later dropped, but she was deported — guess they didn’t care for her fashion sense.).

The 1930’s were a time of experimentation and “avant-gardness” (now there’s a word for you). Remember those classic shots of the actress Katherine Hepburn in trousers? She was definitely a trend setter. Then World War II came along and the need to wear pants to handle traditionally men-only jobs rose again (imagine the iconic “Rosie the Riveter” in a dress? Hardly!). In the late Sixties the first jeans specifically geared toward women were introduced and over the next decade the concept of “designer jeans” really took off.

Today, women all over the world wear pants all day, every day, and reserve dresses only for special occasions (even then, the pants often just get fancier). But less than a century ago, women in the Americas would have been ostracized for rebelling against the norm and, in some cases, perhaps even arrested for something akin to “indecent exposure.” Dare I say we’ve come a long way, baby?