Trousers (or pants in American English) are a staple of historical and modern fashion. Throughout history, the role of trousers for women has been in constant change. The first appearance of trousers in recorded history was among steppe-people in Western Europe, who were nomads of various different ethnic groups living in the Eurasian grasslands. Archaeological evidence suggests that men and women alike wore trousers in that cultural context.
However, for much of modern history, the use of trousers was restricted to men. This norm was enforced in many regions via social customs and laws. There are, however, many historical cases of women wearing trousers in defiance of these norms, such as the 1850s women's rights movement. Motivations for women wearing trousers against societal norms included comfort, freedom of movement, fashion, disguise (notably for runaway slaves), attempts to evade the gender pay gap, and attempts to establish an empowered public identity for women. Especially in the 20th and 21st centuries, the customs and laws restricting this manner of dress relaxed dramatically, reflecting a growing acceptance and normalisation of the practice.
The teaching of Orthodox Jews and some Christian denominations, such as Conservative Anabaptists and the Methodists of the conservative holiness movement, continue to enjoin women to wear full-length dresses, rather than trousers, in order to maintain what they see as a distinction in the sexes.
Antiquity
Although some images from Mycenaean Greece (c. 1750 – c. 1050 BCE) suggest both women and men wore primitive trousers, in classical ancient Greece and ancient Rome, trousers were rarely worn in general.Encarta Winkler Prins Encyclopaedia (1993–2002) s.v. "kostuum §1. Oudheid". Microsoft Corporation/Het Spectrum. Instead, both wore a tunic as undergarment, with Roman women wearing a stola and men a toga as upper garment. Amongst the Germanic peoples, men generally wore long trousers, and women sometimes as well. It seems that ancient Egyptians and Mesopotamians wore no trousers but a vast array of aprons, robes, cloaks, and knee skirts. On the other hand, all Persians wore tight trousers, regardless of sex; at a later stage, they adopted some cloaks from the Assyrians. Other ancient Iranian peoples such as Scythians, Sarmatians, Sogdians and Bactrians among others, along with Armenians and Eastern and Central Asian peoples such as the Xiongnu/Hunnu, are known to have worn trousers.Payne, Blanche. History of Costume. Harper & Row, 1965. pp. 49–51 Trousers are believed to have been worn by both sexes among these early users.Lever, James (1995, 2010). Costume and Fashion: A Concise History. Thames and Hudson. p. 15.
Western dress reform and laws in the 19th century France in the 19th century
From 1800 until 2013, women in Paris, France were technically forbidden from wearing trousers without permission from police, with only a few exceptions. Enforcement of this largely stopped only during World War I and after. In the 1850s, painter Rosa Bonheur had to ask permission from the police to wear trousers, as this was her preferred attire to go to the sheep and cattle markets to study the animals she painted.
Laws against cross-dressing and vagrancy in the United States
Various U.S. cities, in the 19th and 20th centuries, passed legislation barring women from wearing trousers. Among these U.S. cities include a 1863 law passed by San Francisco's Board of Supervisors criminalising appearing in public in "a dress not belonging to his or her sex", although similar laws existed in Columbus, Ohio (passed 1848); Chicago, Illinois (passed 1851); Houston, Texas (passed 1864); Orlando, Florida (passed 1907), and approximately two dozen other US cities. Anti-cross-dressing laws continued to pass well into the 20th century, with Detroit, Michigan, and Miami, Florida, passing laws into the late 1950s.
Additionally, existing laws such as anti-vagrancy statutes were pressed into service to ensure that women would dress in accord with the gender norms of the time. One such instance would be New York's anti-vagrancy statute of 1845, which stated that "Every person who, having his face painted, discoloured, covered or concealed, or being otherwise disguised, in a manner calculated to prevent him from being identified, shall appear in any road or public highway, or in any field, lot, wood or inclosure, may be pursued and arrested". This law was used to prosecute women for cross-dressing, on the grounds that their dressing outside of gender norms constituted a "disguise". Boston used similar anti-vagrancy laws to arrest Emma Snodgrass and her friend Harriet French in 1852. (Snodgrass would be arrested again in Cleveland in 1853, and French would be arrested again in New York in 1856.) French reportedly broke with convention in order to pursue job opportunities open only to men: she claimed to the New York Daily Times that she could "get more wages" dressed as a man.
Anti-vagrancy laws were also used to arrest Jennie Westbrook in New York, in 1882 and 1883. Westbrook's case was said at the time to have "awakened deep interest" among the public, as it was understood that she was attempting to "escape from that bondage [to] which social laws have subjected the sex". Like Harriet French in Boston, Westbrook identified work opportunities as her reason for cross-dressing: "Her excuse was that she could make $20 a week in her disguise, while as a 'saleslady' in a fashionable store the pay would be only one-third that amount."
19th-century dress reform in the United States
In 1851, early women's rights advocate Elizabeth Smith Miller introduced Amelia Bloomer to a garment initially known as the "Turkish dress", which featured a knee-length skirt over Turkish-style pantaloons. Bloomer came to advocate and promote the dress, including instructions for making it, in The Lily, a newspaper dedicated to the "Emancipation of Woman from Intemperance, Injustice, Prejudice, and Bigotry". This inspired a craze for the dress, which came to be known as bloomers.
Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Lucy Stone, other early advocates for women's rights, also adopted this style of dress in the 1850s, referring to it as the "freedom dress".
Concurrently, some female labourers, notably the pit brow women working at coal pits in the Wigan area, began wearing trousers beneath a short skirt as a practical component of their uniform. This attracted the attention of the public, and various photographers produced records of the women's unconventional manner of dress through the mid- to late 19th century.
Another woman who advocated publicly for dress reform was Mary Edwards Walker, the abolitionist and Civil War surgeon. Walker, who had worn bloomers while working at a military hospital, wrote in 1871 that women's dress should "protect the person, and allow freedom of motion and circulation, and not make the wearer a slave to it". Walker openly wore men's trousers, and was arrested several times for wearing male attire. Her earliest arrest was 1866, in New York, and her final arrest was in 1913, in Chicago, at the age of 80 years. Marie Suize Pantalon, a French gold miner and businesswoman in early California, was arrested and tried three times for wearing pants before she petitioned the government for permission to wear them.
United States and Europe in the 20th century
1890s–1914 According to Valerie Steele, by the end of the 19th century, Parisian women were wearing bloomers more commonly than English and American women, probably because bloomers were presented as a fashionable item in France rather than a quasi-feminist statement, which fashion writers strongly disliked. By 1895, however, many middle-class American girls had adopted the bike and the bloomer and began to call themselves "New Women," despite society's resistance. Meanwhile, these early women's trousers diversified according to their uses for gymnastics, bathing, cycling or titillation.
An updated version of the bloomer, for athletic use, was introduced in the 1890s as women's bicycling came into fashion. As activities such as tennis, cycling, and horseback riding became more popular at the turn of the century, women turned to trousers or knickerbockers to provide comfort and freedom of movement in these activities, and some laws made allowances for women's wearing of trousers during these activities.
Jeanne Margaine-Lacroix presented wide-legged trousers for women in 1910, some months before Paul Poiret, who took credit for being the first to introduce the style.
1914–1920
During the First World War (1914–1918), many women in countries such as France, the United Kingdom and the United States were recruited to work in factories, especially munitions factories, to aid the war effort, or to replace men in service sectors such as public transport. While many men were sent to the front line to fight, their wives often started to wear their trousers or boiler suits inside the factories for better safety and comfort. Over time, specific designs tailored to the practical needs of female industrial workers were developed by other women. Although it was considered daring as they challenged dress norms in doing so, necessitated by the circumstances, women's trousers gained some social acceptability during the war years.
However, arrests for women wearing trousers did not cease. For instance, in 1919, labour leader Luisa Capetillo became the first woman in Puerto Rico to wear trousers in public. Capetillo was sent to jail for what was then considered to be a crime in Puerto Rico, although the judge later dropped the charges against her. She would repeat this act of rebellion again stepping off the boat into Cuba where the judge was not so lenient leading to her serving time.
1920s
During the post-war years into the early 1920s, French and American clothing manufacturers appear to have been confused on what kind of clothes to make for women, as some thought prewar norms should be restored, whilst others sought ways forward and evolution. With economies still in tatters and certain fabrics in short supply, this forced designers to be creative, with most initially focusing on new types and designs of skirts and dresses. Meanwhile, however, after gaining more socioeconomic independence by doing paid work in the absence of their husbands, women in many countries successfully campaigned for the right to vote, obtaining more political power and social autonomy. Athleticism and sports were increasingly accepted as activities for women, wearing more convenient trousers which were decreasingly called 'bloomers', and no longer explicitly associated with feminist activism.
Women increasingly wore trousers as leisurewear in the 1920s and 30s, and working women, including female pilots, often wore trousers.
1930s
Actresses Marlene Dietrich and Katharine Hepburn were often photographed in trousers in the 1930s, showing how the style had spread from the working class and Dietrich famously appearing in a black tuxedo and matching fedora at the 1932 premiere of The Sign of the Cross.
Eleanor Roosevelt became the first First Lady to appear in trousers at a formal function, presiding over the Easter Egg Roll in 1933 wearing riding trousers, a consequence of not having time to change after an early morning ride. However, she seemed to embrace the unconventional circumstance, posing for a photo in the trousers on the South Portico of the White House.
American women fencers were originally required to wear skirts when competing. In 1937, the Amateur Fencers League of America issued a new rule book stating, among other things, that after September 1, 1939, women would be allowed to wear either a "divided skirt" or "loose-fitting white trousers fastened below the knee".Evangelista, Nick., Evangelista, Anita. The Woman Fencer. United States: Wish Pub., 2001. Pgs. 37, 214.