“Women can’t Wear Pants”
A pastor running for office in Colorado recently made headlines in a not very good way. He said women shouldn’t wear pants.
It’s hard to believe that in 2019 women wearing pants, trousers, and jeans is still remotely controversial. But a quick Google search shows that some Christians think that the Bible forbids women from wearing pants. The fact is, trousers were originally invented for one specific reason:
Riding horses.
Trousers appear to have been invented somewhere in the Asian steppes by horse nomads, and both sexes, obviously, wore them. The fashion appears to have spread to China, where pants were seen as a convenient way to dress for labor…again by both men and women. In fact, art indicates that skirts and robes were worn by rich people to demonstrate that they didn’t have to engage in physical labor.
So, Why are Pants so Controversial?
Until relatively recently, pants on women were a mainstream controversy. Women in Congress had to fight to be allowed to wear pantsuits rather than skirts, and it was technically illegal (albeit never enforced) for women to wear trousers in Paris unless they were…
