Why+Women+Wear+Skirts

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Lawrence Langner, //The Importance of Wearing Clothes//

 * p.21: Erect posture in walking…was an enormous improvement on man's four-legged crawling or walking posture. But in one respect it was not. The male sex organs, which were protected by his back and the forepart of his body…were now thrust forward and exposed and without protection when he walked along the ground. Since he sometimes wrapped thongs, girdles and ornamental objects and material around his arms and legs for decoration, it was not beyond his power of invention…to hand similar material around his waist in the form of a small apron or flap of bark, matting, hide or fur hanging from a girdle of thongs around his middle, which also served to protect his sexual organs. By placing this apron in a protective position over these, prehistoric man was at least partially protected...He was thereafter able to move around in the jungle or tall grass without hurting himself.
 * p.22: One of our early ancestors with too large a piece of matted material or hide for his apron, probably conceived the idea of tucking it under his crotch and fastening it to the thong or cord at his back. This increased his body protection, but was less comfortable to wear.
 * p.22: Women, with less exposure [of sexual organs], were often satisfied with a string of beads or shells worn over the pelvis, which probably was more effective in provoking attention than in providing protection.
 * p.26: It would appear…that trousers and skirts were invented at least 10,000 to 12,000 years ago, or possibly earlier, to protect the wearer against cold, and even in those early times the male usually wore trousers for hunting while the female wore the ancient equivalent of a shirtwaist and skirt.
 * p.36: …almost every article of clothing from ancient times down to today performs the following functions: (a) It is useful, as for instance in protecting the body, (b) it is ornamental or possesses aesthetic qualities, (c) it indicates the superior rank, or lack of rank, of the wearer, or his calling, (d) and it has qualities which tend to stimulate sexual interest.
 * p.48: Prehistoric man living in a state of nudity had another cogent reason based on sex for inventing clothes. Man's external sex organs may, by visible distention, involuntarily indicate interest in the presence of a sexually attractive woman. The inventions of the apron, the loin cloth and, eventually, trousers or other garments capable of hiding this, made it possible for groups of people to live peaceably together without arousing the disruptive suspicions and jealousies of the males in a community…The need of clothing to hide the effects of sexual excitation among certain groups of men found its counterpart in the need of clothing to hide the menstrual period in women…Tribal customs among most primitive people to this day include the isolation of women during menstruation. The virtual imprisonment of girls undergoing their first menstrual period is often cruel in the extreme. The belief in the uncleanliness of women during this period was also expressed in the Old Testament. It became desirable for women to hide the effects of menstruation…
 * p.51: …the differentiation in clothing between men and women arose from the male's desire to assert superiority over the female and to hold her to his service. This he accomplished through the ages by means of special clothing which hampered or handicapped the female in her movements. Then men prohibited one sex from wearing the clothing of the other, in order to maintain this difference.
 * p.51: In order to maintain his masculine domination as head of the family and food provider, man invented "man-clothes" which were the exclusive property of the male sex, gave his complete mobility and made him feel superior to his woman. He also devised "woman-clothes" for the female which made it difficult for her to wander far from the camp fire and the children.
 * p.51-52: Men used clothing to demonstrate male superiority, giving men greater mobility while hampering female movement: This was accomplished in Western civilization by providing divided garments such as trousers...or pleated kilts, or tunics which permitted free movement for the male, while the female was forced to wear hampering skirts and dresses which impeded her movements…Later he handicapped her still further in other ways, such as by dresses with hampering trains, and by high-heeled shoes which made walking a kind of acrobatic feat. Nor was this handicapping limited to Western women. In the East the sexes often reversed their clothes. The woman usually wore trousers or pantaloons, but to prevent her free movement her feet were bound and crippled, as in old China, or her steps were limited by her kimono in Japan…or her face and body were heavily veiled, as in Arab countries…Thus, by imposing confining garments on woman, or by otherwise hobbling her, man was enable almost universally to keep her in a state of inferiority and subjugation to him as a personal possession.
 * p.54: The hobbling of Western women by skirts has been a universal custom through the ages. In the days of the Egyptians, Greeks, Romans and other Mediterranean peoples, both men and women wore robes, but the men and warriors generally wore the short knee-length tunic or kilt, usually with folds or pleats which did not hamper movement…Their ceremonial robes were longer. The women usually wore long encumbering robes with reached to or below the ankles. The early Sumerian male (2700 B.C.) wore a long robe with pleats ingeniously placed around the lowest part to give him freedom of movement, while the Amazons were distinguished by wearing short knee-length skirts...which enabled them to battle with the males on more or less equal terms.

Ernest Crawley, "The Sexual Background of Dress" in Mary Ellen Roach & Joanne Bubolz Eicher, eds. //Dress, Adornment, and the Social Order//

 * p. 72: The most distinctive social division is the permanent division of sex. Up to puberty this is more or less ignored, and the neutral quality of the previous stage is often indicated by the neutral connotation of the term "child" and by a neutral fashion of child-dress. It is natural that the growth and maturity of the primary sexual characters should give these a prominent place in the principles of distinguishing garb, and that they should, as it were, mold the dress into adaptive forms…
 * p. 75: The assumption of sexual dress at maturity raises the question of the original meaning of special coverings for the primary sexual characters. Their probable origin in an impulse towards protection against the natural environment has been suggested…But the chief and the distinctively social factor is always that of affirming by a secondary and artificial integument the particular physiological stage which society transforms into a human grade of communal life. This is well illustrated by such facts as the frequent absence of the skirt, for example, until marriage, and, more significantly, until pregnancy or motherhood.