Excusez-moi? Did I read that right? Women can officially wear pants in Paris! This is huge. First you let women vote, and now they can wear pants? Gah. Ladies, how did you live without pants? Weren’t you cold in the winter? Did you have to shave your legs every day? Oh, right, you’ve been wearing pants this entire time anyway.
Last week, Najat Vallaud-Belkacem, France’s minister for women’s rights, ended the no-pants law, dating back to 1799 (just after the French Revolution). At the time, the reason for the law was to keep women from being mistaken for revolutionaries.
The law has been amended a few times, first in 1892 adding in the exception of women holding the reigns of a horse, and also in 1909 with the exception of women holding the handlebars of a bicycle.
According to the Raw Story, in 2010 (yes, three years ago), Green Party lawmakers tried to repeal the law with no luck, for fear that changing the law was a “waste of time”, and “it would mean removing a piece of judicial archaeology.”
I shouldn’t be surprised. We live in a country where in Michigan, a woman’s hair belongs to her husband, it’s against the law to adjust your stockings in Bristol, Tennessee, and in Cleveland it is illegal for a woman to wear patent leather shoes (I actually agree with this one).
I’m just proud that I live in a place where women can legally be topless in public.
Photo via Rt.com and TheGlobeandMail.com
