Unbuttoning Tradition: Radical Ideas to Rational Norms

So, let's not beat around the bush—it's been a month since the election, and we're still grappling with the results. Hostile discourse has surged on social media and probably around many Thanksgiving tables. Happy Holidays!

Leading up to the election, I was not living in complete naivety. I am well aware that we live in a polarized age where choosing political candidates or parties often feels more like unwavering loyalty to a sports team rather than engaging with a nuanced idea. The candidates only exacerbate this, as they spread fallacies of the true intentions of the other party, for a divided population is easier to control, after all.

Take the misconceptions surrounding the Harris campaign and Democrats—misconceptions that, frankly, can be laughable at times. Chief among them is the belief that the left is brimming with radicalism, a notion that seems more rooted in fear-mongering than reality. Just recently, President-elect Donald Trump wished Americans a Happy Thanksgiving but made sure to add a sweet note to those on the left saying, “Happy Thanksgiving to all, including to the Radical Left Lunatics who have worked so hard to destroy our Country, but who have miserably failed, and will always fail, because their ideas and policies are so hopelessly bad that the great people of our Nation just gave a landslide victory to those who want to MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!" 

What’s often forgotten in this rhetoric is that many so-called “radical” ideas have given rise to some of our most cherished principles and institutions. Ideas, once deemed “radical” or “crazy” a century ago, are now essentials that Trump supporters, among others, rely on daily. This fear of the new has always accompanied progress, with transformative ideas initially labeled as dangerous before becoming the status quo. Radical ideas, by their very nature, challenge us to grow, and history shows that without them, much of what we now take for granted wouldn’t exist. For those who feel somewhat hopeless like me, hopefully, I can offer you some optimism, or at least an escape into our radical past that has brought us some of the small victories we see today. So now, here’s a little history of how pants used to be a hot topic for conservatives at the time. 

Pants.

Yes, folks, just one item on our list of once-radical propaganda that allegedly "plagued" our women and youth. The roots of radicalizing women’s fashion in the United States, particularly the introduction of pants, can be traced back to the mid-19th century. However, the movement didn’t gain significant momentum until the early 20th century. Suffragettes would often wear baggy “Turkish” pantaloons coupled with a knee-length skirt. These garments became known as “bloomers,” named after Amelia Bloomer, the editor of the first women’s newspaper, who wrote passionately about this new connection to practical attire. Initially, bloomers were not a bold statement against gender norms but a practical solution for homemakers. They allowed women to complete tasks like carrying babies up and down stairs without the risk of tripping, offering functionality over an overt subversion to gender roles. 

By the late 19th and early 20th centuries, however, pants began to take on a more significant role in challenging societal norms. Women participating in activities like cycling and hiking were probably starting to get tired of the chaffing from those tight corsets they had been tightly acquainted with (who could blame them), and that was when the rational dress movement began to take off. In the 1910s, Coco Chanel contributed to this movement with her chic, sporty designs, which soon evolved to incorporate menswear staples into women’s wardrobes. These included sailor shirts, wide-leg pants, and tailored jackets, blending practicality with elegance. However, many settings still did not permit the abandonment of women in skirts, and many women, including celebrities, were heavily ridiculed for doing so. In 1933, actress Marlene Dietrich was refused a seat at the Brown Derby, a famed Hollywood restaurant, simply for sporting pants.

Then, of course, World War II occurred, and many women had to fill the pants of men while they were off fighting (literally!). Women began to enter the workforce in unprecedented numbers, taking on roles in factories where pants became a necessity as they offered both safety and mobility in industrial settings. This characterized the first widespread acceptance of trousers as everyday attire for women, even if it was out of necessity rather than societal approval. Even after the men returned from war and many women returned home, the idea of pants on a woman's body was no longer the radical and shocking phenomenon it once was. 

It wasn’t until the 1960s and 70s that the feminist movement pushed for the right to wear pants in formal and professional settings, challenging dress codes that confined women to skirts and dresses. Today, we see women lawyers in slacks, warehouse workers in sweats and leggings, and hostesses in jeans (guilty). I urge you to take a look around the room you're currently in—depending on its formality, you might notice that pants are now more common for many women than skirts. This shift reflects not just a change in fashion, but a transformation in societal expectations and gender norms, where practicality and comfort have come to trump tradition and conventional ideas of femininity. What was once a radical idea, is now an everyday reality. 

While we explored the history of women wearing pants as a radical act of rebellion, there exists a plethora of other ideas and innovations that were initially viewed as abhorrent or controversial. Just to name a few: 

• The television. 

• Electricity.

• The 40-hour work week.

• Public education.

• Bikinis.

• Interracial marriage (looking at you, JD Vance).

• Being left-handed.

For all of you who claim to condemn radicalism, I sure hope you're not reading this with your left hand.

So next time Trump supporters call gender-affirming care, critical race theory, or something as trivial as men painting their nails radical, let's remember that at one point, those who came before us were throwing hissy-fits over a woman's ankle being covered. That seems like the extreme and radical act to me, but what do I know?