Why do men’s shirts do up on the opposite side to women’s?

[Wendyer]

Is there a proper reason for it? I am obviously very bored and am puzzling over all sorts of very important matters!

Probably some outdated thing to do with waistcoats and pocket watches. Hang on I'll google.

Googled...apparently it's from the military when they might have needed to slip a hand in to grab a concealed gun.

Is it something to do with men being expected to dress themselves but women having a maid to help?

The reason I heard was that it dates from when rich people were dressed by their staff (eg a valet). The person doing up the buttons would be right-handed and therefore it made sense to place the buttons on their left (as they were looking at the shirt).

By the time women started to wear buttoned blouses, they would do up the buttons themselves, hence the buttons were placed on the other side (their left).

www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2019/nov/20/why-men-women-clothes-button-different#comment-135673549

I read something about Ladies' Maids a couple of weeks ago but it really didn't explain the difference as it's a very elite answer to a universal phenomenon.

I expect someone at the V&A would know if you tweet them!

I was told by a tailor, many years ago, that the women's way is the easiest to undo with a right hand but men's clothing is buttoned the other side to stop it getting in the way when drawing a sword

@EnidFrighten

Is it something to do with men being expected to dress themselves but women having a maid to help?

Men had valets too

So that their more typical gun hand is free

Hey this is MN, surely it has something to do with misogyny and the suppression of women's rights?

Oh I knew there’d be answers to be found on here! Thank you very much :). Now I can move on to the next triviality, er that is, pressing concern :)

junglejane66 Just for you - Because a mans penis would fall off if he accidentally wore a woman's shirt.

Men did have valets, but they didn't do the actual dressing like a ladies maid did for women

Also, not everyone who had servants was at Downton Abbey-esque levels of eliteness - basically everyone from lower middle class upwards would have had at least one servant, even if just a maid of all work.

Talk of valets has led me on to thinking about neck ties (I’m sure there’s a proper name for them but it eludes me at the minute - as does so much else). I wonder how all the different ways to tie them came about, and how they got the names that they did. What a palaver doing them must’ve been! I wonder if that’s why ties came to resemble modern day ties.

Although when you think about it, they’re pretty pointless aren’t they? What purpose does a thin strip of material around your neck serve?

Otherwise they'd be big girls' blouses

The Windsor knot on a mans tie is named after the duke of Windsor as he started that style of knot, not sure if it’s actually fact though.

@Wendyer

Talk of valets has led me on to thinking about neck ties (I’m sure there’s a proper name for them but it eludes me at the minute - as does so much else). I wonder how all the different ways to tie them came about, and how they got the names that they did. What a palaver doing them must’ve been! I wonder if that’s why ties came to resemble modern day ties.

Although when you think about it, they’re pretty pointless aren’t they? What purpose does a thin strip of material around your neck serve?

Cravat?

@Flossflower

I was told by a tailor, many years ago, that the women's way is the easiest to undo with a right hand but men's clothing is buttoned the other side to stop it getting in the way when drawing a sword

The "drawing a sword" reason is the one I was always told as a kid. Having drawn a sword, it certainly works.

Hey this is MN, surely it has something to do with misogyny and the suppression of women's rights?

Surely this is the toxic matriarchy at work - those privileged women having maids to dress them whilst the poor, suffering male martyrs were abandoned and forced to do it all for themselves

Have ties as we know them today morphed from cravats and stocks?

I know a stock tied correctly is meant to save your neck from breaking (or support your neck) if you fall off your horse.

I have no clue why, but I was very amused to see that a rather upmarket childrenswear shop has a nifty solution whereby their wool winter coats can be buttoned on either side, allowing you to pass them down to either boys or girls in the family without violating Tradition. (Or maybe this is standard for kids' coats? We didn't buy it ourselves, it was a gift, and I usually buy the usual outdoorsy ones with zips, so I've never noticed it anywhere else.)

It's to keep his 'sword arm' free or something archaic like that.

Same as everyone else has said. To be able to draw a sword, same as why we drive on the left too.

The prominent story is that ladies maids physically dress and undress women so the buttons are arranged for the task. Valets simply assist.