Why can girls wear trousers and shirts

[Pantygirdle]

But us boys wore skirts and frocks called weird, why the discrimination

Try telling a Scotsman he looks weird in his kilt. Context and culture matter.

find something you live that you look great in. Wear it with confidence. Tell anyone who who picks a fight about it to get lost. Things change when people do things differently.

@spookehtooth The leap straight to trousers is a little bit too radical to do at once. That sentence honestly made me burst out laughing but i can imagine how controversial if not downright dangerous it would've been then to come out in a pair of trousers. MIL still blinks nervously everytime she sees me in trousers and quite vocal about it. Recently she decided the only reason women started wearing trousers in England must be because of the cold, she's from a hot country. Maireas It must've been shocking the first time a woman walked into church in trousers, i can see where the saying, oh she wears the trousers in their home, comes from now.

A major driver in this was the Rational Dress Movement - which was taking place in several countries

Victorian dress reform - Wikipedia

The arrival and spread of the velocipede (later, bicycle) was also surprisingly important

@Askil yea, it is funny to think of it now. Here's another one. Mini golf, according to what I read, was invented as something for women to play because they were far too genteel and delicate to go swinging clubs around on a proper course. You'll find some equally daft excuses why women can't do other things. It's little different to more modern crap about what women wear, excuses for sexual assault etc really. Making shit up to justify the unjustifiable

Well....<clears throat> in those days, women's brains were considered too 'fragile' to deal with matters such as money, so were kept well away from any financial decisions.

Women not being allowed to wear trousers influenced the game of cricket for ever. In Victorian cricket the ball was bowled underarm. But the crinolines young women wore while bowling for their brothers got in the way and they could not bowl underarm, so they bowled overarm - which proved to be faster and more challenging for the batsman.

(I don't know how true this is - but it is an excellent story 😄)

It's a nice tale but I struggle to believe that one, because it runs contrary to the numerous examples of women being banned or made to compete separately in sports where there is no apparent good reason. I guess, because even a stopped clock tells the right time twice a day, its not implausible.

It's got me thinking, though, what legitimate reasons exist for women not participating alongside men in professional cricket?

I just googled, women are allowed, but its uncommon. Now I'm wondering why! You sent me down a rabbit hole

It's a nice tale but I struggle to believe that one, because it runs contrary to the numerous examples of women being banned or made to compete separately in sports where there is no apparent good reason.

The story is of a girl bowling for her brother, not competing. That's a very different matter - my dm said her older brothers conned her into bowling for them while practicing their batting by giving her 100 runs start.
(I looked up the story, apparently probably false as crinoline skirts would have been an anachronism at the relevant date.)

It's got me thinking, though, what legitimate reasons exist for women not participating alongside men in professional cricket?

Speed of bowling, strength of batting.

Absolutely the story is about a girl in the feminine role of serving her brothers: she would have been bowling so that they could practice their batting, rather than her taking her turn at batting, too.

Well, a bit of research via Auntie Google shows that story is merely a story. It's a nice myth.

You do you, OP. Must be 30 years since Beckham wore a sarong. As PP said, women persisted, do it, or are you somehow expecting women do do the labour for you? (if indeed you are a man)

20 years, not 30. Don't mean to age Goldenballs 😅

The third poster nailed it. It's the same reason why it's cool for girls to have traditionally male names but not true of the reverse and why it's fine for girls to play with traditionally boys toys but a boy playing with a dolly or buggy may still get commented on.

A timely reminder that the patriarchy is damaging for men too not just women.