by Greg Miller

Created on: November 30, 2009   Last Updated: December 10, 2009

Courage is the reason men don't wear skirts anymore and yet they stopped wearing them only four generations ago. How then did we get to women wearing pants and men not wearing skirts which they had for thousands of years previously?

In our modern era, the common North American male has been trained to follow the social and largely corporate rules which promise promotion and monetary rewards if the corporate rules are followed. Part of this code dictates the uniform you wear which, if you are male, is pants or trousers only. There are no exceptions and compliance seems to be mandatory, but one has to wonder how and why this is so- especially since men have been wearing skirts for thousands of years previously. The Romans conquered the world wearing a mini-skirt and it was the well dressed Aristocrat who sported the latest skirt fashion only a few hundred years ago. Today, a Scots Kilt can be seen at formal gatherings or in Bhutan a Gho- which all government officials are required to wear by law but in North America it's pants only. It is interesting to note that pants or pantalone, the Italian word for trousers, is from a Commedia dell'Arte character named Pantalone who was noted for his miserly, lust-full ways.

The problem with us is we don't realize we have merely accepted a working-class costume handed down through the generations from just before the French revolution around 1670. The tradition we carry on is the result of a change in their society, as the petticoat they wore under their tunics lengthened and became breeches that got longer and the need for a skirt disappeared. This practice was perpetuated by sailors the world over who invented the pants made of denim we now call jeans and due almost entirely because form follows function. Nobody wants the wind blowing up your skirt while climbing the rigging of a tall ship, although the Chinese would argue this point and even the workers in rural England right up until the 20'th century usually wore a smock.

It wasn't until the 1940's that trousers were made out of flannel and in those days- it was one size fits all with waists above the stomach and held up by braces. This is what we have come to accept as men's wear except that women wear them as well but with infinitely more variety in length (Capri's, Hot Pants), color (every single one and more being invented all the time) and style (there are classics and the new ones they invent everyday).

The reason women are now wearing

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