The Real Reason Women’s Shirts
1. Origins of the Divide
What began as practicality “slowly hardened into social code.”
Upper-class women, dressed by right-handed maids,
had buttons on the left, while men’s shifted right for faster access in armed situations.
2. Symbols of Role and Power
These design choices stopped being about convenience and became
“visual shorthand for dependence versus autonomy, ornament versus action.”
3. Industrialization’s Influence
Mass production didn’t erase the asymmetry;
factories “locked the asymmetry into place,”
even after most women dressed themselves and weapons disappeared from daily life.
4. The Present Echo of the Past
Today we barely notice that our shirts
“still echo a world of servants and soldiers,”
yet each time we button up, we’re “closing over history,”
carrying its subtle weight into modern life.
