There has been plenty of media attention paid to the makeover of Wonder Woman. This is the Women’s Media Center’s take on it: “Wonder Woman in Pants is Not a Feminist Win.” What the analysis does not address is how hard women fought to wear pants. (I am presenting a paper on this topic at the National Communication Association convention next November.) Up until the women’s liberation movement, women were barred from wearing pants in the workplace and at restaurants.

Former Texas and Florida women’s page editor Marjorie Paxson ran into a “no pants” policy when she first became a newspaper publisher for Gannett. On her first day of work in the 1980s, Paxson learned about the former male publisher’s clothing policy: women cannot wear pants. Although Paxson said she had planned to look “every inch the lady publisher” and had purchased a number of skirts, she decided to wear her lone pantsuit to the office on day two. The next morning, wearing a pantsuit, she walked into the Muskogee Phoenix departments. On the way to her office, she went through the pressroom, through the composing room and through the news room. By noon, the publisher’s secretary came upstairs and she said, “Everybody is asking if there’s been a change – if they can wear pants?” Paxson called a meeting of the department heads that afternoon and announced a change in the dress code – they could wear pants.

She later learned that many of the female employees went shopping that evening. The next day, of the 45 women working at the paper, 29 were in pantsuits. She recalled, “That story got around town very quickly.” In fact, Paxson remembered shopping at Sears when the clerk looked down at the name on her credit card. She looked up at Paxson: “Are you the new lady at the paper?” Paxson replied that she was, and the clerk responded: “I’m so glad you let them wear pants.”

Pants had become a symbol of change – a challenge to the status quo in terms of gender roles.

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There has been plenty of media attention paid to the makeover of Wonder Woman. This is the Women’s Media Center’s take on it: “Wonder Woman in Pants is Not a Feminist Win.” What the analysis does not address is how hard women fought to wear pants. (I am presenting a paper on this topic at the National Communication Association convention next November.) Up until the women’s liberation movement, women were barred from wearing pants in the workplace and at restaurants.

Former Texas and Florida women’s page editor Marjorie Paxson ran into a “no pants” policy when she first became a newspaper publisher for Gannett. On her first day of work in the 1980s, Paxson learned about the former male publisher’s clothing policy: women cannot wear pants. Although Paxson said she had planned to look “every inch the lady publisher” and had purchased a number of skirts, she decided to wear her lone pantsuit to the office on day two. The next morning, wearing a pantsuit, she walked into the Muskogee Phoenix departments. On the way to her office, she went through the pressroom, through the composing room and through the news room. By noon, the publisher’s secretary came upstairs and she said, “Everybody is asking if there’s been a change – if they can wear pants?” Paxson called a meeting of the department heads that afternoon and announced a change in the dress code – they could wear pants.

She later learned that many of the female employees went shopping that evening. The next day, of the 45 women working at the paper, 29 were in pantsuits. She recalled, “That story got around town very quickly.” In fact, Paxson remembered shopping at Sears when the clerk looked down at the name on her credit card. She looked up at Paxson: “Are you the new lady at the paper?” Paxson replied that she was, and the clerk responded: “I’m so glad you let them wear pants.”

Pants had become a symbol of change – a challenge to the status quo in terms of gender roles.

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