The Rise of the Pantsuit
By: Storytellers Without Borders
Tags: Education, Hillary Clinton, Fashion, Feminism, High School

Hillary Clinton’s many pantsuits. Credit: Andy Baumgartner

By Julia Lin, 10th grade, Clark High School

When Taylor Headrick, a junior from Highland High School in Ohio, won her event at the 2018 National Speech and Debate Tournament in Fort Lauderdale last summer, there were many notable things about the performance. Her interpretation of Christa Crewdon’s “The Rocky Junction Rumor” was hilarious and well-deserving of the national champion title she garnered over the 246 competitors from across the country. But as people applauded, there was another inescapable aspect: her outfit.

Headrick wore a simple black pantsuit, a stark contrast to other female competitors who donned colorful skirt suits and dresses. It was a significant moment for the speech and debate community — most women who earn top honors at the competition do not wear pants.

Fashion has long been a way for women to combat gender norms, and historically, the purpose of women’s clothing was to enhance the body’s curves, not to be functional or comfortable. But in the context of the 21st century, women are utilizing fashion to make a statement about who they are and how they want to be perceived.

“It’s already a social norm for men to be considered funnier than women,” says Headrick, who placed first in the humorous interpretation event. “I didn’t want my outfit to be the thing that kept me from being at the level of funny that I wanted to be at.”

Elizabeth Smith Miller is one of the earliest examples of breaking the mold. In 1851, she was one of the first American women to publically wear oversized pants called bloomers under a knee-length dress, according to the Saturday Evening Post. Although Miller argued that bloomers opened up opportunities for women to lead a healthier lifestyle, the apparel received backlash and criticism since trousers were seen as an intolerance of gender categorization and social expectations of the time period.

But it wasn’t until the 1960s when a wave of feminism brought lasting change. That’s when the word “unisex” made first appeared in print referring to men and women who donned t-shirts and wide-legged denim pants, reports the Saturday Evening Post. While women sporting pants became increasingly common, it took another 30 years before women in government positions followed suit. According to Mental Floss, Illinois Senator Carol Moseley-Braun broke an unwritten rule when she arrived at the Senate floor in 1993 in a simple black wool pantsuit. Soon, a number of female senators wore this “inappropriate attire” to protest against the unofficial Senate dress code. The code was amended later that year.

Former U.S. senator and presidential nominee Hillary Clinton is synonymous with the pantsuit, which became an iconic symbol of her presidential campaign in 2016. Her choice of pants over skirts inspired the creation of the viral “Pantsuit Nation” Facebook group, which was initially established to support Clinton’s last few weeks of campaign, but also started a wider feminist movement. The group’s founder, Libby Chamberlain, told the BBC that “the pantsuit is the symbol of women’s fight for equality in the workplace.”

Dallas attorney Hannah Alexander agrees. During her years at the University of Texas School of Law, staff “encouraged women who were applying for clerkships to wear skirt suits for their interviews,” she says. “There was debate about that because we are the flagship law school of the state and maybe we should be the ones setting the trends rather than being concerned about something like this.”

According to Myles Ethan Lascity, director of the Fashion Media program at Southern Methodist University, the pantsuit is something “women can wear that lets them be taken seriously and also show that they are on the same level as men.”

It symbolizes a small but crucial step in the fight for equality. In 2017, World Economic Forum, which evaluates critical areas of inequality between men and women, expects it will take another century to close the gender gap worldwide and nearly twice as long to reach workplace equality.

For Headrick, the speech and debate winner, wearing something other than a skirt or dress was about empowering other women to follow suit. Because she had never seen women in the final stages of competition wear a pantsuit, she decided she would don one if she ever made it that far.

“I had never seen a girl in a pantsuit performing on the final stage and I knew that if I made it there, it would set an example for other girls nationwide so I repped the pantsuit,” she says. “We should not be held back because of what we are wearing.”