The Mizo Woman’s Journey to Wearing Pants amidst Marginalization : A Dress History from Colonial to Contemporary Times

The study of dress and fashion also referred to as ‘hybrid subjects’ which incorporates different conceptual frameworks and disciplinary approaches, as varied as those from anthropology, art history, cultural studies, design studies, economics, history, literature, semiotics, sociology, visual culture and business studies, analysing and interpreting human dress and appearance. Even though there he been a number of scholarly endeavours since the late 19th century, it was only in the last decades of the 20th century that various approaches were integrated across disciplines and institutions so that it became possible to talk about something like ‘fashion studies’( Varsangzuali 24-25). With this tool of study, this paper delves into the meaning and impact of dress through the pant and explores the social and literal meaning of who wears the pant in Mizo society and how it makes the wearer feels. By the 1980’s the generally consented foundation based on the studies conducted, concluded that dress is used as a tool to display class privilege and for creating a competition between social classes. Also, dress indicates gender distinctions and these basic principles could be used to analyze the meaning of dress and fashion which is infused in a system. This became the broad basis of most dress and fashion studies from then onwards including the present research as far as possible. Colonialism has affected all areas of the life in Mizoram, restructuring traditions, social norms and religion. In recent years, pant as a single dress item has created such a stir in politics, fashion and economy. So when fashion design label Ann Taylor launched their “Pants Are Power” campaign in March 2018 to commemorate the evolution of pants not only in fashion, but as a symbol of equality for women, the company’s question of “who wears the pants?” in a relationship seem more than apt and metaphorical as a concept to be introduced and highlighted in the context of Mizoram.

 

The relevance of the pant should be deliberated as part of material culture study. It is important to consider the objects we have in the light of the objects we do not have and ask how representative existing objects are of the much larger number of similar objects that have not reached us or that we do not have access to (Gerritsen & Riello 25). 

 

One of the most controversial piece of dress, pant is an interesting piece of material culture in whichever context it may be used. Today the importance of material culture has increased manifold in the study and understanding of history because it helps in telling the story of a culture and people. Material culture therefore not merely consists of ‘things but also of the meanings they hold for people (Strallybrass 275-295). Hence this paper tries to analyze the status of women through the journey of pants in Mizo society in parallel with the world.

 

Pants or Trousers today have become significant fashion statement for women as well. While the words pants and trousers are often used interchangeably, trousers generally refer to tailored garments with a fitted waistline, pockets, and a zipper. The word pants was often used to refer to undergarments, but is also a broader term and can refer to trousers, bloomers, knickerbockers, breeches, slacks, jeans, shorts, and capris. Leggings are often referred to as pants but are more akin to hose (Monet 1).

 

Pants have been a part of ancient people and were even mentioned in the Bible as well as in Ancient Greek mythology. There is a depiction of a woman or a person with long hair wearing pants painted in a vase dated 470 BCE, which seems to be the oldest archaeological evidence of a pant. And as proof  Dalores Monet quoted, The King James version of the Bible mentions pants in Exodus 28:42: “and you shall make them linen trousers to cover their nakedness from the loins even to the thighs” and in the Book of Daniel, 3:21: “Then these men were bound in their coats, their trousers, and their turbans…” (Monet 1).

 

Europeans and Asians wore gowns, robes, tunics and togas. A three-piece combination of loincloth and individual leggings were observed on the 5,300-year-old body of Ötzi the Iceman (Ulrike, et al., 224). In an excavation led by archaeologists Ulrike Beck and Mayke Wagner of the German Archaeological Institute in Berlin at Yanghai cemetery near the Turfan oasis, western China, an ancient wool trouser resembling modern riding pants with straight-fitting legs and a wide crotch were discovered which have been radiocarbon dated to the time interval between the 13th and the 10th century BC (Bower 1) while the earliest pants in the Western world were worn by equestrians of Asia Minor and Eastern Europe, pants were worn in Western Europe in 3rd century BCE. 

 

Even though pants were around, there seemed to be a lull in the popularity and progress of pants for women till the 19th century. In 1850, women’s rights activist Amelia Bloomer popularized the baggy, knee- or ankle-length trousers created by Elizabeth Smith Miller called “bloomer” pant.  According to Emma McClendon, associate costume curator at The Museum at the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York even by the 20th century, women’s pants were appropriate for “occasional dressing only,” worn at designated times as hostess pyjamas or bicycling pants. In the 1920’s and 30’s celebrities like Marlene Dietrich and Katharine Hepburn dared to wear full pantsuits which was often considered a fashion bravado yet normalising the idea of women wearing pants.

 

In Mizoram, wearing of pant was introduced by the British and it was hardly considered a woman’s dress. Though wearing traditional attire was accepted, the practicality of the western trousers and shirts and the warmth it provided in the chilly weather of the Hills was a welcomed change (Varsangzuali 225-227).

 

The first record of Mizo women wearing pants was when they enrolled in the British army as clerks during the Second World War.  In an interview, Zopari recalled that in the late 1940s, when Thanchhumi, daughter of Thangluaia, the first Mizo officer, a clerk in the Women Auxiliary of the British Army came home during a holiday she was wearing trousers with matching uniform blouse, leather shoes and socks. Zopari mentioned that she and her friends as little girls of about 7-9 years were totally fascinated (Zopari Interview). 

 

The next two decades from the mid 1940 till the Mizo National War of 1966 did not see women wearing pants in general. According to Chhuanliana when the ladies of British Army came out together in uniform pant suit for certain occasion, men and women were intrigued but there was one who comes out often in her uniform pant and she was scorned as a show-off by many (Chhuanliana, Interview).  It was not that women in general did not experienced wearing pants at all, but even when they do, it was mainly for photo ops and costumes borrowing pants from men (Pachuau & Schendel 399 & 292). And this would be regarded as daring.  On 28th February, 1966, when the Mizo National Front launched operation Jericho and went underground against the Indian government, a number of women also joined the movement and they wore pants as part of the uniform. There are a number of pictorial evidences for this (Pachuau & Schendel 333). In this way the Mizo woman slowly proved themselves worthy of a pant away from home during the wars fought for their colonisers and for their own nation. 

 

However, during the past 2 to 3 decades from the 1950s educated and elite groups who had more exposure were wearing skirts and dresses and heels without any opposition whatsoever.  According to Lalchhingpuii, it was an aspiration for any fashionable Mizo girl in the 1950s to own a terry wool midi skirt as was the suit or at least a coat for the men (Lalchhingpuii, Interview). However, except for younger girls, puan remain the ultimate dress code for women in Church and formal occasions. 

 

According to the Cambridge dictionary ‘wearing the pants’ means ‘to be the person in a relationship who is in control and makes all the important decisions’. This idiom originated in the 19th century, at that time when women always wore skirts or dresses and only men wore trousers (Cambridge 2015). Perhaps because men then were the heavy lifters, and they were the ones who bore the bulk of the work in and around the house which needed more physical strength, hence a more practical dress, the pant. They were the ones who went to war and fended off wild animals, bringing home their captures in the wild to provide for the much needed protein on the table.  This show of physical strength allowed for control and power over the weaker sex. Hence, the meaning of the idiom has become an accepted norm everywhere and that wearing of pants denotes dominance and authority. 

 

In the light of this meaning, there were a number of social struggle for women to wear pants. In spite of the impracticality of skirts and dresses, women in search of wild berries and mushroom did not wear pants, nurses while nursing wounded soldiers in wars did not wear pants and women cutting logs for fires in their kitchen did it all with the long inconvenient skirts. Joan of Arc famously cross-dressed, wearing men’s armor in the 15th century as a deterrent to rape and was eventually burned at the stake in part because of this (Mondalek 1). 

 

The first record crediting the first modern woman to wear pants was in 1800 by a suffragette named Elizabeth Smith Miller. Her goal in the 1800s was to help women in the United States win the right to vote. There were short-lived revivals of pants-wearing in public by women, such as during World War I (1914–18), when civilian women who took over jobs traditionally held by men sometimes wore pants. During World War II (1939–45), pants were more widely worn by civilian and military women, both at work and socially. Although women continued to enjoy wearing pants after the war, particularly for sports or leisure, style trends for women remained fixated largely on skirts or dresses until the 1960s and ’70s. Then, buoyed by the women’s rights movement, pants became firmly established as popular and appropriate clothing options for women at home, in public, and in many workplaces (Britannica 2016). Hence pants became a symbol of resistance and protest. How a single piece of clothing can stir so much debate and opposition depending on who wears it is really astonishing.  

 

From the 1960s, there was a rebellious new spirit of designers such as Mary Quant, Courrèges and Yves Saint Laurent who incorporated suit for women into their collection influencing the high fashion. The French law banning women to wear trousers was revoked only in 2013 (BBC 2013).

 

The freedom to wear pants is still a struggle even in the 21st century even in these so called modern cultures. In March 2019, a federal judge struck down a rule at a North Carolina charter school that prohibited girls at the school from wearing pants. It required them instead to wear skirts, skorts, or jumpers. The school had argued that the dress code promoted “traditional values” (Mondalek 1).

 

The same month, Hannah Kozak, a senior at a Pennsylvania high school, had to fight the school board for the right to wear pants (Mettler 1).

 

The reasons that Western societies (that is, the men in them) have devised for barring women from covering each leg individually have often fallen back on these sorts of appeals to tradition and values. Gayle Fischer, an associate professor of history at Salem State University and author of Pantaloons and Power: A Nineteenth-Century Dress Reform in the United States, explained that authorities have frequently pointed to the values dictated by the Bible as their justification for reinforcing skirt-wearing. Deuteronomy 22:5 states that women should not wear men’s clothes and men should not wear women’s (Bain 1).

 

The same kind of western style was introduced which seemed to have been based on the same Biblical reference in Mizoram when schools were opened by missionaries where the uniform for girls were skirts or the traditional puan while the boys were to wear shorts which is evident in a number of photographs and literature. Today this type of uniforms are still in use all over Mizoram and the fact that these short skirts are sexualised and the wearers objectifies to the point that the girls in such uniforms are made responsible for rape and other horrific assaults needs to be discussed in a whole set of essay.

 

Marginalisation in fashion dictum highlighted itself in the fact that even for the open minded western cultures, it was only in the 1970s that pants became a part of the working women’s accepted fashion. Around the same time due to their exposure and access to music cultures around the world through travel, education, radio, television and cinemas young Mizo women slowly started taking up the trend of the trouser. It was also the time when women started to take up government jobs and other economic activities, earning income by themselves and some even providing for their whole family. The subtle economic independence and power over finances however meagre it may have been brought freedom and confidence to women in Mizo society. Education played a key role in this as it brought respect to them. 

 

Historically, the patriarchal nature of Mizo society reveals the political, social, cultural, and religious marginalization of women and the dominant role of Mizo men in each of these aspects. Christianity, education, and economic development have often been cited to be the factors that have helped in offsetting women’s marginal status. However, a lot has changed in regard to women’s position in the past several decades.

 

To a certain extent, marginalization is a shifting phenomenon, linked to social status. So, for example, individuals or groups might enjoy high social status at one point in time, but as social change takes place, so they lose this status and become marginalized. Similarly, as life cycle and its stages change, so might people’s marginalized position. Marginalization is a slippery and multi-layered concept. Whole societies can be marginalized at the global level while classes and communities can be marginalized from the dominant social order. Similarly, ethnic groups, families or individuals can be marginalized within localities. 

 

Analyzing micro data covering more than 30 million U.S. households, it is proven that working wives still spend an average of 25.7 hours per week on housework and child care, compared with only 12.7 hours per week for their husbands (Da Ke 1). It is also established that traditional norms play a huge role in the setting of household financial decisions and gender identity norms can have real consequences for household financial well-being. These gender norms are not unique to the Unites States only. There are worse cases in disparity of distribution of tools, capitals, profits, land and properties, information and power in general between men and women all over the world including Mizoram. 

 

Peter Leonard defines social marginality as ‘being outside the mainstream of productive activity and/or social reproductive activity’ (Leonard 180). The experience of marginality can arise in a number of ways such as impairment from birth or later disablement, by changes in the social and economic system, those born into particularly marginal groupings such as the tribals, especially in northeast in India, and the gender divide in patriarchy. Being born into marginality and being clubbed by law as such is typically life-long and greatly determines one’s life experiences. 

 

The 20th century outburst of huge cities housed centers of the world trade as well as the poorest. Although both sexes are affected by the poverty, the main victims of discrimination remain women. It is said that historically, gender has remained a key site of oppression locally, nationally, and globally. The material marginalization of women works hand in hand with the silencing of women from the dominant platforms of knowledge production globally, nationally, and locally. Women continue to be erased from mainstream discursive spaces, as their bodies become interventions that seek to modify their behaviors, shift their perceptions, and emancipate them in the process of carrying out the enlightenment agendas of modernist development (Dutta 147).  

 

Although academic and non-academic discourses have proliferated on the issue of the marginalization of women, the concept of women as the marginalized gender is still heavily loaded with the question of women and is highly contested with the debate of equality burdened with heavy patriarchal tendencies over the last few decades in Mizoram. It is under such circumstances that Mizo women, quietly asserted their stand, adjusting their behavior, working through and around rigid social perceptions, using their body as contestation, to slowly emancipating themselves at any space and level possible, wearing pants. 

 

Economic empowerment is an area where Mizo women have not fared better even with a huge number of workforce representing them. Most shopkeepers and hawkers in open bazaars are women, who work to feed their family and some of them are sole earners. They indeed form a huge chunk of the working middle class, contributing equally and in some cases much more than their male counterparts to the economy. Nonetheless, their role in domesticity has not receded thus they serve the dual purpose of wage earner and up keepers of families and whatever they earn is often either used up for the family or submitted to the in-laws or husband. The freedom to spend on her own or for herself is still a struggle. More than half of the work-force in government offices, in fact 68.94% are male and very few women hold high positions in government offices (Census of Govt. of Mizoram Table 1). According to indicators of SDG 5, ratio of female to male average earning is 0.91 in Mizoram and women in managerial positions including Board of Directors, in listed companies is null (SDG 2019 Tables 5.1). 

 

Political representation has also eluded them most of the time even at the grassroots level. The percentage of elected women over total seats in State Legislative Assembly is zero (SDG 2019 Tables 5.1). Till date Mizoram has only two female members at the Legislative Assembly. There are a handful of female leaders at the Municipal level.  The leadership of the popular social organization and youth groups in the state is male-dominated. And even though we claim that Christianity has liberated Mizo women through education, in religion, women are still excluded from positions of leadership and ignored appointment to the status of eldership and pastoral works in most of the Churches of Mizoram. 

 

It may seem that the Mizo society provides equal educational opportunities freely to women and that woman in general have also benefitted greatly through education. In contrast to this, the number of women’s enrollment in higher education is much less than the male (Mizoram University Report 2020). The basic problem seems to be the difficulties in changing our social mindset which is heavily burdened with patriarchy and its norms, which includes even women themselves. Chapman and Clark in ‘The Mizo Miracle’ define the pre-colonial Mizo woman as having no rights at all. That she belongs to her father and husband, body mind and spirit from birth to death (Chapman & Clark  60). Also in a Mizo society a man is scorned as coward if he do not beat his wife or have the courage to do so. Although such remarks sound very pre-modern in thoughts, it still somewhat rings true because the Mizo women today are still a marginalized lot. It should be noted that, Mizo women never really protested when it comes to dress code and trend. In fact, the Mizo women had taken up the role of being the custodian and the harbingers of Mizo traditional dresses while the men have long given up wearing them from the colonial period and fully cladding themselves in western style clothing today except on certain occasions.

 

Women wearing pants have always symbolizes struggle for equality. Up until now wearing pants was a form of defiance. But Mizo women never had something like the ‘Pantsuit Rebellion’ of 1993 in US, prior to which women were barred from wearing pants on the Senate floor. It was left in the hand of the daring few, who in their liberated state of being financially independent, along with exposure and knowledge slowly ushered the trend. Though the fashion of wearing pants is an influence of globalisation, pants today has become a dress of great significant because of its practicality and convenience for the largest work force in the society, that is women and the power that comes with it cannot be ignored . The economy and advancement of a society is often reflected by its dress and vice versa. 

 

Even though there are restrictions still imposed upon Mizo women to wear puan on formal occasions, during traditional or cultural gatherings, in the church etc, it became a symbol of freedom that women hadn’t had before. These days most Mizo women own at least a single pair of pants and are free to wear them outside of the restricted norms such as work place, in the fields, at leisure etc. If a woman have to wear a pair of slacks or tights to warm herself on formal occasions, she is expected to wear it underneath, covered by her puan or skirt. Nevertheless, Mizo women have widely normalized wearing the pants and no one can repudiate the pleasure from her because of her contribution towards society is irrefutable and largely acknowledged. Today, Mizo women are wearing the pant not because patriarchy is allowing them but because she deserves the comfort, the practicality and the power of wearing it through sheer grit. While these are tiny triumphs against the adamant patriarchy and marginalization, the journey of the pant is important as material culture is based on meaning as much as materiality (Gerritsen & Riello 25) it has thus proven that a Mizo woman has earned her pant in the sun.  

 

 

 

Cite the original source:
Varsangzuali, Rosalind. “The Mizo Woman’s Journey to Wearing Pants amidst Marginalization : A Dress History from Colonial to Contemporary Times.” Mizo Studies, X, no. 4, Dec. 2021, pp. 692–705.