Tennessee Celeste Claflin - Breaking The Dress Code

Breaking The Dress Code

“Tennie C. once called a reporter into her office to show him the man’s banking suit she was wearing. The reporter gaped at the trousers that ended three inches above her ankle and said, ‘If you wear that out on the street, there’ll be a riot worse than the draft riot.’ Tennie C. nevertheless wore the man’s jacket and waist-coat but added a long black broadcloth skirt, and Victoria soon joined her in wearing this attire. Clothes were a political statement. Women who dressed like men threatened the entire structure of male domination. An eminent physician, reinforcing this belief, stated that women who wore men’s clothes manifested an aggressiveness unbecoming to their sex… Tennie C… chose men’s attire not only for publicity but also to protest the fact that women were kept in their place by clothes.”