Panadaptationism strikes again!


buttoning

I noticed something odd for the first time recently: women’s clothing buttons differently than men’s. I’d been previously oblivious, but just noticed because I put on this nice roomy button-down Christmas sweater my wife got, and realized that all the buttons are backwards from what I’m used to. How strange. I asked her if this was normal, and she told me that yes, this was the convention. Which made me wonder…why? It’s not as if women and men differ in handedness, or are consistently asymmetric in different ways. My first thought was that it was another arbitrary signifier of sex, like the absence of pockets in women’s clothing, only more random and less malicious.

And then Mary sent me a link to this article which assigns purposes to the different arrangement of buttons, and I simply found it galling. Their explanations don’t make sense.

So men button in one way for reasons of utility: a man’s role as hunter required that he pull a weapon from left to right. Fastening a garment from right to left would impede the movement of our ancestors. This makes no sense. You button your shirt in one direction because you’re typically holding a weapon in your right hand? But how often are you simultaneously buttoning up a shirt and spearing an antelope?

But women button the other way, because babies. Given right-hand dominance, women tend to hold their infants in their left arms, keeping their right arms relatively free. So shirts whose open flap is on the right, one theory goes, makes it easier for them to open with those free hands for breastfeeding. I suppose it’s typical that male traits are explained by their likelihood of holding a weapon, and female traits by baby handling, but again, it makes no sense. I’ve held babies, and I recall holding them on whatever side was convenient at the time. The tricky part to holding a baby or a spear and unbuttoning your shirt is the unbuttoning bit — that requires a bit more dexterity than holding a bulky objects. So both men and women face the problem of unbuttoning while holding an object, and they get completely reversed solutions to the problem?

And then there’s this explanation:

Women, to the extent women rode horses, rode sidesaddle, to the right—so putting their shirt and dress buttons on the left reduced, to some extent, the breeze that would flow into their shirts as they were trotting along.

Face it, people. You’re just making this stuff up. Like this story, that women mocked Napoleon by putting their hands in their vests like he did in that portrait:

One theory (which, warning, I can’t find much corroboration for, but I put out there for your consideration) holds that Napoleon ordered women’s shirts be buttoned on the opposite side of men’s to end all the fun-making at his expense.

No evidence, but hey, let’s just throw it out there. Apparently, Napoleon did not get so upset at men mocking him that he upended the garment industry to get back at them.

So basically that whole article is a lot of bullshit. I’m going to suggest that there are two likely alternative explanations:

  • It’s a frozen accident. In the early days of mass production of garments, industries specialized to deal with men’s and women’s clothing, and early chance decisions fixed the women’s industries to one way, and men’s another way. They could have both standardized on the same direction, or opposite directions, but by chance they didn’t, and now it’s an established convention.

  • It’s a conscious distinction, but still arbitrary. The specific orientation has no functional consequence except that it’s supposed to be different for men and women, because God forbid that a man might accidentally put on a woman’s shirt. His testicles might fall off.

It seems to me that all the contrived scenarios ought to be informed by historical evidence, which is not given. Was there an abrupt flip of the French clothing arrangement in the early 19th century? Do we have women’s diaries complaining of that awful side-saddle breeze (I suspect that if functionality were a defining constraint here, they wouldn’t have been riding side-saddle in the first place)? Were duelists facing a pressing need to unbutton their clothes in the heat of battle?

Also, I think it’s a minor issue compared to that real pressing question, about the absence of pockets in women’s clothing. I think that one is good evidence that there is a patriarchy, and it is evil.

Comments

  1. ShowMetheData says

    An alternative explanation I heard was that upper-class women in the 1800’s were dressed by their personal maids. Upper-class set the fashion when clothing went into mass production early in the 1900’s.

    I like your randomness/differentiation idea but maybe that upper-class preference was grabbed when it was time for mass production.

  2. Hatchetfish says

    I’ve heard the theory it’s from women having things buttoned by maids, such that moments buttons are reversed to be right handed when facing them. I’ve also never heard any hard evidence, and Giliell’s theory is just as plausible.

  3. dianne says

    Women’s clothing tends to be more expensive that men’s. It’s also more expensive to get dry cleaned. The side the buttons are on tells you how much to charge. All the rest sounds like just-so stories to me.

  4. Athywren - This Thing Is Just A Thing says

    Uh…

    But how often are you simultaneously buttoning up a shirt and spearing an antelope?

    … I mean… have I been doing it wrong all these years? Now that you’ve said it, I do feel rather bad about all the antelope I’ve killed while buttoning my shirts. I just… you know, I just thought that was what you were supposed to do?

    I didn’t even eat them or make boots out of them or anything.

    Shit.

  5. zenlike says

    The reason I always heard was that buttons came into being in upper-class fashion, in an era where it was common for women (of upper class families) to be dressed by servants, which was not the case for the men, meaning the buttons were always on the ‘right side’ from the perspective of the person doing the dressing.

    Probably as apocryphal as the above stories, but at least it makes more sense then trying to drag our hunter-gatherer forbears into this (seriously, these people seem to believe the entirety of homo sapiens was shaped in that ‘mystical era’, it is ridiculous).

  6. Athywren - This Thing Is Just A Thing says

    (I’ve also heard the maids thing, but then, as Dianne just said, men were dressed by valets, so I’m not sure that really holds any of the antelope blood that’s on my hands.)

  7. dianne says

    When did this “buttons on the opposite sides” thing even start? That might give a clue as to why it happened. Sorry, I don’t think that stone age people even had buttons, much less conventions about where they should go on their clothes.

  8. says

    Also, I think it’s a minor issue compared to that real pressing question, about the absence of pockets in women’s clothing. I think that one is good evidence that there is a patriarchy, and it is evil.

    Please don’t give them the idea of taking away men’s pockets. How would we ever manage.

  9. says

    When picking up your clothes off the bedroom floor in the dark, it helps to tell whose is whose. Of course that only works for non-cross-dressing hetero cis-gender liasons.

  10. microraptor says

    Wow, that’s up there with a book I read years ago that claimed that the custom of men holding doors open for women dated back to some ancient culture in which the man would send his wife into his hut first, in case an assassin was lurking. The assassin, apparently being less intelligent than the average crocodile, would automatically attack the first thing that entered the hut, giving the man time to escape or draw his own weapon. Now, the author didn’t list which ancient culture this practice of holding doors for expendable women to detect lurking assassins was from, but I suspect that it was one of the ones located on the seventh planet in the Sol System.

  11. says

    Also, I think it’s a minor issue compared to that real pressing question, about the absence of pockets in women’s clothing. I think that one is good evidence that there is a patriarchy, and it is evil.

    However as the “man bag” becomes universally adopted (as the more intelligent males have already done) I predict a decline in pockets of male clothing as well.

  12. Ray, rude-ass yankee SJW "Bwaahahahaha!" says

    microraptor@13,

    I suspect that it was one of the ones located on the seventh planet in the Sol System.

    Or at least pulled from there?

  13. Ray, rude-ass yankee SJW "Bwaahahahaha!" says

    johnm55@14,

    I predict a decline in pockets of male clothing as well.

    They can have my pockets when they pry them off my cold dead… clothing.
    Come to that, I’ll sew more pockets on myself!

  14. Nick Gotts says

    However as the “man bag” becomes universally adopted (as the more intelligent males have already done) I predict a decline in pockets of male clothing as well.

    You can have my multi-pocketed fleece and jacket when you strip them from my cold, dead torso!!

  15. zibble says

    God forbid that a man might accidentally put on a woman’s shirt.

    I’m almost certain that’s the real origin, if only because that exact scenario played out with me. When i was just a young teen, my mom once was mildly horrified to see I’d bought a shirt from the thrift store that was FOR GIRLS. It’s not like it was pink and covered in ovaries or anything, but its buttons were on the opposite side.

    No one really seems to notice that crap now, though. It might just be a matter of time before the garment industry forgets there is a standard, or at the very least stops arbitrarily telling half the population not to buy their products.

  16. chigau (違う) says

    Traditional Japanese clothing wraps left-over-right for everyone.
    I think that is also true in most Asian countries.

  17. dianne says

    I still think it’s so companies can sell twice as many clothes. I’m almost exactly the same size as my partner. So why can’t I just wear his clothes? Especially expensive clothes like suits. But men’s clothing is just different enough that we can’t wear each other’s…Sigh. Why couldn’t I have been a lesbian?

  18. Big Boppa says

    My 6 year old granddaughter recently pointed out another disparity. She was quite incensed that her brother’s undies have a pocket in front and her’s don’t.

  19. A. Noyd says

    chigau (#20)

    Traditional Japanese clothing wraps left-over-right for everyone.

    Yeah, unless you’re dead. Then it’s right over left. What idiotic mangling of evolution would they make up to explain that?

  20. says

    chigau beat me to it. That fact is pretty good evidence that the side difference for buttons is based on some arbitrary and probably silly reason, not because its hardwired into the brain, or benefits men doing manly things.

  21. dianne says

    I’m reminded of the study a few years ago where researchers (using the term loosely) claimed that gender roles were “hard wired” because they found* that girl apes** picked up the toy cooking pot more often than boy apes.Because apes do so much cooking?

    *”Found” describes what they claimed the results showed. Whether real differences were observed or not is extremely questionable.

    **Non-human apes, that is. I don’t remember which species. Probably chimp.

  22. says

    An infinitely better article on the subject. http://www.todayifoundout.com/index.php/2014/06/mens-womens-shirts-pants-buttons-opposite-sides-start/

    Having spent a great deal of time in period accurate costumes from the late Gothic to 1920s I wholeheartedly reject the argument that having buttons on one side or another make anyone’s life easier. It was much more likely a fetish of the upper classes to add distinction to certain women’s garments and it caught on, but the article above makes some very good points.

    I’m embarrassed for that article in the Atlantic. It’s surprising how a magazine can have such great work and such garbage.

  23. Nerd of Redhead, Dances OM Trolls says

    Diane#26

    I’m reminded of the study a few years ago where researchers (using the term loosely) claimed that gender roles were “hard wired” because they found* that girl apes** picked up the toy cooking pot more often than boy apes.Because apes do so much cooking?
    **Non-human apes, that is. I don’t remember which species. Probably chimp.

    Vervet monkeys.

  24. marcoli says

    I understood it was about having a maid dress the ladies, so the buttons are on the maids’ right side. This caught on as an ostentation for everybody. It is an example of a ‘palimpsest’. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palimpsest for a description of that.
    Other examples of palimpsests are why smart phone keys are arranged where the top row spells qwertyuiop.

  25. Ray, rude-ass yankee, Unrepentant Flibbertigibbet says

    Wouldn’t having buttons on opposite sides make it easier for opposite sex partners to undress each other?
    Yeah, my mind went right to that.

  26. says

    Wouldn’t having buttons on opposite sides make it easier for opposite sex partners to undress each other?

    that has to be it.

    if it’s not, we should declare it so.

  27. Tethys says

    I would guess that shirt buttons are gendered as a side effect of mass production, so that you can quickly and accurately differentiate between a rack of mens shirts and womens shirts. Now I am going to go read the link in #27 and see if they have a better explanation that doesn’t involve french aristocracy.

  28. rabbitbrush says

    Todd Morgan @23 – Yes. Zippers are opposite, too. A neighbor gave me a jacket a while back, because it zipped “wrong,” and was too maddening; and thought it might work better for me. I have since noticed zippers zipping up different channels depending on whether the item of clothing was made for male or female. So, so weird.

  29. robro says

    According to Pppffff “Functional buttons with buttonholes for fastening or closing clothes appeared first in Germany in the 13th century.[4] They soon became widespread with the rise of snug-fitting garments in 13th- and 14th-century Europe.”

    This Slate article says that the different sides thing started in the 18th century, and repeat the story that it was for the convenience of dressing maids, which before. They claim that rich men of the era buttoned their own shirts, while women had dressers. They don’t site any reason for believing this.

    Even if that is true, it begs the question of its persistence. The rich have always been a small number of people. The majority would make their own clothes, and persumably arrange buttons for their own convenience. Why wouldn’t that won the day by now.

    I personally find PZ’s first explanation compelling.

  30. Ray, rude-ass yankee, Bugblatting Flibbertigibbet says

    Todd Morgan@31, And all you have to do to join, is to sing it the next time it comes around… with feeling
    .
    Small clarification per my post @30 My mind went right there only after dealing with Uranus (16) and my second amendment right to pockets (17) Priorities, people! Priorities.

  31. says

    The problem with the “maids dressing their mistresses” explanation is that there is no reason to think that one orientation is easier than the other. I’m sitting here in a woman’s sweater, and I had no problems buttoning it up, even though it’s backwards from what I’m used to.

  32. chigau (違う) says

    There is also no reason to think that anything was ever done for the convenience of servants.

  33. komarov says

    Re: Holms (#38):

    If being practical was a serious consideration in fashion, most shoes would use velcro by now and the thrice-damned shoelace would be a thing of the past. Ah, if only…

  34. says

    I love weird stuff like that; something becomes deeply embedded in culture and is then “how it’s done”..

    Deconstructing it a bit, it’s probably a bit of survivorship bias and sunk cost fallacy. It’s probably easier to make things one way than it is to ask about others (now I am going to ask my shirt maker to make me a shirt that buttons backwards!) I suppose that having the buttons on the other side of the placket would waste a tiny bit of time for someone who wishes to be unaware of such things, and who tries to button their shirt without examining it first.

    One fun thing about these artifacts is that they will help protect us against robot eradication. Though the defense is broken down. Up until this point, robot AIs were not capable of wearing shirts more complicated than Carl Sagan style turtlenecks. But – when they learn how to rapidly dress themselves using buttons on either side of the placket, it’s curtains for humanity!!!

    I love this kind of stuff. All my life I’ve gone around asking people why they wear neckties, or what is the origin of this or that (did you know that the ringy things that are used to hold the head-scarf in Persian Gulf states are allegedly evolved from camel-hobbles? I’m skeptical. Camel hobbles are probably regularly soaked in camel ordure…) What’s crazy is when it becomes so familiar that it then becomes traditional and the enforcers of tradition come along and, uh, enforce. The enforcers of tradition are just as solid on the oxford comma as they are on the idea that a necktie needs a “dimple” in certain forms of knot. They’re on this shit. Protecting us from the AI apocalypse by adding pointless complexity that makes it hard for an AI to blend in. It’d have its shirt buttoned wrong and Magnus Robot Fighter’d kick its head off in an instant!

  35. Al Dente says

    A. Noyd @25

    Yeah, unless you’re dead. Then it’s right over left. What idiotic mangling of evolution would they make up to explain that?

    That’s so you can tell the difference between dead people and people who are merely resting and/or pining for the fjords.

    “I ATEN’T DED” –Esmeralda Weatherwax

  36. Tethys says

    Another problem with the ‘for the maids ease in dressing” theory is that the maid buttoned her own clothing before she helped the ladies of the house get dressed. Elaborate gowns and corsets do require the assistance of at least one other person to get in and out of them.

  37. konrad_arflane says

    I *think* the idea behind the “men are manly hunters” explanation is supposed to be that, when drawing a weapon left to right, it’s easier to get your hand stuck in your clothing if it wraps left-over-right. Even if they didn’t have buttons in the paleolithic, this *could* have started a tradition of men’s clothing wrapping right-over-left lasting to the present day (note that this would be easy to check – we have clothing finds from AFAIK essentially every time period over the last several thousand years). Of course, I would question whether *hunting* weapons were typically even worn on the left and drawn across the body; *swords* were, obviously, but they’re not for hunting.

    As far as holding babies goes, meh. I carry my daughter on my left (dominant) arm most of the time, because it’s stronger than my right, but switch if I need to to anything finicky. I’m guessing most people would follow the same pattern.

    My own pet theory about the Button Issue is that some busybody decided it looks better if a couple standing side-by-side has symmetrical garment openings, and that the openings should face inwards rather than outwards (in the canonical arrangement with the man on the left and the woman on the right) to be slightly less obvious. But of course, I will freely admit that I have absolutely no evidence that this is true.

  38. kagekiri says

    @#20 chigau:

    I’ve heard pretty similar theories as the European ones as to why that’s the case, like Japanese soldiers drawing their swords from their left hip, and not wanting their clothes to catch the sword’s hilt as it’s being drawn. So you close your kimono left over right.

    I assume that’s what the theory PZ cites means; not that buttoning up is more difficult, but the direction of buttoning creates that potential flap that gets in the way of drawing a weapon.

    There are actually similarly martial theories are for why Japanese people stay to the left side of the road in two way traffic: your sword is on your left hip, so if you walk past an enemy pass on the right side of the road, your sword-drawing motion is pulling your sword away from your enemy, rather than attacking with the sword-draw itself.

    Course, reading that all back to myself now, this is potentially made up bullshit or an after-the-fact idle theorizing…but yeah.

  39. kagekiri says

    @48 me:

    Oh, and yeah, these theories are definitely specifically for soldiers, not hunters, as konrad_arflane mentioned, and anchored pretty squarely in the time period where traditional Japanese clothing/swords were actually most relevant: the 1100s to maybe 1600s.

  40. says

    The “drawing left to right argument” also doesn’t work. Say I have my Bowie knife on my left; I reach for it with my right hand, and imagining that I am the most egregiously clumsy dork who ought to die in his first fight, I snag my hand on the men’s shirt I’m wearing during the reach. Or if I’m wearing a women’s shirt, I snag my hand+knife as I pull it out.

    Either is improbable. Either is as equally unlikely as the other.

    And most importantly, if you’re going to postulate functions for the orientation, SHOW ME EMPIRICAL EVIDENCE. Saying “well, it could have been this way” is pure unadulterated just-so storytelling.

  41. says

    I’ve always understood it to be a subtle and intrinsic misogyny that is intended to keep women in an inferior position to men.

    It’s no secret that in almost all European languages the word “left” has bad, evil, or (to use the Latin word itself) sinister connotations while the word “right” is synonymous with being correct, favored, or otherwise in the superior place. It persists in literature and religious teachings. (Remember: being left-handed is a crime by biblical standards.)

    Thus forcing women to use their left hands to fasten and unfasten the buttons on their shirts has the result of creating and reinforcing the view that they’re somehow inferior to the men who use their right hands.

    Is that a cause or effect? That I can’t say…

  42. Steven Brown: Man of Mediocrity says

    My mother said that when she was at school there was a girls way and a boys way for lacing your shoes. I don’t know if that peculiar to rural New Zealand at the time or something that was more wide spread.
    I wonder how these people would justify that.

  43. palomar8 says

    “Also, I think it’s a minor issue compared to that real pressing question, about the absence of pockets in women’s clothing. I think that one is good evidence that there is a patriarchy, and it is evil.”

    As much as I love PZ Myers and hate the patriarchy, I’m not sure that I agree. Women’s clothing may not have enough pockets, but it’s usually possible to find a suit, or cocktail dress, or ball gown with pockets, if that’s important to you (and it is to me). Even really, really problematic types of women’s fashion, like 18th and 19th century European fashion had pockets for women (they were hidden beneath the hoop skirts that made it hard to sit down, and tied over the corsets that made it hard to breath).

  44. ethicsgradient says

    Don’t think of this as where the buttons are, but which side has the outer flap – you start with clothing that just overlaps, and if you have the materials and sewing skill (or can pay someone to do it), you then add a fastening of some sort.

    There’s a reason for men’s pants to have the outer flap on the left – for right-handers, it’s more convenient to reach inside to get to … things. Perhaps their upper clothing just followed that convention. while for women in skirts, there was no such need (if, however, you fashion your skirt by wrapping cloth around your waist, perhaps it’s easier to finish it off with your right hand holding it and reaching across to tuck it in the waist at your left).

    And it might be easier to do the basic holding of a baby with your left hand, which leaves your right hand to do the more fiddly things like opening your clothing, or anything with the baby. Matching weapons and undoing clothing, which isn’t much of a common activity together, does sound more of a stretch to me.

  45. Kimpatsu says

    PZ, it’s because in Europe, men dressed themselves but women were dressed by their maids. With most people being right-handed, the alignment of buttons is to assist the person doing the buttoning.

  46. cartomancer says

    I can’t say I ever noticed the thing with the side clothes button up on. Or the pockets. Mind you, I don’t like button-up clothing and tend to wear slip-on and elasticated clothes if at all possible. Also I’ve never really examined “women’s” clothing before, because I hardly know any women. But given that most of these arbitrary gender segregation things in modern society (blue for boys and pink for girls, etc.) tend to be products of Victorian and later gender policing, I would imagine that’s the most likely explanation.

    The notion that button ettiquette would emerge with the wealthy is not, in itself, a silly one. Buttons emerged in the central Middle Ages when aristocratic fashions were tending towards tight fitting clothes – most regular people still wore slip-on smocks and tunics of some kind. On the other hand, buttoned garments were originally display garments rather than functional ones – they were worn to show off your wealth, and if you had to do something practical you put on something else. The thing is, though, there is no evidence that late medieval clothes had any kind of formal buttoning paradigm, much less a gendered one. How would such a thing have become commonplace, after all? Garment manufacture was not standardised or industrial in nature in the Middle Ages. At best a buttoning paradigm could have been some kind of house style of particular tailors’ guilds (in which case we would expect at least some records on the subject). Also, medieval European society was a lot less heavily gender-segregated than early modern and especially than Victorian society. The notion that having separate ways of doing things for men and women should be the default was not a commonplace. The whole knights in shining armour and damsels in distress version of the Middle Ages is pure 19th century fantasy.

    As for the drawing of swords… most swords don’t have to be drawn across the body at all. Roman legionaries drew their swords from a scabbard on the same side of their body to facilitate marching in close formation, and you can do this with pretty much any sword short of a landesknecht zweihander. The Roman world also drove and walked on the left-hand side (it was only after Napoleon that most of continental Europe switched to the right – Britain remained left-hand drive as a relic), so there seems little connection between sword drawing habits and driving orientation.

    Also, as a proudly sinister individual, I have to remind the world that 5-10% of the population is left-handed! Surely if there were some practical convention for which side to button up on then it would be subject to chirality first, rather than gender. If types opening both ways exist and there is some practical utility to the orientation then surely there would be at least some remnant of a custom whereby left-handed people got to have clothes that button the opposite way?

  47. Ray, rude-ass yankee, Bugblatting Flibbertigibbet says

    Jim Phynn@51,

    Thus forcing women to use their left hands to fasten and unfasten the buttons

    I always need both hands to button up a shirt.

  48. Ray, rude-ass yankee, Bugblatting Flibbertigibbet says

    OK, it’s evident that we need some research done on this. Who needs a topic for their phd in fashion? Get them on this, stat!

  49. konrad_arflane says

    Seconding Ray @57: While I *can* button my shirt with one hand, using two hands is so much easier that I would never use just one unless I absolutely had to. Also, as a lefty wearing men’s clothing, I’ll say that buttoning up with the left hand is not much more difficult than with the right (so a woman should be able to button her clothes just fine with her right hand should she need one hand for something else), and unbuttoning with the left is actually *easier* than with the right.

  50. sirbedevere says

    Regarding zippers: Yes, they do put the pull side of zippers on opposite sides for men’s and women’s clothing – with a notable exception: Motorcycle jackets. Men’s motorcycle jackets have the zip pull on the left (“women’s”) side, presumably because it’s easier to work the zip while keeping one’s right hand on the throttle. (Though it’s still a right pain in the arse to do one handed, I can assure you.) I’ve never checked out women’s motorcycle jackets but I would guess they’re the same.

  51. Ray, rude-ass yankee, Bugblatting Flibbertigibbet says

    sirbedevere@60,

    Men’s motorcycle jackets have the zip pull on the left… I’ve never checked out women’s motorcycle jackets but I would guess they’re the same.

    Huh, my (men’s) motorcycle jacket has the zip pull on the right, so does the wife’s.

  52. woozy says

    It’s like driving on the left side of the road. Either is equally difficult or easy but you choose one and stick to it. Now for some inexplicable reason, a gentleman’s valet or wife faces the man while buttoning while a ladies maid or self stands behind and buttons by reaching around. Movies seem to imply it is because women like to look at themselves in mirrors while they are dressing whereas men like to complete the task completely then turn to look at the result. Of course if this began in the 13th century then mirrors have nothing to do with it. (And doesn’t make sense as those buttoning a man’s shirt would never button a womans. I’m still inclined to go with gilliels reason.)

    Surprised you never noticed. It’s a well-known inconsistancy no-one really understands but likes to think they do. That panadaptivism is utter bullshit in any event.

  53. says

    This is a slight extension on the “ladies are dressed by maids” expectation:

    Yes, upper-class men were dressed by valets… except in the military, where many younger sons of upper-class men served under conditions not allowing for valets during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries (both army and navy). And the less said about coal miners being dressed by valets once the nineteenth-century clothing factories of the Midlands made button-top-to-bottom woven shirts a part of the poorly-dressed non-gentleman’s attire that he had to put on by gaslight before heading down to the mine…

    In short, I suspect the the problem is that ladies’ garments remained less manufactured for longer than did men’s, and the manufactured garments were for a, umm, lower economic class.* The key point, though, is that — just like biological evolution — there isn’t an easy, single-factored, full explanation; it’s a complex adaptation (of some kind) to circumstances that we’re trying to explain with the dubious benefit of 20/50 hindsight. (It’s 20/50 hindsight because we’re very shortsighted in attributing what is significant in the past…) We can point to the specific mechanism, but it’s difficult to point definitively to the specific rationale that made that adaptation superior.

    * But a higher moral class, witness the Donald J. Trump Collection sold (until recently) at Macy’s… for which the buttons are wearer’s-right oriented.

  54. unclefrogy says

    for what ever reason buttons are like that (in the west not having any information about any where else)
    Until someone does an exhausting study of the historical record there will be no definitive answer.
    I tend to think that it is an arbitrary quirk of history an artifact that got applied generally because it did.
    There are other things like that, I read some where that road width and train track are about the width of two horse roman chariots .
    We use the keyboard layout for a now obsolete reason, The aspect ration of early photographs and hence movies and the TV picture tube are also based on some quirk of early photo-graphical glass plates size that had nothing to do with photography
    chance and inertia?
    uncle frogy

  55. Die Anyway says

    What I take from all of this is that PZ must never have emptied the dryer and hung up the shirts. Funny thing though is that I am comfortable buttoning my shirts both on myself and (while facing them) on a hanger, and clumsy while buttoning my wife’s shirts on a hanger.

  56. chigau (違う) says

    Clothing has, in fact, been studied in intense, stitch-by-stitch detail, for a very long time.
    There are large, well curated, well analysed, well published, collections of clothing, well, everywhere.
    Unfortunately, most of them are associated with Home Economics.
    Therefore … women … therefore … who cares?

  57. Ray, rude-ass yankee, Bugblatting Flibbertigibbet says

    chigau@67,

    Whyinhell are you buttoning shirts on a hanger?

    Hi chigau!
    I always button at least the top button to hold the shirt on the hanger and keep the collar straight.
    (shrug), might be just me though.

  58. Ray, rude-ass yankee, Bugblatting Flibbertigibbet says

    Don’t know why this difference in male/female clothing closure fascinates me, but it does.

  59. says

    PZ Myers @ #50:

    And most importantly, if you’re going to postulate functions for the orientation, SHOW ME EMPIRICAL EVIDENCE. Saying “well, it could have been this way” is pure unadulterated just-so storytelling.

    I think that’s the point, though. All we have is “just-so storytelling” for this one. There is no empirical evidence. At the end of the day, that’s how it’s always been as far as anyone can recall. And I fear any attempt to explain it away will just come across as sexist to a point, and/or classist (the one about the servants). You’re right that It’s a pointless convention in clothes-making and should probably go away, but there it is.

    I admit the “opposite sides makes it it easier for partners to take off each other’s clothes during sex” just-so storytelling is intriguing, if only for amusement purposes, even if, again, it doesn’t actually fly as an explanation. :D

    ————————————————————–
    chigau @ #67:

    Whyinhell are you buttoning shirts on a hanger?

    I do this, too. Just the top button, to be fair, but as Ray said in #68, it helps keep the shirts on the hangers and the collar a little straighter.

    ————————————————————–
    As for pockets…

    I want my pockets, I need my pockets, and I will keep my pockets.

    My cargo shorts are mine, and you can’t have them!

  60. Athywren - This Thing Is Just A Thing says

    @marcoli, 29

    This caught on as an ostentation for everybody. It is an example of a ‘palimpsest’.

    It’s late, so forgive me if I’m being dense, but are you sure you meant palimpsest? I can see how something like “vestige” would be applicable, but I’m not seeing that one… and I swear I’m not just commenting to be argumentative; I’m legimiately curious if there’s another understanding of the word that’s just completely escaping me tonight.

  61. chigau (違う) says

    Hi, Ray!
    I do the top botton on shirts only when I hang them outside in a strong breeze.
    Inside, they just get hung.

  62. Athywren - This Thing Is Just A Thing says

    @Ray, 68

    I always button at least the top button to hold the shirt on the hanger and keep the collar straight.

    I fold my buttony things up and put them in drawers. Hangers are for legwear and t-shirts/sweaters/etc… oh, and jackets or coats, but they always hang open anyway.

  63. marcoli says

    I perused the internet for a time, and so that makes me an expert :/ But various explanations came out:
    1. The most common reason cited was the ‘maids dress the ladies’ thing. An added detail that was interesting was that ladies garments were complicated and multi-layered, so it was easier to aceed to the needs of ladies’ maids. Gentlemen had less to deal with, and so their buttons were not reversed for their dressers.
    2. This style of buttoning for the aristocracy became standard for everyone, as an affectation.
    3. Another reason that I saw once had to do with men and swords again, but not for the reasons given above. Instead, the button / fastener style in mens garments was to make it harder for an assailant (who was likely right handed) to slip a blade between the overlapping panels on buttoned down clothing.
    4. Other sources said that it really is not known for certain. I find that I like that. We have ideas, maybe one idea has been more popularly quoted, but we really do not know.
    I also agree with PZ that none of these are really supported by evidence.

  64. Lyn M: Totally Knows What This Nym Means says

    I suspect this custom has some link to sumptuary laws, and regulations of the type. Frequently in reading about historical times, you come across laws regulating dress so that classes could be told apart. As well, wearing clothing “belonging” to the other sex was forbidden quite commonly, from the Bible to city ordinances in the US. It seemed to be part of the concept of controlling society to preserve order and decency. If you were poor, you should look poor, no fancy colours or materials in your clothes. The separation of gender into strict binary seemed to be as important much of the time. It was actually an offence for a man to dress as a woman in New York City as late as 1968, part of a set of city ordinances. In the 1800s, it was widely enacted that it was illegal for a woman to dress as a man.
    I think that distinguishing clothing was therefore important in the society of the day, and buttons helped to indicate the “proper” gender that was to wear a given article of clothing.
    Why the buttoning rules as they stand now? No idea, but once dictated, that rule would tend to become enshrined in a matrix of cultural and legal rules enforcing it.
    Regulation of clothing by societal rules is anything but long gone. Remember when women wearing pantsuits were not permitted in some restaurants? The rule at court in Ontario was that women had to wear skirts with the robes until some time in the 1970s, as I recall.
    The distinctions now remaining are more like relics, I think. It seems quite funny to me that the rules are even thought to be derived from evolution based on societal roles in prehistoric times. As has been pointed out, many cultures don’t follow the European or Western model, yet somehow they evolved from those same distant hunter-gatherer societies where individuals would need to grab a knife or nurse a baby? Interesting how that worked out.

  65. chigau (違う) says

    marcoli #73
    srsly
    your internet perusal led you to think that ladies garments
    were more complex than mens garments?

  66. says

    Some of these rules are practical but have hidden antecedents. When I was learning to ride horseback, I was told over and over that you always mount the horse from the left. This never made any sense because horses are bilaterally symmetrical.

    Until I mounted my horse wearing a sword.

  67. hamletmonkey says

    I ran across this button-hole distinction buying a reputedly Asian-made shirt in New Zealand in the early 90s and was told, when I asked “Why is it so?”, that there were different tariffs applied to clothing, depending on whether they were intended for men or women. I think the women’s version was the cheaper at the time, although that would seem counter to what appears in many online articles about gender-based taxes and pricing.
    Re motorcycle jackets (#60), I have half a dozen, and the zips are split 50/50: 3 left and 3 right-sided.

  68. says

    The explanation I received in my distant youth was that women dressed themselves and men were dressed by others, but on consideration this makes no more sense than any of the other explanations that aren’t “It’s an accident of history”. Is it really easier to button up a leftward buttoning shirt yourself than a rightward one? Thinking about it is making my head spin.

  69. chigau (違う) says

    I don’t get it
    left hand pushing a button though a button-hole
    is somehow more difficult than
    left hand moving a button-hole around a button
    srsly?

  70. maria says

    The explanation for this where I’m from was that the flap on women’s clothes was made to overlap in a way men wouldn’t be able to peek through any gaps in the buttoning to catch a tiny glimpse of a woman’s bare flesh in church, since women were made to always sit to the left in church.

    Probably not the right one either, but that’s what I’ve always heard.

  71. rq says

    I still use both hands to button my shirts. All two of them, when I do put them on. I don’t understand the relevance of this left-/right-handed business if it’s a two-handed job anyway.
    My question is, pants with button-and-fly combinations in front: is there a convention for this, too? Is it the same around the world? Because I’m pretty sure that not all my jeans button on the same side or have the zipper-cover facing the same side, and they’re all classified by the same gender. Or at least they were when I bought them.

    Anyway, speaking of left-/right-handedness, I remember reading some local-ish history a while back, and there was an interesting point about nursemaids for the upperer classes, where they would be imported from the neighbouring… nation? and due to quirks in their culture, they would hold babies opposite to how local custom dictated (local custom dictated a baby is held on the hip that leaves baby’s right hand free, while the nursemaids would hold them on the hip that leaves baby’s left hand free), and this led to an increased percentage of left-handed people within that particular local population. But shirts here only had at most a couple of collar buttons with not much fabric overlap, so I’m sure nobody was too bothered. After all, it’s all about how you tie your belt!

  72. Sili says

    It’s in order to be able to remember if your dinner partner is seated to your right or left. If you can get your hand into their shirt easily, that’s the one.

    Dunno what to do in this day and age with same-sex couples. I guess someone should ask Lord Elgin and Duncan.

  73. says

    robro

    The majority would make their own clothes, and persumably arrange buttons for their own convenience. Why wouldn’t that won the day by now.

    Have you ever opened a magazine where there was a “get this star’s style for less than 100 quid” section? Imitating the top dogs has been around for a loooong time. You didn’t do what was convenient, you did what made it look like you had more than you actually did.

  74. madtom1999 says

    When in doubt go for male privilege – its easier for a right handed male to undo his and her buttons.
    Same reason why women wear dresses and not trousers – easy access.

  75. rq says

    If you can get your hand into their shirt easily, that’s the one.

    But… but… but… if there’s a woman on your right and a man on your left, you can get your hand into both shirts easily!!!

  76. anym says

    I have some zipped jackets made for european companies which have the slider on the opposite half of the zip to ones made for american companies. Might be just an artefact of those particular brands or items, but clearly it means that the people on one side of the atlantic are effeminate weaklings worthy only of being overrun by muslims. I’m not sure which side that is though.

  77. Dunc says

    chigau, @80:

    I don’t get it
    left hand pushing a button though a button-hole
    is somehow more difficult than
    left hand moving a button-hole around a button
    srsly?

    Well, you’ve got to remember that during the period when this convention was established, you’re not dealing with modern-style buttons, especially for women’s garments – you’re more likely to be dealing with lots of closely-spaced, very small buttons, with very tight buttonholes, which would be closed using a button-hook rather than by hand.

    Ray, rude-ass yankee, Bugblatting Flibbertigibbet, @68:

    I always button at least the top button to hold the shirt on the hanger and keep the collar straight.
    (shrug), might be just me though.

    It’s not just you. It helps to keep them hanging straight – personally I button the top two, the bottom one, and one in the middle.

  78. konrad_arflane says

    madtom @85:

    Same reason why women wear dresses and not trousers – easy access.

    I’m pretty sure trousers were invented for one reason and one reason only: Riding. Men’s outfits from non-riding cultures tend(ed) to have just as easy access as a dress (a toga, for instance).

  79. Dunc says

    konrad_arflane, @89: Pre-Roman Britons wore trousers, even though they didn’t ride. The reason? It’s cold here. The Romans gave up their togas pretty swiftly once they got here too.

  80. Athywren - This Thing Is Just A Thing says

    @konrad_arflane, 89 & Dunc, 90
    You’re both wrong. Trousers were a misandrist invention by the matriarchy, designed to force men to show off their shapely bums. True fact*.

    *Fact may be untrue.

  81. Lofty says

    The thing that pisses off my wife about pockets (she loves them) is that some women’s trousers now have these pocket shaped decorations sewed onto them which are completely useless. My mother made most of our family’s clothes and every pair of pants had pockets. The garment industry is fucked up. As for buttons, I suspect the patriarchy is involved in gender policing these things and has been for a long time.

  82. says

    I read somewhere that that business of Napoleon keeping one hand tucked inside his vest (or waistcoat) was simply a painter’s convention to avoid having to paint a second hand; and that if you look at portraits of other figures from around the same time, they all do the same thing. It was not necessarily a personal characteristic of Napoleon, though it was recorded that he did have a weak stomach and GI problems ran in his family (his father died of stomach cancer and his own disputed autopsy suggested he had it too).

  83. says

    I’ve heard the servant idea as well. Same reason why bras tend to connect in the back. They are descended from a time when women would need help getting into their corsets.

  84. rq says

    it was recorded that he did have a weak stomach and GI problems ran in his family

    Sure, but is that something you’d want emphasized in your official badass portrait…?
    I vote for the unwillingness to paint a second hand. (
    When I used to draw a lot of horses, I particularly hated drawing forelegs for a while, for no reason I can define except that it was a finnicky business, until I caught on. But. There’s a myriad of creative ways you can draw a horse without showing its forelegs. :) Sticking a hand inside the waistcoat to avoid painting it is good enough for me.)

  85. Anri says

    Isn’t it the case,(and actual riders should correct me on this if I’m off base) that sidesaddle riders required reversible tack anyway, so that they could switch sides periodically to avoid asymmetrical muscle development?

    I actually recall a silly TV murder mystery that hinged on this point – the deceased’s overcoat had been buttoned incorrectly, and that “proved” that the only female suspect was the killer (the coat was double-breasted and could be done up either way. I’ve never owned a coat like that, but apparently they were a thing). Ignoring, of course, the obvious fact that if you are buttoning someone’s else coat, while facing them, you might very well do things backwards, especially when under a certain amount of stress.
    So glad to finally be able to tell that story. It’s stuck in my head for I dunno how many years.

  86. says

    There is a similar problem of panadaptationist stories about why the English drive on the left side of the road. See, you mount a horse this way but not that way from the side of the road, or the story is that the knights are passing each other on the road with the shield on this side and the sword on that side and therefore you want to ride on the left side.

    All the while forgetting that the French were the more influential country most of that time , and their knights the most famed in Europe (for extensive documentation see Monty Python and the Holy Grail), and they rode on the right side of the road.

  87. MadHatter says

    Based on half of these “reasons” we all apparently didn’t start adapting to anything until the 1800’s. The horseback riding thing (being a rider myself) was especially annoying. Only women of a certain rank/privilege ever rode side-saddle, primarily in Europe. Women who lacked the privilege or just didn’t feel like riding that way just didn’t (Charlemagne’s daughters, Marie Antoinette before she became queen, etc). Evidence of this is that as late as 1914 the Kaiser issued orders that wives of his officers had to start riding side-saddle since riding astride was so inappropriate. This ignores women in many other cultures as well.

    I could keep writing, these people drive me nuts.

  88. MadMax says

    Another relevant factoid: In the UK, at least, mens jackets seem to be mostly oriented opposite to the US, with the zip on the left. Buttoned items seem to be oriented in the same way as the US though, with the buttons on the right. I can’t report on the conventions with women’s clothing though, haven’t been here long enough to notice.

  89. Menyambal says

    I think we are overlooking the overlap of the garments. The arrangement of the buttons themselves are just a remnant of older garments that wrapped over. Buttons are fairly new, and outer garments used to flap over like modern bathrobes, then tie.

    In a flapped garment, there’s a distinct difference between left-on-top and right-on-top, especially when reaching inside the garment for something carried inside. I’m going to skip over swords (and shoulder holsters) and go to a gentleman’s wallet.

    Back in a day, the gentleman wore an overlapped coat with buttons fastening it. There was an inner pocket on the coat for a wallet or pocket book. Access to that pocket, for a right-handed reach, required that the coat be flapped left over right, with the pocket on the left side. The same holds for spectacles in the shirt pocket and other things commonly accessed. The left hand lifts the flap, the right goes under for the delicate work of grasping, and is loaded for whatever comes next.

    The flapping and overlapping came first, the buttons were just the last vestige of that. (I’m going to go with what was mentioned above about women carrying babies on their left arms. The right hand lifts the lapel, and the baby goes under. But mostly that women carried purses and were not sticking their hands under their clothes. Or women figured out that pulling an object out with the left allows the right hand to keep working, or to be ready to work upon whatever the right pulls out (I carry my wallet on the left). Or women working with their right hands wanted to keep the splatters of cooking from going into a flapped garment.)

    So overlap came first, buttons second. Napoleon sticking his hand in his shirt is a vestige of that, if it is his right hand in there.

    But Napoleon and others of his time had a different reason for resting a hand in the shirt buttons. Portraits and photos were slow to get, and long to sit through. Stuffing a hand in the shirt front helped keep the subject still, kept the twitchy fingers out of sight, and gave a little bulge to the biceps. It also could show off any bling on the hand region. (It is kinda comfy, too. I tried it for a while.) And if it was used by the rich folks who got their portraits made, the lesser people would imitate it.

  90. says

    Many years ago I was working in a fast food restaurant and a co-worker came in for his shift and he forgot his uniform. He went and grabbed a spare one from the cage where they were kept and got changed. After he was done, he came to me and asked me if there was a problem with the shirt because the buttons were on the wrong side, so I helpfully suggested it was probably a manufacturing error and it was nothing the worry about (he didn’t notice the rounded collar as opposed to the pointy one on the men’s shirts).

    A few minutes later he came bounding down the stairs howling at me.

    The moral of the story is that you never know when society’s gender policing will give you an opportunity to show a co-worker how ridiculous the strict binary is.

  91. howardhershey says

    As to the “reason” claiming that women’s buttons were because of ease in breast feeding, I would like to point out that women have not one, but two breasts and do not feed babies at only one of them.

  92. Menyambal says

    I just checked my bathrobe, which has overlapping front panels. I tend to put the right over the left, because I carry a flashlight in the right pocket. It is handy if the robe is closed or open.

    I once put on a pair of my wife’s jeans, accidentally (careless laundry sorting on my part). I can say that the button and zipper were the same as on my pants.

  93. says

    Years ago, Dave Feldman had an entertaining series of books on “Imponderables,” which asked and answered a heap of questions of this sort. This particular question recurred in four books throughout the series, never with a clear-cut answer. So, yeah, even the guy who made a career out of poking into such trivia only found a lot of stories and no data.

  94. janiceintoronto says

    Sill readers, they are on their proper sides because it’s the proper way do it.

    So simple.

    You’re overthinking things again.

  95. Nice Ogress says

    When I worked at the costume shop, back in my youth, we had a whole bunch of ‘victorian era’ (I think more likely 1930’s, but I digress) tuxedo shirts that had NO buttons – instead, they had two rows of buttonholes. The buttons, which were sewn together in pairs, came separately and worked more-or-less like cufflinks. The collars were also separate. We always let the customer suss out how the damned things buttoned, because none of the staff had any idea.

  96. says

    This is fascinating. I’d heard the ‘maids dress ladies’ explanation, too, and I think that, plus Dunc’s comment, above:

    Well, you’ve got to remember that during the period when this convention was established, you’re not dealing with modern-style buttons, especially for women’s garments – you’re more likely to be dealing with lots of closely-spaced, very small buttons, with very tight buttonholes, which would be closed using a button-hook rather than by hand.

    Men’s shirts, pantaloons and jackets all button up on the front. Women’s dresses fastened with long, zipper-length rows of buttons up the back. You can’t fasten these yourself, even if the person who ‘does you up’ is your sister or your husband or the other maid who shares the attic room with you instead of a lady’s maid. So putting them on the side that’s easiest to do for a right-handed person makes sense.

    Beside, you need someone to tighten your corsets, too. As I single woman I made the mistake of ordering a ‘real’ corset from a friend who makes them professionally: a lovely idea, except I’d be calling friends over to ‘dress me’ every time I put it on.

    That said, the ‘sunk cost’ argument makes far more sense now.

  97. vereverum says

    PZ

    because God forbid that a man might accidentally put on a woman’s shirt.

    you hit the nail on the head:
    Deuteronomy 22:5 … neither shall a man put on a woman’s garment: for all that do so are abomination unto the LORD thy God.

  98. Intaglio says

    The “keeps the sword arm clear” story has always been an uttler load of ball cocks. Buttoned clothing was rare unti the 17th Century, Buttons and toggles were expensive and people wore clothes that were laced or just pulled over the head. Women’s clothing. if you were wealthy was buttoned at the back.

    If you use Google to search for Napoleon hand in jacket pose you will see that he and others had coats and jackets that buttoned thee “wrong way.” My suspicion is that it the current trend is an artifact of mass production where shirts or blouses were being produced and the handedness was a way to sort them easily.

  99. Lyn M: Totally Knows What This Nym Means says

    @ Menyambal 105

    I think you may have hit on the answer. In China, all the clothes are buttoned the same way, “man’s” version AND the jackets for women almost always have that inside pocket on the left. At first I thought I would not use it as I am quite round, however, the bottom of the pocket is low, so even a largish wallet is nicely placed where it doesn’t show or look weird. I now frequently use that pocket. It would be quite a bit more awkward to use, if on the right, as I am a rightie.

  100. says

    One aspect that hasn’t really been mentioned was that early garment manufacturing used to be segregated by both law and custom. Men’s clothing was made by male Tailors, while women’s clothes were made by female Seamstresses, each with their own guilds. Guild anti-competition laws prohibited manufacturers making garments for the opposite sex, while sumptuary laws prohibited individuals from wearing garments of the opposite sex. Thus, men’s garments and women’s garments could have developed different conventions for overlaps and button sides, whether based on factors like ease of access to weapons or pockets as mentioned above, or just due to different fashion trends or a little of both. In any case, with the invention of sewing machines and standardized patterns in the following centuries, any such traditional conventions would have become ossified in the developing mass manufactured garments industry.

  101. Dunc says

    When I worked at the costume shop, back in my youth, we had a whole bunch of ‘victorian era’ (I think more likely 1930’s, but I digress) tuxedo shirts that had NO buttons – instead, they had two rows of buttonholes. The buttons, which were sewn together in pairs, came separately and worked more-or-less like cufflinks. The collars were also separate. We always let the customer suss out how the damned things buttoned, because none of the staff had any idea.

    Well, you won’t usually see detachable collars these days except on stiff-fronted “full dress” shirts for white tie, but dress studs are still the “proper” way to fasten a tuxedo shirt. They shouldn’t be pairs of buttons though, they should be metal studs with inlays (onyx for black tie, mother-of-pearl for white tie).

    During the late 19th and early 20th centuries, tuxedo shirts often fastened up the back. This was actually the predominant style during the ’30s…

  102. Athywren - This Thing Is Just A Thing says

    @howardhershey, 107

    As to the “reason” claiming that women’s buttons were because of ease in breast feeding, I would like to point out that women have not one, but two breasts and do not feed babies at only one of them.

    Actually, if Richard Herring’s Leicester Square podcast is any reliable source of information on this topic (and I have no reason to doubt it!) one of those breasts dispenses talcum powder, and is thus not to be used for the feeding of babies.

  103. Crimbly says

    I misread the title as panda-adaptionisms. Perhaps the reason pandas don’t breed as much as we’d like them to is because they cannot get their shirts on in the morning?

  104. pedz says

    I’ve Know this forever. It is one of the very strictest of the man laws, probably because it is so subtle. Violate at your own risk; your masculinity is at stake. (except Free Thinkers amd Unitarians might survive the onslaught.

    The reason I was always given hearkens back to men wearing swords. As Marcus R. notes swords are always worn on the lift (at least for right handed men) and if the left side overlaps the right then there is less chance of your sword getting tangled up in your shirt when you draw.

    Now how about which side your wear your watch on, which side you comb your hair on, whether you shower or take a bath, and do we really have to worry about which side our zipper slider is attached to?

    Interestingly, there is no similar set of rules for women in our culture.

  105. LicoriceAllsort says

    It can’t be for a very good reason, because I have a very small number of clothing items that are definitely “women’s” but that button/zip on the opposite side. It seems to be more frequent in bottoms than in tops.

  106. khms says

    The one thing I get from all these is that most people are searching the reason in the wrong time period.

    Buttons for men and woman were not always segregated. Instead, they seem to have started out more or less random.

    It seems that chirality only entered the picture fairly late. I think one of the referenced a detailed timeline. That timeline is what your explanation needs to work with.

  107. says

    Someone had to have said this, but I heard it was because having the buttons on the other side made it easier for men to unbutton their lovers blouse.

  108. Lofty says

    easier for men to unbutton their lovers blouse

    Dunno, reaching around from behind makes as much sense as anything else.