Women in pants?! Mayor draws line
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April 23, 1942: Letters started pouring into City Hall two days after Mayor Fletcher Bowron expressed his disapproval of the city’s female employees wearing slacks to work.
Bowron had weighed in on a City Council debate of the matter, saying: “Slacks are fine for women workers in defense factories but good taste and good sense will dictate that they are out of place in City Hall,” The Times reported.
The mayor went on to say: “Don’t let us use the war to undermine these things we like to consider feminine and ladylike. I am not old-fashioned, but I don’t like to see masculine women much more than feminine traits in men.”
Bowron’s words provoked veteran City Hall secretary Dorothy Foster to walk into the City Council chambers in trousers, The Times said. The newspaper quoted Foster as saying that “as wartime apparel they increase our efficiency and save us money.”
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