Women in Paris finally allowed to wear trousers... Finally??

[anisa]

A 200-year-old law forbidding women to wear trousers in Paris has finally been revoked.


http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/france/9845545/Women-in-Paris-finally-allowed-to-wear-trousers.html

On January 31, Najat Vallaud-Belkacem, France's minister of women's rights, made it officially impossible to arrest a woman for wearing trousers in the French capital.

The law required women to ask police for special permission to "dress as men" in Paris, or risk being taken into custody.

In 1892 and 1909 the rule was amended to allow women to wear trousers, "if the woman is holding a bicycle handlebar or the reins of a horse."

The law was kept in place until now, despite repeated attempts to repeal it, in part because officials said the unenforced rule was not a priority, and part of French "legal archaeology."

In July however, in a public request directed at Ms Vallaud-Belkacem, Alain Houpert, a senator and member of the conservative UMP party, said the "symbolic importance" of the law "could injure our modern sensibilities," and he asked the minister to repeal it.


Ms Vallaud-Belkacem agreed, and in a published statement on Jan. 31st wrote: "This ordinance is incompatible with the principles of equality between women and men, which are listed in the Constitution, and in France's European commitments.
"From that incompatibility follows the implicit abrogation of the ordinance."
The restriction focused on Paris because French Revolutionary rebels in the capital said they wore trousers, as opposed to the knee-breeches, or the "culottes," of the bourgeoisie, in what was coined the "sans-culottes" movement. Women rebels in the movement demanded the right to wear trousers as well, but were forbidden to do so.

[Patty Smyth]

Kind of unbelievable

[Natalka]

So odd... but there are similar bizarre laws still on the books in Canada, and in each province, so it must be in other countries as well.

[abbasgirl]

I remember reading about a law remaining on the books about it being a requirement to have someone walk in front of your horseless carriage with a lantern if you drive at night. I can't remember where that was. But it would really slow down the traffic on the 401 if it was enforced.

[Andit]

I know of a couple of odd ones here in Toronto:

You can't remove bandages in public.

You can't eat ice cream on Sunday on Yonge St (main st & longest st in world).

You can't have more than 3.5 inches of water in your bathtub in Etobicoke (a suburb of Toronto).


Every so often there are festivals where a portionof Yonge is closed off - have yet to see anyone get cited for eating ice cream.

[anisa]

these types of laws and rules are always great for a laugh.

what i find interesting is that obviously someone or a group of ppl was worked up enough to get these laws passed.

how did they just sink into the background and be forgotten?