Masculinisation is not always a choice. Cross-dressing may be a matter of economic survival. A more or less pronounced masculinisation is perceptible in certain professions. This carpenter may argue that working at heights is specific to her occupation, so she wears a tough velvet (green) culotte skirt. Oyster fisherwomen wore culottes to protect their intimacy, which was exposed when bent-over, backsides raised: their normal working position. Many working-class women were unable to access bourgeois femininity. For example, going out with no hat was considered masculine. Dress, manners, language: gender differentiation was less accentuated in the working class. In the 20^th century, working women were determined to win their right to “femininity”.

At the beginning of the 20^th century, postcards showed that women were gaining access to many intellectual and manual professions that had previously been reserved for men. In each case, two issues (which might seem anecdotal) attract our attention: the gender of the work clothes and the gender of the name of the trade (“woman-carpenter”?, “carpenter”? with wary inverted commas).

Trousers at work

In the 19^th century, female workers in trousers were rare. The picturesque spectacle they offered was worthy of postcards: the oyster fisherwomen of Marennes were entitled to this curiosity. But in many professions, trousers were considered inappropriate.

Attitudes towards women’s work changed during wartime. Hostility gave way to sympathy, and patriotism justified accommodations to the laws of gender. In 1914-1918, the “munitionnettes” inspired many written and pictorial comments. How did they dress in the factory? In dresses, did they uncover their legs halfway up their calves (the woman on the right)? Or did they wear trousers?

Here, the worker in the foreground is wearing a trouser suit belted under her chest, with a hat and high-heeled boots. Cheeks flushed, head lowered, smiling, she shows off a phallic shell. This “munitionette” sprang from the mischievous imagination of Xavier Sager (1870-1930), a prolific postcard illustrator (now popular with collectors).

In reality, trousers did not seem to have been so common in war factories. However, this photograph, taken in a nursery in 1917, shows that they did exist.