In 1933, Dorothy Henderson-Smart left her hometown of Johannesburg, South Africa, and travelled with her mum and sister to Canberra for a holiday.
Dressed for “greater convenience when driving,” Dorothy pulled on a pair of pants and readied herself to visit Parliament House, where the trio were “entertained by several members at an afternoon tea”.
Little did she know, her practical choice would spark a national outcry.
The country’s newspapers quickly picked up the story of the girl who wore pants to Parliament House, and Dorothy gained some “accidental notoriety”.
“Girl in pants not abashed,” said one headline.
“Trousered women not welcome,” said another.
“It never entered my head that I was doing anything so very unusual,” Dorothy, 23 at the time, was quoted as saying in The West Australian.
“I never knew that any remarks had been passed about my wearing slacks until after dinner at the hotel that same night, when a reporter said, ‘I believe you are the girl who shocked politicians today’.”
In fact, Dorothy’s wardrobe choice was considered by the President of the Senate, Senator P.J Lynch, to be so “unbecoming” that he tried to ban women wearing trousers from the upper house.
The House of Representatives Speaker, George Mackay, agreed with the criticism but not the ban, declaring that “he would not add to his already heavy duties by setting himself up as consort of apparel of women visiting the house”.
And, with a joint decision required for a formal Parliament-wide ban, women’s slacks remained a Senate-only issue.
Dorothy’s wardrobe choice did, however, garner support from other parliamentarians, including the Chairman of Committees, who said he would only have an issue if women wearing pants “distracted” members.
Similarly, former Acting Prime Minister and then-United Australia Party candidate for Maribyrnong, James Fenton, told The Daily Telegraph, “I see not the slightest harm in the style; I think it is very sensible”.
But by the time the parliamentary press gallery had caught up with the ‘Girl in Pants’, “she had changed from black slacks to an attractive frock” and told one correspondent she’d “hardly been game to wear them” since leaving Canberra.
Why that moment was ‘ripe for change’
Dr Lorinda Cramer, a lecturer in Cultural Heritage and Museum Studies at Deakin University, said 1933 was “a moment ripe for change” in Australia after “very, very slow steps” across the 19th century.
The norm for women until that point had been “only dresses or skirts [as] they shouldn’t have garments that divided the leg,” she said.
“Trousers resonated very strongly with ideas of power, authority, and masculinity.”
Dorothy unwittingly walked right into this moment, but less than a month after she visited Parliament House, Brisbane Lady Mayoress Phyllis Green was similarly interrogated by the press over her intention to wear “slacks” to the beach.
“Slacks are a suitable form of beach wear,” she told The Queenslander dismissively.
“And they are becoming so general that if you wear skirts nowadays, you appear a perfect dowd.”
In Melbourne the following year, a woman was brought before a court for “the wearing of unconventional garb in public”. The garb in question? Shorts.
“The case was dismissed,” The Australian Women’s Weekly reported, indicating that Melbourne was “in the vanguard of advanced feminine fashions”.
Indeed, the garment was growing in popularity across the country “with young women in the Federal Capital Territory and frequently seen in the streets” wearing pants, according to news reports at the time.
“At the seaside the rule seems to be slacks for round the house, and shorts for the beach, for those of taste,” the Australian Women’s Weekly wrote.
“Those who do affect masculine garb on occasion, do with certain modifications … the new slacks are well tailored, with very wide legs, not the common variety.”
“There was this real excitement that surrounded trousers that year,” Dr Cramer explained.
“They might still have been quite challenging and quite daring, but there was attention on trousers for women.”
Dorothy’s story gets a second life
Despite the buzz at the time, it’s taken 90 years for Dorothy’s story to make its way back to her family.
In fact, Dorothy’s great-niece, Sophie Henderson-Smart, first learned of her relative’s brush with fame when she was told her surname had appeared in a news article last month about obscure laws in Canberra.
“With my mum and two sisters, I fired up the group chat and we were all most impressed that Dorothy caused a stir,” she said.
“My rule-following neonatologist Dad passed away a few years ago but his sister, my aunt, didn’t know, and neither did my second cousin, whose grandmother was Dulcie — Dorothy’s sister.”
With a bit of research, Ms Henderson-Smart learned Dorothy had been “initially apologetic” about the incident, but that it hadn’t lasted long.
“On her return to Johannesburg, where she made front page news, she was quoted in one of the articles as saying, cheekily, ‘I’m glad I gave those old boys something to talk about’,” she laughed.
“I just love that. What a woman!”
But while Dorothy proved to be something of a trendsetter, change was slow.
Over in America, in 1951, Katharine Hepburn was refused entry to Claridge’s Hotel in London in 1951, because women weren’t allowed to wear pants in the lobby.
Refusing to conform to societal expectations of women, the Academy Award winner used the staff access door instead.
More recently, women couldn’t wear pants on the US Senate floor until 1993.
In Australia, Queensland joined other jurisdictions in mandating public schools offer girls a pants option in 2019.
That same year, Virgin Atlantic allowed female cabin crew to wear pants (and flat shoes).
It would take another two years for Britain’s premier rowing event, the Henley Royal Regatta, to change its 180-year-old dress code and let women wear pants in the Steward’s Enclosure.
‘Generational boldness and tenacity’
Despite significant strides, Dr Cramer said “some women are still very conscious of needing to dress for particular moments in time and for particular occasions, with what we would consider to be feminine”.
“I’m really interested in the next couple of years in seeing whether there is a tipping point, and what that tipping point is for real change,” she said.
Funnily enough, it’s something that the Henderson-Smart family have always been aware of, even before they knew Dorothy’s story.
“I have two older sisters and Jaz, at seven-years-old, whilst travelling with my parents in Europe to see the sights circa 1979, insisted on wearing pyjamas to the Palace of Versailles,” Ms Henderson-Smart laughed.
“My other sister, Simone, took her first communion in all black, with ripped stockings and a long piece of fabric tied to her rat’s tail.”
Ms Henderson-Smart herself attended her Year 12 formal in a short dress, and wore a short skirt to the Member’s Stand of the Sydney Cricket Ground in 2014 as a “silent protest” against the administrators’ decision “to comment on appropriate skirt lengths for women”.
“Who knew there was generational boldness and tenacity?,” Ms Henderson-Smart, who runs a size-inclusive swimwear label Saint Somebody, said.
In 2022, her label was among six featured in Australian Fashion Week’s inaugural Curve Edit: a runway with garments just for mid-to-plus-sized bodies.
“Society says that if you are a woman, and you are average size or above, then you are not worthy of beautiful, on-trend swimwear,” she said.
“My work is making a stand against the blatant discrimination of women over a size 12.
“I’d even go as far as to say [it’s] political.”
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