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Did you know that activists such as Amelia Bloomer were arrested for wearing pants in public—even loose “bloomers” that were worn under long skirts? And many of our moms and grandmas were not allowed to wear pants to school when they were girls. Even these days, women and girls are still arrested and flogged for wearing pants in areas of the world governed by religious laws deeming pants “indecent” for females. You can read about a new law against women wearing pants in Indonesia in this article. And some religious groups in Western countries forbid women and girls to wear pants at services.

That’s why we’re declaring Friday, June 11, Wear The Pants Day! We picked this day because on June 11, 1964, the Equal Pay Act was enacted in the US, mandating that women receive equal pay for equal work. On June 11, we’ll celebrate our freedom to wear pants won by our foremothers, and we’ll also show support for girls in other places who don’t have that right.

Here’s what you can do!

*Take our poll and quiz about Wear the Pants day. See how much you know about our right to wear pants!

*Wear pants on June 11! All forms of pants—from jeans to shorts to ski pants—count as pants. Tell everyone you know to wear pants on June 11, too! And then upload pics of yourself wearing pants to NewMoon.com. Leave a comment on this article so that others can check out your pants pics!

*Print out the Wear the Pants Day FAQ below, and keep it handy to tell people why you’re wearing pants today.

*Create a poster about Wear the Pants Day and put it up at school or libraries or other public places. You could also print some and hand them out!

*Strike up conversations with kids and adults by asking them about their favorite things to wear. That’s a good time to remind them that it wasn’t long ago that females couldn’t wear pants, and still can’t do so in some places.

* Ask girls to think of one thing they can do more freely in pants than they can in dresses, and either take a picture or video of it or write about it.

* Make a collage using pictures of women you admire who are wearing pants.

* Remember that boys and men generally don’t feel free to wear anything but pants, and that’s not fair either. You may know that particularly in countries where it’s hot a lot of the time, men wear skirts, which are much cooler than pants. Ask the guys you know: Would you wear a skirt if no one would treat you as a weirdo?

Why Wear The Pants Day? Answers from New Moon Girls (www.newmoon.com)

*Why Wear The Pants Day? Because while girls and women in most places can wear pants, not every woman and girl can. And that just doesn’t seem right! Pants should be a choice for everyone because they allow for a freedom of movement that dresses and skirts don’t always allow. And they should be a choice because…why shouldn’t they be a choice?!?

*Girls in the US and most other countries are allowed to wear pants at most every school. But it wasn’t that long ago that they couldn’t! Rules at many schools (including many colleges) requiring skirts for girls and women only started changing in the 1960s. Ask your mom or grandma if she had those rules. It was especially frustrating for girls and women who lived in cold climates! Even today, some schools have skirts-only rules for girls.

*Women in the US and most other countries can wear pants to work, but that too is a recent gain. As recently as 1994, a California law had to spell out the right of a woman to wear pants to work. Around the same time, a popular book for women, The New Dress For Success, cautioned women seeking to rise in the ranks at work against wearing pants at the workplace.

*Young females in professions such as law are still advised that wearing a skirt rather than pants is better for job interviews. And when powerful women prefer wearing pantsuits, such as US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, they are still regularly criticized for “unfeminine” clothing choices.

*Girls and women in countries with conservative religious laws and customs are flogged and arrested for wearing pants, even loose pants covered with skirts. Schoolgirls in Sudan were flogged last fall for wearing pants, for example. Sudanese journalist Lubna Hussein was not flogged after much international outrage, but she must pay a fee for the crime of wearing pants.

*Girls and women in the US still face rules and strong discouragement against wearing pants to services at some conservative religious places of worship.

*Why the big deal over females in pants? Still, in 2010? The reasons range from “immodesty” to a fear that women will threaten the “proper” role of men as authorities if they wear pants. Sound ridiculous? We think so. These are the same things people feared when American suffragist Amelia Bloomer and other women’s rights activists fought for the right to wear pants in the mid-1800s. It’s time to tell the world we STILL don’t agree.

*Why June 11, 1964? That’s the day that the Equal Pay Act was enacted in the US, which was a law saying that women should receive equal pay for equal work. We think June 11 is a good day to do two things. One, we should reflect on the fact that in 2010, pay is still not equal for women, with women receiving an average 78 cents to a man’s dollar in the workplace. Two, we should celebrate the fact that much has changed since 1964, thanks to the work of millions of women’s rights activists across the globe. Girls and women have many more opportunities, and they can wear pants in many more places! Our work is not done, but please help us in our work to get equal rights (in pants-wearing and everything else) for girls and women everywhere!

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