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Men's Shirts Button on the Right. Why Do Women's Button on the Left? (www.smithsonianmag.com) similar stories update story
43 points by Brajeshwar | karma 59882 | avg karma 5.56 2024-05-18 12:52:14 | hide | past | favorite | 63 comments



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TL;DR: We don't really know.

And zippers. I am a man, but I have a jacket that zips the opposite way from most men's zippers (the tab is on the right, the receptacle for the tab is on the left). I suppose that means it's a woman's jacket, although I'm hard pressed to say what else is womanly about it.

I think european mens clothing has the zipper on the opposite side.

Depends what you mean by European... UK men's clothes are the same side (both before and after Brexit )

When Americans say European we mean continental, i.e. mainland Western Europe.

Pretty sure when Americans say European they mostly mean a bizarre conglomeration of stereotypes that fits no actual country

To be fair, that's the same when Europeans talk about Americans.

The USA is much, much more homogeneous than Europe.

I wouldn’t say that. I am from Europe and I’ve never seen as much diversity as in usa.

Just count the number of official languages.

The US has no official languages, so by that metric, the US is the most homogenous country in the world.

FWIW, as an American living in Europe, I do agree that the US is far more homogenous.


A lot of people in usa don’t even speak English. I constantly run into those even in the South, let alone big big cities which have posters/ads/instructions label/etc. in foreign languages in public places.

Guess how many people in europe don't even speak: Bulgarian, Croatian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, English, Estonian, Finnish, French, German, Greek, Hungarian, Irish, Italian, Latvian, Lithuanian, Maltese, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Slovak, Slovenian, Spanish or Swedish... or even Esperanto!

Seriously? In my experience, having lived in several places in Europe and in the US: Americans like to pretend that calling it "pop" or "soda" depending on where you are in the country, or Chicagoans having a deeper pizza while food in the bayou is spicier, or Californians liking surf while Iowans are into hunting, constitutes fundamental differences. Meanwhile, they all share the same overall culture: same language, same tv shows, same movies, same school systems, same university systems, same sports, same music, same historical figures and references, same laws, same political figures and topics... There are slight variations here and there, of course; just like in any European country. But ask a Hungarian and a Spanish person if they watched the same shows as kids or learned the same stuff in school, and see where that gets you. Most Americans I've met take their country's cultural baseline for granted and magnify the slight differences among themselves.

How much of the USA have you been to though?

California, Michigan, South Carolina.

Perhaps similar to a European’s view of the USA

Eastern Europe, Northern Europe etc are not "continental"? That's weirdly reductive.

Americans don't think too much about those "commies" in Eastern Europe when doing comparisons. For them Europe is only where they go on vacation: Paris, Rome, Berlin, Barcelona, Lisbon, etc.

Same how for us America is mostly New York, Los Angeles, Texas, etc


Quite a few Americans vacation in Eastern Europe these days, eg Prague. But you’re right that wasn’t historically the case. I didn’t really until my last job because we had a facility and associated events in Brno in cz.

Three of your examples (Rome, Barcelona, and Lisbon) aren't in Western Europe, so don't fit the GP's definition of continental Europe.

My own experience with Americans is that Europe could be any number of definitions. I'd be wary of assuming your own is generally accepted.


Isn’t Lisbon the most western capital city in Europe? Not sure how that doesn’t count as Western Europe? As a Brit I maybe have a different view of eastern and Western Europe but to me the dividing line is probably a vertical line through … Prague?

Both the areas called Northern Europe and Southern Europe extend more Westerly than Western Europe. More or less no common definition of Western Europe includes the Iberian peninsula.

At the risk of sounding belligerent - Wikipedia seems to include Spain and Portugal in its definition of Western Europe. Perhaps there are formal economic or historic definitions that don’t count them but I think a more colloquial/informal/layperson definition would include them.

We may be reading different Wikipedia articles? None of the definitions suggested by Wikipedia includes the Iberian peninsula: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_Europe

> think a more colloquial/informal/layperson definition would include them.

With respect, I think the opposite is true. I think you might just have discovered a personal blindspot.


> We may be reading different Wikipedia articles? None of the definitions suggested by Wikipedia includes the Iberian peninsula: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_Europe

Or maybe he's reading that article and you aren't? The only definitions in that article that don't include Spain and Portugal in Western Europe are the ones in which Eastern Europe and Western Europe fail to cover all of Europe.

And those tend to include Turkey in Europe, which is bizarre.


> The only definitions in that article that don't include Spain and Portugal in Western Europe are the ones in which Eastern Europe and Western Europe fail to cover all of Europe.

Which is all of them in common use?

I'm honestly not sure if you read the article.

Do you have the impression that the terms Western and Eastern Europe cover the entire continent? That is a concept divorced from reality.

Edit: Just read your other comment here. Yes, your idea of Eastern and Western Europe is completely divorced from common usage.


> Which is all of them in common use?

Well, no, none of those are in common use.

In common usage, Western Europe might be countries that are culturally Western (and in Europe), or countries that are clients of the United States (and in Europe), but neither of those would exclude Spain or Portugal. There's not much difference between the two ideas either.


I appreciate that's what you believe, but you're simply wrong on this one. Ask around your own social circle.

I mean, here's Time Magazine:

> There’s also a risk that grain yields will be curbed even more across western Europe, particularly in France, Spain and Portugal, according to Paris-based analyst Agritel.

( https://time.com/6187780/summer-heat-wave-europe-2022/ )

Or even more explicitly:

> Meanwhile, xenophobia in Spain is comparatively low compared to the rest of western Europe.

( https://time.com/4904858/jihadism-in-spain-history/ )

Here's the Washington Post:

> A historic and deadly heat wave has been scorching western Europe, killing hundreds in Spain and Portugal.

( https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2022/07/1... )

This isn't exactly an obscure question. I'm not sure where you got the idea that Spain might not be part of Western Europe, but it wasn't by contact with reality.


Three counter examples against literally millions in common use, including how the countries involved refer to themselves.

> This isn't exactly an obscure question. I'm not sure where you got the idea that Spain might not be part of Western Europe, but it wasn't by contact with reality.

I take it you did ask your social circle and didn't get the response you wanted, as you're right that this isn't an obscure question.


Here's the first person I asked:

> What would you say is included in "Western Europe"?

> Germany

> Anything else?

> Spain, why?

You really don't seem to have any idea how people use this term, what might be evidence of common usage, or how newspapers work. Documenting that major media outlets refer to Spain as part of Western Europe is already proof that common usage considers Spain part of Western Europe, unless you have specific reasons to discount those outlets (such as "that's The New Yorker"). Article authors can't just use whatever terminology pops into their head; this is why style guides exist. One example from the Washington Post means hundreds of examples from the Washington Post.

Here's what Spain thinks of itself: ( https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Europa_Occidental )

> en verde en general según el concepto tradicional usado en geopolítica [in [non-dark] green generally following the traditional concept used in geopolitics]


Traditionally the dividing line is Vienna, though that doesn't make it any clearer because Prague is west of Vienna

Yeh I was going to say Vienna and then saw where Prague is and switched. I guess it’s a fuzzy line.

> As a Brit I maybe have a different view of eastern and Western Europe but to me the dividing line is probably a vertical line through … Prague?

It shouldn't be a vertical line at all; I assume the typical division between Eastern and Western Europe would be Catholicism vs Eastern Orthodoxy.

They're Eastern Europe and Western Europe because Eastern Europe lies to the east of Western Europe, not because every part of Eastern Europe lies to the east of every part of Western Europe.


> Eastern Europe, Northern Europe etc are not "continental"?

Continental is British English, and in typical standard, it’s ambiguous [1].

I’m arguing that when Americans say European in a cultural context (note: not geographic, geopolitical or historical), we more often than not borrow that British sense. (Consider, for example, the “continental” breakfast [2].)

[1] https://dictionary.cambridge.org/us/dictionary/english/conti... especially, but not exclusively, Western Europe

[2] https://www.thekitchn.com/what-is-a-continental-breakfast-an...


Most Americans consider the UK to be European.

Except Ireland, Britain etc is on the same continent.

Can confirm, moving part is held in right hand on everything I own, and also everything my daughter or partner own.

The receptacle is the moving part.

"Receptacle" isn't seemingly a common term for zips, but you're wrong - in the comment above they definitely use "receptacle" to describe the non-moving part, and as a word it is similar to the term I find on various diagrams of zips for the non-moving part: "retainer" / "retainer box".

Quoting their comment: "(the tab is on the right, the receptacle for the tab is on the left)" [in the US].

"Tab" (or "pull tab") is definitely the bit that goes up and down, and it's typically on the right in UK/Europe, but on the left in the US.

See for example https://i.pinimg.com/originals/a5/da/f8/a5daf8ec0566dac1826b...

I'd be curious to know what made you assume receptacle would be the moving part if you don't mind saying? Even though it's not a term I've heard used for zippers before, the second I read it I thought "that's a good clear term that's obviously for the bit that receives the moving tab".


What made me assume that the receptacle is the moving part is pretty straightforward - the moving part is the only part of the zipper that you put something else into. I still don't see how "receptacle" could apply to anything else. You zip up a zipper by picking up the bottom of the other side and inserting that into the moving part. That makes the moving part a "receptacle".

The zippers that I'm familiar with don't have bottom stops or retainer boxes. I'm looking at a YKK zipper on my jacket right now; there are two pull tabs, one above the other. This allows you to have the top zipped while the bottom is unzipped.

(I should note that my all-American L. L. Bean jacket has the tabs on the right, and I'm inclined to say that this is true generally of American zippers. But I only have the one zipper on hand. This is another reason why indicating that having the receptacle on the left is backwards from normal might tend to indicate that the receptacle is the moving part.)

Because it's obvious that the "receptacle" must necessarily refer to the moving part of the zipper (as described above), I assumed that "tab" referred to the bottom of the other side of the zipper, basically just the part of the zipper where the teeth end and the whole thing comes to a stop. I guess in your image this is the "insertion pin". I still feel justified in assuming that the "receptacle" is the part that receives the "insertion pin".


Brit here. I bought a jacket in the US once and the zip was opposite to what I would normally expect.

It's okay to wear your jacket inside out.

So that from each other's perspective they button on the same side? Makes it quicker to undress each other when the urge comes :)

I always assumed this too, alongside an unfortunate handedness bias

No one thinks about the gays

It's not like they'd be involved in fashion design in any way.

Grab the wrong shirt in the dark a second time? Never.

Ahahahah

Until my brain saw "Button" as a verb, I couldn't really parse that title!

"Eats shoots and leaves", haha.


Another theory I’ve heard (but have no source for except for a number of unreliable swedish blogs) is that women sat on the left side in the church and men to the right, and the buttons on the side to having the shirts appropriately closed to the other sex.

I'd somewhat favor the "women were dressed by servants" theory. While noting that, historically, female servants were extremely common - in even fairly modest middle-class households. And that women who merely aspired to having a servant to dress them would still support that convention for clothing.

Suppose you sell, or make, clothes. You don't want to sell a man's shirt to a woman or vice versa? With many designs it's obvious but for some it's close but you can't make that mistake so you need an easy, subtle way to distinguish them that won't impact form or function...

Probably the same reason women's pants have fake pockets despite many women complaining about not having real pockets. The fashion industry gets stuck in patterns of doing things. Even if some historic reason for button handedness can be found, why does it persist? The industry is stuck in a pattern. The reason it's done that way today is because it was done that way yesterday.

And shirt + jumper combination outfits, where the "shirt" is just the collar stitched in. Drives me nuts when you see a nice jumper that comes with a "shirt" only to realise you'd need to unpick it to at least get one of them.

The fashion industry may get stuck in ruts but it also responds to demand. It's simple that there is no demand for functional pockets for women's clothes despite what is expressed socially. It's quite simple in that regard. To that end, there's no demand to alter button handedness.

Have you also noticed that it’s inverted between US and UK? (At least in my limited experience)

My Barbour jacket was awesome but zipped on the left.

Another similar theory, my grandma told that it was because men were dressed by their wives while the women had to dress themselves.

There is also something like this with belts? I wear my trouser belt always in the same direction and remember (being much younger) once someone said it was the female way. Never give it much thought now but seeing this article I remember that again. I should check this around me.

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