Archaic law makes it illegal for women to wear pants in Paris
An archaic Parisian law dating back to 1800 prohibiting women from dressing like a man–namely by wearing trousers—is still in force, the Telegraph reports. The rule stipulated that any Parisienne wishing to do so “must present herself to Paris’s main police station to obtain authorization.” Though relaxed over the years (in 1892 to “as long as the woman is holding the reins of a horse”; in 1909 to if “on a bicycle or holding it by the handlebars”), the decree was never repealed. And that, says Evelyne Pisier, a law professor whose book Le Droit des Femmes (The Rights of Women) unearthed the regulation, means that Parisian policewomen, who must wears trousers as part of the uniform, are all law-breakers.