But of all the gender definitions that seem to pervade our culture today, dress is often the most glaring. Remember that with Adam and Eve there was no specific type of dress to define their gender identities as they were created without the sin based shame of needing to wear clothing as we have today. While it is true that clothing does become a gender defining element (Deuteronomy 22:5) it must be accepted that the style of gender defining clothing is often generational or cultural. For example, in Bible days both genders wore robes with varying gender identity lengths and layers, yet somewhere in the 5th century AD members of both genders began wearing trousers, but only on horseback for obvious comfort reasons. Ironically during this same era, Alexander the Great refused to allow his troops to wear trousers because he saw them as effeminate. Later in 8th century Asia, tunics over trousers began to worn by both genders, which, in turn, lead to trousers being the only clothing worn by men by the 12th century in most of the world outside of the Middle East. The trend of trousers began to shift again as women in the 1880’s Old West, who had for the most part always worn dresses or other distinctively “feminine” clothing in most cultures, began wearing male similar trousers due to the harsh working environment of southwestern US. But women in pants was not accepted as normal in American culture until World War II when the men went to war and the women went to work in the factories. It is stated by a few that when the women began wearing pants that gender lines became blurred, but, according to Paul, in 1 Corinthians 11, gender blurring behavior was occurring in Corinth and thus it is not just since World War II. I share these thoughts not to debate the men/women pant issue, but to show that gender defining clothing is ever changing and often cultural instead of simply biblical.
Let me interject that dress is really more a matter of submission than gender identity. Every Christian must accept that authorities have certain privileges to establish certain dress criteria for those whom they lead. Biblically we should see this when Jesus told His disciples what to carry with them and even how to wear their clothes on a preaching journey in Mark 6:8. Today, most business organizations have dress codes for their employees. Don’t tan bottoms and blue tops at Walmart or red shirts at Chick-fil-a sound familiar? Simply stated, don’t let dress standards destroy your Christian testimony or joy just because the authority over you asks you to dress a certain way. Learn to lovingly submit to the authority and when you are in charge establish standards of dress based upon sound biblical foundations.
With gender defining clothing, God did say that there were clothes that identified the genders (Deuteronomy 22:5), but along with that, we must realize that each generation and culture sees their gender clothing demarkation differently than those around them. Whereas, Adam and Eve had no such trouble since they, as the definition of masculine and feminine, did not have to define their gender by their style of clothing as we do today. So how do we define masculine and feminine if not by that which we can see?
