Some iconic women authors were known for their penchant for wearing men's clothing. And in many of the cases you’ll find here, it wasn’t merely cross-dressing for fun and comfort, but an expression of the duality of these writers’ natures.
It's no longer unusual for women to wear pants or man-tailored jackets; just the opposite. But in the context of the time and place in which the following authors lived, it was an act of rebellion and occasionally a statement of more fluid identity.
Who have I missed in this survey? I’d love to hear your thoughts and learn of any additions, in the comments.
George Sand
One of the earliest and best-known adopters of male garb, George Sand (1804 – 1876) did so for comfort and to make a statement. She loved traveling, and trousers were more practical than crinolines. She was also known — and mocked — for her public cigar-smoking, and never went far without her hookah.
Those who knew her best admired her dual nature: Victor Hugo said of her: “George Sand cannot determine whether she is male or female. I entertain a high regard for all my colleagues, but it is not my place to decide whether she is my sister or my brother.”
And her contemporary, Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s tribute, “To George Sand: A Desire” begins: “Thou large-brained woman and large-hearted man …”
Sand’s habits and attire were mocked in cartoons, but she gave back as good as she got from her critics. Whether it was smoking, traveling solo, or wearing breeches, if she wanted to do so, she needed no one’s permission or approval.
Willa Cather
Willa Cather (1873 – 1947) grew up in Red Cloud, Nebraska, where she was considered a bit of an oddball by the townspeople. She wore her hair shorn shorter than a boy’s and donned boyish shirts, ties, and hats. Her family called her Willie, but she also asked to be called William for a time.
Though the photo of her with her buzzed hair and confederate cap seems unusual, masculinized fashions were in vogue in her time and place. Her mode of boyish dress continued into her college years, when she dropped her ambitions to be a doctor in favor of writing.
As she grew older, Cather’s photos reflect a preference for simple yet elegant clothing that might be described as tailored rather than masculine.
Radclyffe Hall
The Well of Loneliness (1928) by Radclyffe Hall (1880 – 1943) is considered a classic of gay literature. This groundbreaking novel was the subject of much controversy, including going to trial for “obscenity” (it’s not the least bit obscene). It was banned and destroyed in England until sixteen years after Hall’s death.
Self-described as an “invert,” Hall dropped the feminine first name Marguerite from the full name Marguerite Radclyffe Hall, and preferred to be called John.
Consistently garbed in male attire, and completely adopting maleness, it could be argued that the clothing was not simply about exploring a masculine side, but was intrinsic to this author’s very identity. Were the concept and language have existed at the time, Hall may have identified as transmasculine.
Vita Sackville-West
Vita Sackville-West (1892 – 1962), the novelist and master gardener, enjoyed an unconventional marriage to Harold Nicolson. Though both preferred members of their own sex, they had two sons and were deeply devoted to one another within their open relationship.
Vita had love affairs with a succession of women, most famously, Virginia Woolf. though theirs became more of a deep friendship. Woolf's gender-shifting character in Orlando was inspired by Vita. She seemed to relish the challenge of seducing straight women, leaving several lives and marriages in emotional wreckage.
Vita openly acknowledged the duality of her gender identity. Her male persona, whom she called Julian, fully emerged when she fell in passionately in love with Violet Trefusis in 1918.
Changing into breeches and other items of male attire, Vita wrote, “I went into wild spirits; I ran, I shouted, I jumped, I climbed, I vaulted over gated; I felt like a schoolboy let out on a holiday … It was one of the most vibrant days of my life.”
Edna St. Vincent Millay
Edna St. Vincent Millay (1892 – 1950) had her portrait done wearing a suit and tie on several occasions. The iconic poet blossomed upon graduating from Vassar in 1917, the same year in which her first book, Renascence and Other Poems, was published.
Vincent, as she called herself, moved to Greenwich Village in New York to explore the Bohemian lifestyle and a full love life as an openly bisexual woman, enjoying numerous affairs with women and men.
In 1923, Vincent married Dutch widower Eugen Jan Boissevain. Theirs was an open marriage, with security rather than intimacy as the priority; she once wrote that they lived like “two bachelors.” Even in the Roaring Twenties, being an openly bisexual woman in an open marriage was quite daring.
As far as her occasional forays in male attire, it’s not clear just what her motivation was or how it made her feel, so we can speculate, perhaps, that as with Vita Sackville-West, she was expressing the masculine side of her nature.
Carson McCullers
Carson McCullers (1917 – 1967) was bisexual, and as a Southern woman in the mid-twentieth century, it wasn’t something that sat comfortably. Her conflicted feelings were channeled into her tomboy and/or misfit female characters — Frankie (The Member of the Wedding), Miss Amelia (The Ballad of the Sad Café) and Mick (The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter).
She preferred going by her more masculine middle name, Carson, rather than her given first name, Lula — a choice that may have been made for the sake of being taken more seriously as a writer.
Carson’s usual attire included trousers, collar shirts, and tailored jackets. The clothing she wore doesn’t necessarily look excessively male from today’s standards.
But remember, this is how she dressed in the 40s and 50s, when women wore fitted dresses, shirtwaists, and colorful hats — clothing that by any standard was ultra-feminine. Perhaps Carson was wearing clothes that suited her ambiguous sexuality; and also likely, she took the opportunity of being comfortable.
A few more
Here are a few more classic authors who didn't wear mens clothes as habitually as those above, but posed in them for a photo op or two:
French author Colette in male attire and smoking, circa 1925.
Feminist icon Anaïs Nin most often looked ultra-feminine, but here she is in a tux.
Even Southern belle Margaret Mitchell struck a pose in boy's attire in her teens.
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What a wonderful list. Love the photos!
It's outside the purview of LLG, but I find myself wondering--why is it so much more acceptable for women to dress in men's clothing than the other way around? Not denying that these women may have excited some disapproval through their masculine dress, but I don't think any man could have slipped so easily from feminine to masculine attire.