Why Are Women’s ShirtButtons on the Left?

If you’ve ever compared a woman’s button-
up shirt to a man’s, you’ve probably noticed
that the buttons are on the opposite side. But
have you ever wondered why?
An age-old theory is that it all has to do with
the well-known fact that women can’t dress
themselves. I’m kidding, of course (I dress
myself nearly every day!), but many moons
ago, it was a lot harder for females to get
dressed. As LiveScience puts it : “Depending
on the era, men might wear waistcoats,
pantaloons, gaiters and wool jackets.

But women’s clothing was far more elaborate,
and could consist of a dozen or more
garments including petticoats, bloomers,
gowns, corsets and bustles. Thus, especially
in middle- and upper-class society, men
generally dressed themselves, whereas
women did not. Instead, maids and servants
might spend an hour or more dressing the
lady of the house.”
So, it’s long been thought that women’s
buttons were placed on the opposite side to
cater to the servants dressing them
Or, there’s another plausible (and depressing)
theory that might resonate with you.
“In Man and Woman: A Study of Secondary
and Tertiary Sexual Characters , 1894,
Havelock Ellis writes that the right-to-left
buttoning of women’s tops was adopted to
make a point that women ‘seem inferior to
men’ in ‘strength and in rapidity and
precision of movement,’” writes Jess Edwards
for Cosmopolitan U.K. “As women began to
borrow more of what were originally
considered clothes for men, e.g., trousers,
shirts, the buttons were placed on a different
side to signify a difference between the two.”