Women wearing pants (trousers) were thought by some to be historically almost non-existent, apart from Amazonian women, but have become more commonplace since the advent of feminism in the middle to late 20th century.

In the Western world, women have historically worn dresses and skirt-like garments while men have worn trousers. During the late 19th century, women started to wear trousers and blouses for industrial work. During World War II, women wore their husbands' trousers while they took on jobs, and in the 1970s, trousers became especially fashionable for women. In the United States, this may be due to the passage of Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972, which made public education treat males and females equally and in turn dresses could not be required of female students and dress codes changed in public schools across the United States. Today, trousers are worn by many women but most women still wear skirts or dresses some of the time.

Although trousers for women in western countries did not become fashion items until the later 20th century, women began wearing men's trousers (suitably altered) for outdoor work a hundred years earlier.