The Cross-Dressed Unrest

June 29, 2017 7:29 AM

What happened when a peaceable, devout community in 19th century rural south-west Wales was pushed too far by falling wages, rapacious rentierism, unfair taxation, draconian poverty laws, and official disdain? "The 1840s agricultural unrest known as the Rebecca riots is remembered as having been an unqualified success and, most famously, as having been carried out on horseback at night by men dressed, for some reason, like our grandmothers."
posted by Devonian (4 comments total)

I love it! *this* is how to start a revolution.
posted by infini at 8:01 AM on June 29, 2017 [2 favorites]

I swear by my pretty floral bonnet, I will end you.
posted by JohnFromGR at 8:10 AM on June 29, 2017 [11 favorites]

This happened in America too. Pennsylvania in the 1870s saw labor unrest due to coal mine owners being a collection of Satan's meanest bastard sons. During these labor struggles, a group called the Molly Maguires, well known in Ireland and England, struck out against the mines. The Maguires sometimes sent menfolk in women's clothing when they were about their business.

Or maybe this didn't happen. There's some debate whether the Molly Maguires ever existed in America at all. May have just been libel against organized labor and the Irish.
posted by Harvey Jerkwater at 10:27 AM on June 29, 2017

This happened frequently with early modern rioting (c1550-1850). I can't remember all the details (is there a rioting historian in the house?) but I recall that it was both a form of disguise (even if you know it's a man, he's harder to recognise and charge after the fact) and also a way to try to avoid arrest (women being less likely to be charged). Fence breaking while dressed as women was done in anti-enclosure riots in England. (I've also heard of fence or dam breaking in the "guise of a football game").

As a form of disguise: women's clothing would be readily available, unlike other costumes.
posted by jb at 9:47 AM on June 30, 2017