Wednesday, July 6, 1955: Little support for shorts
Posted on July 7th, 2008 – 12:30 AMBy Ben Welter
Enough with the Obama-McCain horserace numbers. Why don’t we have fun polls like this any more? It ran on the front page of the Minneapolis Morning Tribune, next to a news story about a prison riot in Walla Walla, Wash.
GALLUP POLL REPORTS:
Most U.S. Males Against
Shorts for Women on Street
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| Augie Garcia, Minnesota’s original rocker, released the regional hit “Hi Yo Silver” in 1955, and always rocked out in his trademark Bermuda shorts. My first high school hockey coach, who favored athletic shorts during offseason training, looked just like this guy. |
By GEORGE GALLUP
Director, American Institute
PRINCETON, N.J. – American males may be tolerant and broad-minded about a lot of things, but they’re strictly conservative when it comes to the question of women wearing Bermuda shorts on the streets.
By a margin of 5 to 3, men turn their thumbs down on the idea of women parading in the shorts.
They also frown on men wearing shorts to work, by an even more conservative margin of almost 4 to 1.
They’re opposed to high school students wearing shorts to school by better than 2 to 1.
More than eight out of every 10 men also say they themselves would not wear shorts on any occasion.
American women vote even more conservatively than men do on all the above points – except the last.
Virtually the same number of women as men say they would not wear shorts.
Today’s survey does not touch upon the question of women — or men – wearing shorts at beach or resort areas.
Gallup Poll reporters asked this series of questions of a cross-section of adults.
Here are the replies:
Do you approve or disapprove of women wearing Bermuda shorts on the streets?
| Men | Women | |
| Approve | 34% | 22% |
| Disapprove | 55 | 73 |
| Withholding judgment | 11 | 5 |
Do you approve or disapprove of men wearing them to their place of work?
| Men | Women | |
| Approve | 20% | 12% |
| Disapprove | 73 | 82 |
| Withholding judgment | 7 | 6 |
Do you approve or disapprove of high school students wearing them to school?
| Men | Women | |
| Approve | 28% | 16% |
| Disapprove | 65 | 79 |
| Withholding judgment | 7 | 5 |
Would you, yourself, wear them?
| Men | Women | |
| Yes | 19% | 20% |
| No | 81 | 80 |
