Reddit mentions of Aphrodite's Tortoise: The Veiled Woman of Ancient Greece

Okay!

I do not do very much with ancient clothing, so I have fewer recommendations there. I'm a big fan of Aphrodite's Tortoise: The Veiled Woman of Ancient Greece by Lloyd Llewellyn-Jones, which I used to write a substantial answer on ancient veiling. It's extremely detailed on the subject of what evidence there is in artwork and in texts about the custom of veiling and about the different types of veils themselves. (I think I found it on Academia.edu, full disclosure.) Another I've referenced here is Body, Dress, and Identity in Ancient Greece, by
Mireille M. Lee. It treats on all aspects of ancient Greek fashion, from pieces of clothing to hairstyles to views on body hair, and I find it quite readable.

I find that basically all academic writing on nineteenth century dress takes place in journals like Dress, Costume, and Textile History - books tend to be more focused on sewing or on gorgeous catalogue photos. The Corset: A Cultural History by Valerie Steele is an exception, a really good discussion of not just the history of corseting but the history of how society has regarded the corsets themselves and the women who wore/wear them, from the constant fear of vain and seductive tightlacing to marketing strategies used by post-industrial manufacturers. Joan Severa's Dressed for the Photographer: Ordinary Americans and Fashion, 1840-1900 is also a detailed exploration of men's and women's dress during the Victorian era (the only thing I quibble with is Severa's frequent use of judgey language when discussing corsetry of the 1840s and 1850s). Both of these are useful for understanding the everyday dress of working women.

In the twentieth century, the concept of "working women" changes, so it's harder to pin down exactly how to address it ... Dress Casual: How College Students Redefined American Style by Deirdre Clemente is vital, imo, to understanding the casualization of dress in the mid-twentieth century (which has knock-on effects on women who worked). Making War, Making Women: Femininity and Duty on the American Home Front, 1941-1945 by Melissa McEuen is a fascinating study on how women took on more a public role in the workforce during the war years, and were also expected to maintain their appearances to an unprecedented degree.

Outside of fashion, you might be interested in "Just a Housewife": The Rise and Fall of Domesticity in America by Glenna Matthews. This deals with the changes in the way that housewifely skills were seen in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries - how they went from expected drudgery that you passed off if you could, to something seen as real work that required skill and practice, and back to unfulfilling drudge work that was avoided by increased consumption of ready-made goods.

Much more outside of your specific topics, but Pink and Blue: Telling the Boys from the Girls in America by Jo Paoletti is just a really good read. As a Millennial, I have a hard time imagining a world without intense gender color-coding for children, and learning about just how recent it is for the coding to exist, let alone be so intense, is very cool. (My favorite color is blue. When I was a little kid, my male friend would always tell me it couldn't be, because blue was for boys.)

Huh?! She was the most pleasant and well measured of everyone when questioning Comey. My boyfriend and I even commented on how she was being super super nice compared to everyone before she began questioning. I'm sure she knows the shit she'd get for being any more insistent; she's looking potentially at a presidential run after all.

Anyway.

You know where the word hysterical comes from? The root word for uterus, hystera. The Greeks thought there was a purely physical cause for emotional unrest, but that it was linked exclusively to the uterus. The Greeks were (and still are to a degree though much, much less so) also a predominantly patriarchal culture and, in ancient times, required women to wear veils covering their faces and otherwise be escorted by men on the streets to do simple tasks such as grocery shopping. If you didn't wear a veil, then it was assumed you were a prostitute and you were socially shamed thusly.

"He shows that the veil was a conscious extension of the house and was often referred to as 'tegidion', literally 'a little roof'. Veiling was thus an ingenious compromise; it allowed women to circulate in public while maintaining the ideal of a house-bound existence."
Source: https://www.amazon.com/Aphrodites-Tortoise-Veiled-Ancient-Greece/dp/0954384539

Cool. So we are now pulling from a culture from thousands of years ago to inform our conception of a woman? You know what? If they had used any other word (maybe assertive for example), then I wouldn't have ascribed this intent.

Fuck the GOP.