Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2024 October 28

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October 28

Did women having to wear skirts have anything to do with menstruation?

As in, before menstruation products became good and accessible, seems like pants would have been more prone to blood going through and been visible? Was it more of a menstruation taboo/norm thing than a blind sexism thing?

Couldn't find anything about this on the page Skirt nor the page Culture and menstruation. Wallby (talk) 07:50, 28 October 2024 (UTC)

More importantly, urinating. Abductive (reasoning) 10:45, 28 October 2024 (UTC)

Maybe that explains kilts. <-Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots-> 10:52, 28 October 2024 (UTC)

I imagine it was originally more to do with preserving women's modesty, until hemlines shortened in the 20th century having the opposite effect. Note that today, most Orthodox Jewish women do not wear trousers for reasons of modesty. Alansplodge (talk) 12:23, 28 October 2024 (UTC)

The article Trousers as women's clothing may be of interest: menstruation is nowhere mentioned. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 94.6.86.81 (talk) 12:34, 28 October 2024 (UTC)

Isn't the real question why men started to wear trousers? In ancient times, weren't robes and such standard dress for all? --User:Khajidha (talk) (contributions) 13:11, 28 October 2024 (UTC)

Khajidha -- In ancient times, trousers were worn mainly by peoples who had a way of life which relied intensively on horse-riding. In the eyes of the Greeks and Romans, such peoples were barbarians, so that tunics and togas were considered civilized wear, as opposed to barbaric trousers. As barbarian tribes increasingly impinged on civilized zones of both the Roman and Persian empires, trousers became worn by cavalry soldiers, then more widely in societies. But well into the European middle ages, upper-class males or males with certain special statuses (such as priests), still often wore robes. Among ordinary people, the hemlines of men's tunics were often higher than those of women, but it wasn't until the roughly the 1400s that some men commonly exposed most of their legs (encased in leggings or "hose") in a way that would have been considered indecent if done by a woman. From then on, the trousers for men vs. dresses for women dichotomy developed, but male priests, males involved in formal academic ceremonies, and royals at coronation etc. ceremonies still sometimes wear robes today... AnonMoos (talk) 14:37, 28 October 2024 (UTC)

Recurrent experimenting of meditative states and dancing shadows sessions in the obscurity of the dark backroom seem to have teached many an Emperor's adviser's ancestors that Truth that the most impressive allure which could be held - without having to appear mounted - was getting out of the shades with the same silhouette as the mountaineer out of the forest on a foggy Sunday Morning ( undocumented ). --Askedonty (talk) 20:15, 2 November 2024 (UTC)

Ötzi the Iceman, 5300 before present, in his belongings had a rain cloak made of woven grass (see: esparto). Fully clothed with the cloak on he would have looked like a greyish bird of prey standing, only with bizarre appendices (his weapons), as seen from a distance. During the course of the two following millenia those with the same trade and skills will have had grass replaced with wool, much lighter tanned leather than previously, and other kinds of fabrics. This all only giving more dynamics in their appearance.

The lightest and longest (wikt:long#Adjective 13.) of such cloaks so had to become capes. They had to be seen sometimes floating in the wind.

There come the dancing shadows, only the heathstone was in an other place so that was the solitary flame of a small lamp that the spirituality minded was studying. Now one competing posture could be devised. A dynamic move leading upwards instead of more systematically downwards. And so, that would be the speaker who would be impersonating wind all by himself. That would not be in a place where you would have found necessary to cover your legs, otherwise than so. Sandals suffice. --Askedonty (talk) 21:11, 5 November 2024 (UTC)

The sarong is popular in tropical climes, perhaps in response to superficial fungal infections such as thrush. Doug butler (talk) 21:25, 2 November 2024 (UTC)

Israel: Matriculation rate by religion

According to the most recent data, what's the % of people who have successfully passed Israel's high school matriculation examination among the population of the 18yo age group (not only among the students who sat for the exam)? (out of all How does this differ among religious groups? I found different numbers:

• 2019 ToI: "Fully 70.9% of Christian high schoolers achieve college-entry matriculation grades, slightly higher than Jews (70.6%), and higher still than Druze (63.7%) and Muslims (45.2%)."
• 2022 INN: "91.3% of Druze gain matriculation certificate compared to just 26.2 percent of haredi students."
• Druze_in_Israel#Educational_prospects: "According to the Israeli Central Bureau of Statistics census in 2020, 79.9% of Druze in Israel were entitled to a matriculation certificate, which was higher than the number of Muslims (60.3%), but was lower than the Christians (83.6%) and Jews (80.2%) with a matriculation certificate."
• Christianity_in_Israel#High_school_and_matriculation_exams: "In 2016 Arab Christians had the highest rates of success at matriculation examinations, namely 73.9%, both in comparison to Muslim and Druze Israelis (41% and 51.9% respectively), and to the students from the different branches of the Hebrew (majority Jewish) education system considered as one group (55.1%)."

a455bcd9 (Antoine) (talk) 09:50, 28 October 2024 (UTC)

All kinds of things come to mind. The en.wiki and he.wiki don't say if you can take or retake the exam when you are, say, 19. The figures might be for all people, all Israeli citizens, all students (including or not dropouts), or just all students who got a high school completion diploma (perhaps just a snapshot collected in a particular year by calling around to the high schools). Abductive (reasoning) 10:50, 28 October 2024 (UTC)

Thanks. Do we have the latest official data somewhere? a455bcd9 (Antoine) (talk) 17:22, 28 October 2024 (UTC)

chief,

don't you answer your own question, when you give statistics from different years?

census in 2020' ... 'in 2016' ... 2019 and 2022 second-order sources as well, chief,

what percentage of israeli high-schoolers graduate high school (because the English article mentions a diploma, which is issued separately, simply for completion of twelve years of study, in the Israeli system)

compare this with the total population of this age cohort behind the allenby line, or what-have-you, and the percentage attaining bagrut, then you will have your answer

Al. M. G. 2004 (talk) 15:07, 28 October 2024 (UTC)

Ramsese II colossus

You used to have images of Ramsesii colossus and how it was displayed. I cannot find the page and I looked all 75.99.255.115 (talk) 19:12, 28 October 2024 (UTC)

Try Category:Ramses II colossal statue in Memphis over on Wikimedia Commons. Alansplodge (talk) 19:45, 28 October 2024 (UTC)

See also Statue of Ramesses II and Ramesses II § Building projects and monuments.  --Lambiam 11:09, 29 October 2024 (UTC)

Longest recorded flight

What was the longest flight in world history? I'm strictly interested in duration, regardless of manned/unmanned status, refuelling, distance flown, etc.: the only limitation is that I'm not interested in spacecraft. Almost everything I find on Google is related to the longest scheduled airline flights. Flight endurance record addresses the question, but it bears {{Incomplete list}}, and all of its top-duration flights are small piston-engined or experimental solar-powered aircraft. The source for the longest one of all, [1], merely speaks of it as the "world endurance record in a propeller-driven airplane", so I'm further questioning whether there might be something longer, e.g. if a major country's military wanted to keep an important aircraft aloft at all times for a while. Nyttend (talk) 19:41, 28 October 2024 (UTC)

Operation Power Flite (45 hours and 19 minutes) might be of interest. Alansplodge (talk) 19:52, 28 October 2024 (UTC)

The Rutan Voyager flew around the world in 216 hours without refueling, stopping, or exiting the atmosphere. --Amble (talk) 20:35, 28 October 2024 (UTC)

The Breitling Orbiter flew around the world in 478 hours. Despite the name, it was a balloon, not a spacecraft. --Amble (talk) 20:38, 28 October 2024 (UTC)

The Airbus Zephyr S is an unmanned aircraft that flew continuously for 64 days. --Amble (talk) 20:41, 28 October 2024 (UTC)

The longest item on the list I found, a Cessna 172, flew a little longer than the Airbus Zephyr. Nyttend (talk) 21:24, 28 October 2024 (UTC)

A Google Loon flew for 312 days in 2019-2020 [2]. —Amble (talk) 03:33, 29 October 2024 (UTC)

It's easy to forget the pioneers of this type of endurance, so I randomly commend to you Helen Richey, who flew a Curtiss Thrush (named "Outdoor Girl" after a brand of cosmetics) with Frances Marsalis for 237 hours and 42 mins in December 1933 over Miami, Florida. The refuelling was achieved by opening the central hatch, grabbing a dangling hose out of a Curtiss Robin and shoving it into the gas tank, which Richey likened to "wrestling with a cobra in a hurricane." Later edits to this article may have been made in error, I'm currently attempting to resolve them. MinorProphet (talk) 20:23, 10 November 2024 (UTC)