There is a gender difference in the clothing of every culture, but the specific differences aren't the same from culture to culture.
Back in 1st century Rome, nobody wore trousers. Everyone wore essentially the same kind of tunic undergarment, and there was very little difference in the tunics and cover-garments worn by poor men and poor women.
But where they had enough money for choices, men wore togas and women wore stolas. The casual modern eye might see no difference between a toga and a stola, but the ancient Romans certainly saw a difference.
And most people in the West can tell the difference between a man's suit and a woman's pants suit. If I saw a man in a woman's pants suit, I'd certainly raise my eyebrow.
In some cases, there are more differences than clothing. In Japan, for instance, there is even a difference in language: There is "male" Japanese and there is "female" Japanese, which they can immediately discern. I have an American friend who learned Japanese from his Japanese wife. When he tried it out on a Japanese man, the man raised his eyebrows and said, "Your Japanese is very good, by why do you speak it like a woman?"
So if a Japanese Christian woman insists on speaking Japanese like a man, is she not in the conflict with the spirit of Paul's injunction as someone would claim for an American woman wearing trousers?
