History Main / HarmlessLadyDisguise

* When Charles Stuart, the Young Pretender, was escaping from Scotland after the collapse of his rebellion, Flora MacDonald smuggled him onto a boat disguised as her maid.

* Bonnie Prince Charlie

* Captain Qwark disguises himself as a woman more than once in ''RatchetAndClank 3: Up Your Arsenal''. One of the occasions was in a vidcomic sidescrolling minigame.

Many of the examples specifically have a male character disguising himself as an ''old'' woman, which is ''somewhat'' less reliant on sexist perceptions since senior citizens are (stereo)typically weak and frail.

Contrast SweetPollyOliver, which is not only the DistaffCounterpart -- but also the ''reversed'' trope, since those women dress as men in order to openly embrace the male gender role of being active and potentially dangerous.

Also compare and contrast BosomBuddies, where the temporary loss of male gender role is PlayedForLaughs, and WigDressAccent which can also overlap.

* Mal in {{Firefly}} pulled this stunt in one episode, pretending to be a helpless old woman getting robbed by a tough guy who was actually Jayne.

* TheScarletPimpernel is famous for this, and probably the trope maker.

* Quark in the DeepSpaceNine episode "Profit and Lace".

* Used ''ad nauseam'' in '’AlloAllo''.

* ''OrderOfTheStick'' took this a bit further when Roy used a magical belt temporarily to turn female, in order to avoid some assassins, who, true to the trope, just assumed he was a prostitute and ignored him -- except for the dwarf, who invited him up to his room. That bit didn't end well for ANYONE involved.
** Their assumption falls under this trope, but Roy just wanted to disguise himself and the belt was the best/only disguise on hand. Looking harmless was not the issue.

* ''[[XWingSeries Starfighters of Adumar]]'' has the infamous "Escape Done In Drag". Wedge ordered his three pilots to get him four sets of women's clothing, in which they snuck into a base while a diversion went on.

See that harmless little lady over there? She's actually a man -- a masculine adventurous man who uses the dress to appear harmless and hide in plain sight.

Men are active, women are passive.
That's the way things are, according to traditional patriarchal gender roles.

Thus, if a man want to become invisible and appear unthreatening, it can be beneficial for him to pretend to be a woman. In sharp contrast to most forms of regular cross-dressing, this is done as a way of ''avoiding'' attention.

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* Zoicite disguises himself as SailorMoon to lure her and the others out. It fools everyone but the viewer as the colors are off and he uses a boomerang. This is not true in the dub due to ShesAManInJapan.