Dresses vs Pants

I have always loved dresses.  There is just something so romantic, so flirty, so feminine and girly about a nice dress.  When I wear a dress, I'm a princess, a lady, a classy babe.  You could twirl me around a dance floor or take me to tea.  We could walk down a red carpet or take the boardroom by force.

I also like my jeans.  When I wear my jeans, no mountain is too high to be scaled; no children's toy too lost to be found; no river too far to walk; no chore too hard to be done.  When I'm in my jeans, I'm your best friend, the one you're comfortable with.  We could curl up in a corner and chat or roll in the autumn leaves. 

Clothes are just clothes, but they have the ability to take us places in our minds and in our hearts.  Clothes reflect how we feel about and perceive ourselves.  Clothes are fun.  Clothes can take you away from reality and inspire the imagination.  Why else is Hallowe'en (and the ensuing costume parties) so popular?

A friend of mine posted something on facebook today that led me to this travesty: (No, sadly, I am not making this up)

REGARDING NOT WEARING THE PANTS



Consider the following food for thought, rather than a hard-and-fast directive. Ladies, please, discard your pants. Instead, consider wearing comfortable skirts or dresses whenever possible, which means, in practice, in pretty much every normal daily circumstance. Consider the following:

Actually, personally, dresses are not comfortable to me because of all that annoying chafing.  Which would probably not be an issue if I wore nylons which aren't mentioned here but only because he probably thinks those are a given.  But who wants to wear nylons in 30+ celcius and humidity?  I am currently looking into buying boxer type underwear for women to avoid the chafing problem in future.  Nylons and tights are fine for winter and fall.

1.Regardless of your size, shape, or age, the attractiveness of your female figure is virtually always enhanced, while adding to your modesty, when you wear a dress.

Only virtually?  How pray tell, does a dress "enhance" my female figure better than pants?  (Or in my case, my non-existant female figure.)  Now if dresses could suddenly give me that curvy, feminine figure that I'd love to have, then I'd be at the stores now, investing in a bunch of them.  Unfortunately, I have looked at my curvy sister and myself in the same mirror, wearing essentially the same dress and I still looked like a pillar and she still looked like an hourglass.

2. Do this for us, the minority of chaste men who merit the gift of enjoying your beauty in such a way as to be grateful to your creator without temptation. Make it so it is good for men to look upon you, rather than requiring us to look away (which is a tragedy).

If you are tempted by me wearing ordinary well-fitting (not too tight) pants, then the problem is within you and not me.  If you see temptation in everything, you will be tempted by everything. 

3. The godless, sexed-up, secular fashion industry is out to make money and convince you that vice is virtue. They, and their damned pants, accentuate your flaws. If you think the fashion industry is about beauty, I have two words for you: The Seventies.

I have two more words for you:  The Eighties.  No wait, that's off topic.  So what you are saying is that pants accentuate my flaws?  This makes them immodest?  Which means my flaws turn you on?  Forgive me if I am a bit confused.

4. Sadly, and we understand you may not be aware of this, but almost every style of pants reveals private information about your figure (by way of contour) what only your husband (and if not him, no man, including your sons, if you have sons) should perceive.

Anything short of a burka will reveal private information about my figure by way of contour.  Do you propose I go out and get one?  (More about that from this blog)

5. Thus, even a woman endowed with the most spectacular genetic form, in the bloom of her youth, can be given the illusion of ugliness, if not cheapness, by wearing pants. Likewise, pants rarely do anything but exaggerate extra volume on our figures.

One could also say exactly the same thing about dresses.  Take for example, the recent sorry version of a dress that unLady-like Gaga wore.  The animal lovers' fury over that is equally as ridiculous as your drivel over modesty.

6. While some styles of pants can be attractive, in terms of beauty, pants will never trump a tasteful dress or skirt of similar material, pattern, and quality.

I love dresses because dresses are ever so much more romantic than pants.  Pants will never be romantic.  They will never be faeric, they will never be etherial or fantastical.  But pants can be just as classy and tasteful as a dress or skirt.

7. Furthermore, we must reject the counter-argument that pants are more comfortable; as a kilt-wearing Scotsman, your author roundly rejects this claim. In the immortal cry of Braveheart, dresses and skirts offer FREEDOM!

As I mentioned before, CHAFING is not comfortable.  Also, both kilts and dresses make it an awful lot easier to,... you know,... without even getting undressed.  Talk about accessible!  Also, little boys don't try to look up girls' pants.  However, many of them DO try to look up dresses.

8. Of course, we defer and appeal to our male readers to make clear your moral clothing preferences to the women and girls within your realm of responsibility or influence.

In much the same way that muslim men keep their women under burka's?  More about control freaks from this blog.

9. We understand, ladies, that changing what you wear on a daily basis is a major change. If you forsake pants, it will be a big, big deal. Even financially, as pants are so commonplace that skirt and dress wardrobes may need to be rebuilt.


10. Yet, ponder this: the biggest impact for upgrading to dresses may be the change in how you view yourself, and perhaps as crucially, in how you are looked upon and treated by men, which profoundly influences how you view yourself and your value.

I respect myself.  I expect that the respect that I receive from the vast majority of men around me reflects the fact that I respect myself.

11. Also, you, as a Catholic lady of dignity, are responsible for avoiding any practice or habit that increases the likelihood of being viewed as an object by men. You are also responsible for presenting the best, most beautiful, most chaste version of yourself to the world.

I have said this before.  False modesty is the same as immodesty.  Letting it all hang loose is pretty much the same as covering it all up.  Both extremes make the body out to be an object of sex.  One considers it evil, and the other uses it in a search for pleasure.  Both are wrong.  The body is a body.  It is neither good nor evil.  What is good or evil is how you perceive that body and how you want to use it.  Clear the garbage out of your mind and your body will be just fine.  This blog has some very good insights into that.

12. There is a myth that men determine the fashions women wear. In the depraved business sense, this is superficially true in the sense that clothing is often designed to appeal to the lower, if not lustful, appetites of men (and not all lower appetites are strictly lustful). In the day-to-day reality of the suburban lives most of us live, men almost always delegate the purchase of clothing to their wives. Women then make virtually all the fashion choices, mistakenly relying upon the opinions of other women (who know either too little or too much about how fashion choices affect men morally). Good women are always tempted to buy the styles they see other women and young girls wearing; inevitably everyone, men and women, are pulled downward by the undertow of the constantly lowered bar of our sexualized and superficial culture.

This sort of implies that women (even good women) have no brains to think for themselves and therefore cannot really go out and make decisions about how to dress themselves because inevitably they will make bad choices.

13. Do not misunderstand us: we have no problem with men delegating clothing purchases to their wives; we only object to men who abandon the responsibility they have to guide and influence the moral, psychological, and practical implications of clothing that is purchased. Men should set the highest standard for their wives and daughters in this respect.

Uh huh.

14. May we suggest (or perhaps you wives and daughters might suggest) that your husbands and fathers take you shopping for the expressed purpose of choosing everyday clothing for you. Men, for your part, be sure your women love the choices you make with them. No woman or girl can deny that there is a superb and wonderful emotional benefit to donning an outfit that was chosen to enhance your beauty by your beloved husband or devoted father. Ladies, when he chooses an outfit for you, you know beyond doubt that in his eyes, you are beautiful in it. As a rule, men abhor shopping, but in our experience, this practice proves the exception if the man is the final arbiter on fashion choices.

My husband would hate you.

We hope we have provided you with food for thought in your discussions with your loved ones. As for men's fashion, we have one word: Jacket.

I suggest reading the following blogposts. 

http://redcardigan.blogspot.com/2010/09/act-of-sartorial-seduction.html
http://www.bettybeguiles.com/2010/08/my-new-wife.html
http://ayoungmomsmusings.blogspot.com/2010/08/excessive-modesty-makes-me-feel.html
http://ayoungmomsmusings.blogspot.com/2010/03/my-love-hate-relationship-with-modesty.html
http://simchafisher.wordpress.com/2010/09/13/pants-a-manifesto-2/
http://markshea.blogspot.com/2010/09/go-simcha.html

Here in Canada, the whole dresses vs pants thing isn't even an issue.  It continually amazes me to come across stuff like this from American Catholics.  They can be so extreme in their ideas.  My friend tells me it's because American culture is Puritanical in basis.