Posted by:
PeacePrincess
(
)
Date: April 14, 2012 09:07PM
The StalkerDog's mention of Katherine Hepburn reminds me of something I once read (can't remember where exactly) about an act of rebellion from her daughter, Audrey Hepburn:
I don't remember the specifics, but Audrey would often report to work as an actor dressed in something like a blouse and a pair of pants. The studio management told her that it's improper for women to wear pants to work, so guess what she did.
She took the pants off and went about the rest of the day in just her undies!!! HA! That oughta teach 'em!
I also remember, shortly after my High School graduation, reading in the local newspaper about a group of young women who were suing the school board for not allowing them to wear pants to graduation. But that's all I read. I have no clue how that came out. I sure as hell hope these women were successful. While I was getting ready for graduation, there was that preparatory orientation (or whatever it's called) where we all practiced the whole routine in advance. During that time, the leader was laying out the ground rules for the actual ceremony. Among those rules: "Women are to wear a nice dress, or at least a skirt (or something to that effect); NO PANTS!" That last part there made me want to gag. I seriously felt like standing up and shouting "PERRRRR-VERRRRRRT!!!" right to his male-chauvinist face, but I resisted.
Then later, while I was searching for a part-time job, one of the applications I picked up, from Dominoes Pizza, states that they offer skirts as an option as part of their uniform "for women whose religious beliefs forbid them from wearing pants. "OMG!!!" I thought to myself, "There are actually religions out there that are even worse than Mormonism on the no-pants-on-women issue!? Damn, I'm so glad at least I wasn't BIC into any of those."
Seriously, though, as a BIC ex-mormon, this whole pants issue is a small part of the very thing (all those sexist beliefs they hold) that has started my eventual fallout from the cult in the first place, back in my teens. Mormonism likes to stress "Modesty," but they don't like women wearing pants to sunday meetings and such!? WTF!?!?!? Flip-Flop-Flip-Flop!!!
By their very nature, skirts just don't cover the lower body as thoroughly as pants do, no matter how long, due to a certain big gaping hole at the bottom. I mean seriously, how often does do you hear of perverted guys trying to get a peek up a woman's pant leg? It just doesn't happen (at least not as much as it does with skirts). If you Mormons truly believe in total body coverage at all times, then for Chris' Sakes, LET WOMEN WEAR PANTS!!!
This led to a strong distaste for skirts all throughout my teenage years, though I have had a change of heart since then. I no longer hate skirts themselves, but I am still against male-chauvinist organizations like Mormonism forcing skirts onto all women. I know that some women are just not comfortable in skirts at all, just as some women just don't like pants. And of course, most women are somewhere between the two extremes. I myself, sometime in my post-teen years after I left the cult and moved out on my own, have found skirts to actually be quite nice and comfortable. I even remember meeting one woman in college (back in my skirt-hating days) who told me she herself is one of those women that are not comfortable in skirts at all. Remembering that news story about the no-pants-to-graduation lawsuit, I asked her if she was, by any chance, one of those women suing for the right to wear pants. She said no, she just merely showed up with a nice pair of slacks under her graduation robe, and if the perverted male-chauvinist ass holes in charge don't like it, then tough shit! YEAH! Ya go, girl! In fact, that just happens to be what I did too.
Pushing for Modesty, and at the same time, forbidding women from wearing pants to Sunday Meetings, as Mormonism does, just entangles the kind of women who are not comfortable in skirts into a sort-of "Catch-22:" either violate the no-pants rule, or go to church feeling like they're not quite completely clothed, and thus feel like violating the modesty rule; pick yer poison.
This whole concept of so-called "modesty" is so bullshit! I think that, along with "appropriate," that has to be one of the two most misused, abused, and twisted words in the English language.