So if you read the internet, or watch Good Morning America, then you have heard about the blogger who wrote an article that basically said that as a God honoring woman, after a talk with her husband, who struggled with other women wearing leggings, she didn’t want to make men stumble, so she was going to quit wearing leggings. Personally, I live about 30 miles outside of the loop, so my sister sent me the article and asked my thoughts given my love for expressing my opinions on how Christian women are supposed to behave.
Okay, so leggings make men stumble. Interesting. Now, I am certainly lacking the Y chromosome that would make me male, so I can’t speak with absolute certainty on the topic, but if leggings make men stumble, then I’m sure there are a whole plethora of other clothing articles that do the same (any swim suit, all clothing worn in the summer, and most blue jeans come to mind). So I guess maybe we should abstain from those too. But personally, I am not super willing to throw on a chunky knit turtle neck when it’s 90, or stop swimming in the presence of males. So that leaves us at an impasse.
I’ve heard the argument that leggings shouldn’t be worn outside the gym, but then aren’t I making the men at the gym stumble? Or should I stop working out in the presence of males too? If we are so adamant about drawing a line, then at what point do we draw it? And why is this argument all about the perception of males when women are the ones wearing the clothing?
Do I have a desire to make men think dirty thoughts about me by wearing leggings? Absolutely not. However, I know from being female and hanging out with a lot of females, that that’s not the case for all women when speaking generally about their clothing choices. It may not be popular to say amongst the extreme feminist crowd, but there are plenty of women in the world who dress provocatively with the intention of making men want them. Now, that absolutely in no way gives any man the right to assault, harass or even make crude comments to them, that whole argument is outlandish. However, people dress up to attract the opposite sex. I would never go on a first date wearing my giant sweatpants left over from college and my favorite hoodie from high school (second date…maybe). It’s a basic law of nature. It is not wrong to want to dress in an attractive way. Women do it. Men do it. It’s normal. However, how attractive is too attractive? By singling out individual articles of clothing (leggings, shorts, bikinis, whatever), we are being very legalistic about the whole thing.
Growing up, I did a lot of church and church camp, and I cannot tell you how many times I was given a stern talking to about the length of my shorts. I have long appendages, so it was pretty much a constant battle. The conversation usually went something like this, “Claire, you wouldn’t want to make your Christian brothers stumble, so you should really wear longer shorts.” What I typically thought while nodding my 13 year old head was, “I absolutely want to make them stumble because I want boys to like me. I will unroll my shorts until you look away and then I will roll them up again.” Just being honest. Were my shorts too short? Most likely and I have come a long way since then, but telling girls that it’s their responsibility to keep their Christian brothers from stumbling isn’t fair, nor is it effective in making them want to dress (buzzword time!) “modestly.”
Instead of teaching girls that the reason they should dress appropriately is so they “don’t cause their Christian brothers to stumble,” why aren’t we teaching them that the reason they shouldn’t dress like Britney Spears circa 2003 is because they have more value than that? I teach middle school, so I address this issue a lot. I have said this before on my blog, but I want my students to know and if I ever have daughters, I want them to know that they are so much more than their appearance. I want them to respect themselves enough to dress in a manner that does not put more focus on their physical appearance than the words coming out of their mouthes or their actions. It’s not about what men think or don’t think, it’s about the way you present yourself as a human being who is worthy of more than being an object of lust and if I can accomplish that and still wear my leggings, then so be it.
Also. Can we give men some credit?! Good grief, the way some people talk, men are a bunch of drooling idiots walking around making constant pornos in their mind. Not that men don’t struggle with looking at women lustfully, but since there are many of them who manage to be functioning members of society who frequently interact with women, I’m going to venture that this isn’t always the case.
So what’s the solution to this problem? Confession time: I have no idea. I have no idea what’s “modest enough” in the same way I don’t know what’s “pure enough.” Christians can get a smidgen legalistic and the human race as a whole has an intense desire for black and white. However, as I was discussing with my dear friend (Here’s your shout out, Chew!) the other night, we live in a world of grey and the Bible is a whole lot of grey (except for Jesus, he’s not grey) and Christians tend to hate that, so in an effort to appease our extraordinarily insufficient brains, we make rules. Dress modestly. Be pure. Whatever. In college, I was taught about primary issues and secondary issues in terms of Christianity. The primary issue being Christ and the secondary issues being literally everything else. So with that in mind, let’s stop making a name for ourselves in this world as a group of people who are really interested in mandating a whole bunch of secondary issues and start focusing on the primary issue.
