A Modesty Question For Women- Skirts

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Anicette said:
I would add I only wear ankle lenght skirt.
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Same here but I do have one brown skirt which is an inch or two above the ankle. I can’t wear it anymore because if I do I have to keep pulling it down. It scrunches up when I walk in it. 😥
 
stpurl said:
it can be extremely uncomfortable
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That’s actually the main reason I don’t wear short skirts. I want to be able to move and sit as I like, rather than going through the day with part of my mind constantly busy checking what does and does not show!
 
QuizBowlNerd said:
I don’t know a ton about Padre Pio, so bear with me. How did he know? Wouldn’t he have heard confessions behind a screen? Did he have some kind of a sixth sense about this?
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Padre Pio generally heard confessions behind a screen, as was the custom then. Sometimes a person might rush up to him wanting to confess and not bother with the screen.

Presumably he heard confessions in church, as that’s where the confessions were held in those days.

He had the Franciscans put up a sign with the clothing rules, and it’s likely most people would be polite and follow them.

It’s possible Padre Pio could read someone’s heart and tell what they had on even if he couldn’t see them. It might also be that he could see some people because his confessional had a window that opened onto the church (not onto the penitent) and he could have opened that and seen people in line for confession and what they were wearing.
 
Sorry - my post was first duplicated, then deleted. CAF is glitchy this a.m.

The letter was written in 1928, after women had moved from corsets and ankle-length dresses to something with more freedom of movement . . . you know, like what the men enjoyed.

Here are those “deplorable” and “immodest” uniforms being condemned. (Pssssst! Modesty is a cultural construct!)

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Here is the fashion of the time that they’re concerned about, not nearly as short as those pseudo-flapper dresses at Spirit Halloween. Are these dresses “sinful?” “Deplorable?” Only to those demanding women in corsets and skirt trains . . .

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LumineDiei said:
Every time the word “modesty” appears in a thread title one can be assured a link from a “personal opinion” website with some obscure letter from the Vatican will be trotted our and paraded as though it was official church teaching… :roll_eyes:
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There are some people who will burn an endless amount of calories “proving” that women can’t wear skirts or whatever.
 
LumineDiei said:
And posts will have to be made to insure members and inquirers understand it is NOT official church teaching, just opinions and preferences.
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I’m so tired of this topic I’m about to tell them they just need to wear a full floor length tunic type robe and veil.

Seriously, as I said before, if you are over 15 years old you should have some idea how to decently cover yourself to go about in society without needing to read or hear opinions of others.
 
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I think people miss the point of modesty. Modesty is humility. If dressing modestly gives anyone a sense of moral arrogance, they’ve missed the point.
 
stpurl said:
True dat. Some of the details got a little ‘shudder making’, I.e. men with very hairy legs wearing shorts and sandals. I admit as a woman I found that idea gross and yes I KNOW all about, “it’s 90 degrees and so HUMMMMIIIDDDD”, but we’re talking about 60-75 minutes on average from out of the house to back in the house—or car where the shirts can be peeled off— is that too much to ask our strong manly men to handle? Really? My grandfather worked in NYC in the 1920s, no air conditioning, wearing shirt, vest, tie, coat and pants, shoes and socks, and HAT, and he wore the same to Mass on Sunday.

I know that men today are just as strong and capable as the men who used to go out and work in hot offices, hot warehouses, hot streets, hot fields, etc etc for hours and days and then got themselves ‘dressed up’ for Sunday Mass as well. Just as women are as strong and capable as their moms and grandmas who wore girdles, slips, dresses, gloves and hats.
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As I said, “from zero to dumpster fire…”

I said I wasn’t going to comment further, but I also said “probably”.

I have never understood why people “garbed themselves up” so much in past eras and centuries — I mean, didn’t they get hot? And with no air conditioning in warm weather? I know, spoiled, pampered American (but keep in mind that many parts of the US, mine included, are subtropical, and some years you can wear shorts on Christmas Day) — but again, did they not realize how hot and sweaty they were getting, and that lighter, more brief clothes would mitigate this? I also know that elderly people tend to bundle themselves up even in tepid weather, and I wonder if this could be partially a carryover from those days, or possibly a cultural remnant concept — my son’s other grandmother, in Poland, is positively terrified of getting cold or wet, regardless of the weather.

Or were modesty considerations perhaps a part of this — “we know we’d be cooler, but if we dressed any other way, we’d offend God by showing too much of our flesh and being immodest”?
 
My guess is people were just generally stinkier, and probably went a bit nose blind to the smell of sweaty BO.
 
HomeschoolDad said:
I also know that elderly people tend to bundle themselves up even in tepid weather
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Elderly people tend to be cold much more easily, because they’re less active and tend to eat less, which leads to a loss of body fat (says the chaplain who presides worship sweating abundantly under her polyester alb in stuffy nursing home rooms during summer, while the little old ladies quip, “it’s a bit cool in here, would you be a dear and fetch my cardigan?”).
 
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HomeschoolDad said:
I have never understood why people “garbed themselves up” so much in past eras and centuries — I mean, didn’t they get hot? And with no air conditioning in warm weather?
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The natural fiber clothing that people wore in the “old days” tends to breathe better and you don’t get as hot as you do in the man-made blends that came along later on. I’ve found that wearing long cotton skirts and cotton tops is actually very comfortable. Also, your body adjusts somewhat to what you wear every day. If you’re raised since childhood wearing a certain number of clothing layers, you won’t feel as hot as someone who is used to wearing a grass skirt and then is made to change their style and dress in layers.

Your body also adjusts to the climate you live in over time. In olden times many people lived in the same area their whole lives and ended up like my grandmother who was never bothered by hot Nebraska summers because she was used to it. People also had ways of dealing with heat, such as taking afternoon naps or rest breaks, wearing accessories like sun hats, taking sponge baths in the midday, etc. On Sunday people got out to Mass early in the morning (remember you couldn’t eat breakfast until after Communion) when it was still cool outside.

Clothing also provided protection from sunburn and insects, which was important in an era when there was no sunscreen or mosquito repellent.

Usually the people who had to work all day on farms or in some other manual labor capacity had the most practical outfits that still managed to be modest. The Amish are a good example. I’m not saying we all have to dress like Amish ladies, but their outfits are very practical and comfortable, although not stylish.
 
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Wow, guess I’m hot. . .

You know, before air conditioning people did have things like fans. And I know that people tended to pace themselves better. And my grandparents and parents generations were, actually somewhat healthier overall than us boomers and others. They didn’t eat processed foods, they had regular exercise.

Yeah, Grandpa wore suits. They were often linen—known from the time of the Egyptians, and certainly with that climate, to be cool. Nana wore cotton dresses. The clothing was well cut, not skin tight.

So no, people wearing the outfits I mentioned, even in places like “Hotlanta” were not any hotter than the men and women who are out there today wearing tight polyester outfits which expose their backs for broiling.

They also tended to be careful of ‘pit’ areas.

But it is a mistake to think that Grandpa and Grandma were out there stubbornly insisting on overdressing and stinking, or that people today wearing short ‘light’ outfits are necessarily cooler.

I am NOT NOT NOT asking that everybody today go out and dress like it’s 1935.

I am saying that if people back then could function well, maybe people today could take one hour at Mass to wear something a little more modest. I’m not demanding that men never wear shorts, or that women MUST wear dresses.

But seriously, can’t we at least cover ourselves a bit more than mini skirts or biking shorts? Are those really so much cooler than a pair of knee length shorts (men or women) and a short sleeved shirt?
 
Tis_Bearself said:
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HomeschoolDad:
I have never understood why people “garbed themselves up” so much in past eras and centuries — I mean, didn’t they get hot? And with no air conditioning in warm weather?
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The natural fiber clothing that people wore in the “old days” tends to breathe better and you don’t get as hot as you do in the man-made blends that came along later on. I’ve found that wearing long cotton skirts and cotton tops is actually very comfortable. Also, your body adjusts somewhat to what you wear every day. If you’re raised since childhood wearing a certain number of clothing layers, you won’t feel as hot as someone who is used to wearing a grass skirt and then is made to change their style and dress in layers.

Your body also adjusts to the climate you live in over time. In olden times many people lived in the same area their whole lives and ended up like my grandmother who was never bothered by hot Nebraska summers because she was used to it. People also had ways of dealing with heat, such as taking afternoon naps or rest breaks, wearing accessories like sun hats, taking sponge baths in the midday, etc. On Sunday people got out to Mass early in the morning (remember you couldn’t eat breakfast until after Communion) when it was still cool outside.

Clothing also provided protection from sunburn and insects, which was important in an era when there was no sunscreen or mosquito repellent.
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stpurl said:
Wow, guess I’m hot. . .

You know, before air conditioning people did have things like fans. And I know that people tended to pace themselves better. And my grandparents and parents generations were, actually somewhat healthier overall than us boomers and others. They didn’t eat processed foods, they had regular exercise.

Yeah, Grandpa wore suits. They were often linen—known from the time of the Egyptians, and certainly with that climate, to be cool. Nana wore cotton dresses. The clothing was well cut, not skin tight.
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Good information, thanks. I was already aware of much of this, but as I always say, you can never know too much (unless you’ve been a witness to a crime, and the criminal finds it out… 😜)

The protection from sunburn and insects is also key. I like to grow a vegetable garden, and I also get out in the back yard and tinker with my radio towers and antennas. I have a body chemistry that creates an instant “boodle fight” when the mosquitos and other biting bugs figure out that I’m around and getting a bit warm. One day I got out here on a hot day in shorts, “stubbornly” refused to wear long pants, on the rationale of “I’ll only be out here for a minute”, and the bugs bit me so badly, I looked like I’d been in crossfire from a shotgun! When I went to the doctor recently, he said “what happened to you?”.
 
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RolandThompsonGunner said:
My guess is people were just generally stinkier, and probably went a bit nose blind to the smell of sweaty BO.
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With no disrespect intended to the generations before us, this too.

I have traveled in Europe where air conditioning is not the “thing” it is in the US, and in areas where, shall we say, personal hygiene means different things to different people, and I have encountered the odd incident of olfactory culture shock now and then. Generally speaking, they are just as clean as their American counterparts, but alas, there are exceptions. Being more descriptive could verge on uncharity and xenophobia (both unintended), and granted, there are differences of opinion about bodily cleanliness among some Americans as well.
 
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Tennis skirts should be reserved for tennis. When women wear them in tennis, they are often wearing some kind of athletic wear (i.e. short shorts) under them.

They are not wearing normal underwear, where there would be an embarrassment if the wind were to blow up their skirt.

In regards to how short a skirt should be. As a father of a 9 year old daughter, my rule of thumb is at the knee or maybe an inch above the knee at most.

Additionally, I once heard someone say that that if you can’t bend over to touch your toes without worrying about whether someone might be able to see your underwear, then the skirt is way to short.

I pray this helps, God Bless & Godspeed!
 
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