Should females not wear pants?

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Skirts with pants under 'em?

HAHAHAHA

I do wear pants, but like to wear dresses as I find them feminine. But I don’t not wear pants because I find them unfeminine. If that makes sense…

I like the crisp look of nicely fitted pants.

I am asking this question in this way to understand more about when pants are an issue, how they are an issue and what the issue is.

I realize skin tight pants are suggestive. We don’t need to go there. There are smooth tailored pants, that are not baggy, but fall softly from the waist down in a way that does not hugg the butt. Are those okay? Or does the crotch part have to hang down lower and baggy as well?

This eddiebauer page has pants that I think are fine. Are they?

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“Should females not wear pants?”

In the first place, why not? Do you know any positive cause for objection to woman wearing pants?
In the second place, as CCCatholic17 asks, what about cold weather?
In the third place, conventional standards for clothing vary from place to place and change over time. A century ago women were forbidden to wear “men’s clothing”…but what was considered offensive a century ago is irrelevant for today.
 
Remember I am just discussing this amongst friends so to say. I chose this forum as the “most traditional” forum to see what the people who have chosen not to wear pants would say as well as others such as the previous two posts who see nothing wrong with it.

Here is a link to a chapter from a book called “Dressing with dignity” that describes the history of clothing and suggests that many of our present day fashions are only products of “loose” women setting the fashion trends.

tanbooks.com/doct/dressing.htm
 
I had read some time before a Notification given by Cardinal Siri of Genoa in 1960 called, “Men’s Attire Worn by Women”.

Naturally I thought the article applied to you topic and is worth reading. I googled it and here is a link:

truecatholic.org/womanattire.htm#n2

God bless!
 
P.S. I like your name–Jehanne Darc. It must be a form of Jeanne d’Arc.
 
P.S.S. I just noticed that the main site for the link above is sedevacantist. Sorry. However, the article is still good as Cardinal Siri was a genuine Cardinal of Genoa in Italy. If you google it there are a number of sites that carry the article as well.
 
Jehanne_Darc said:
Here is a link to a chapter from a book called “Dressing with dignity” that describes the history of clothing and suggests that many of our present day fashions are only products of “loose” women setting the fashion trends.

tanbooks.com/doct/dressing.htm
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To be honest, when I imagine a woman dressed without dignity, I don’t think of a woman in pants. That’s not to say that pants are modest, especially some current fashions.

During the period of Ancient Rome, the Romans abhorred the wearing of pants by anybody. Pants were those things that barbarians wore, and no respectable Roman man would ever wear such things. For the casual look they preferred a nice tunic, and of course the toga for special occasions. Even in the army they wore no pants, and ridiculed those cultures that did. I think you can guess my answer to the question, with this understanding of a historical perspective on the fluidity of fashion.

Another related question: Did Jesus wear pants? (I know it sounds silly and flippant to ask, but I am being serious.) Would it be appropriate, or modest for men to wear what Jesus wore? I think pondering on these questions might help when one is considering the restricting of wardrobe choices.
 
That notification from Cardinal Siri is about the only document produced to defend the opinion that women may not wear trousers.

It seems to take for granted that trousers are, per se, men’s attire.

But men never used to wear them! Our Lord didn’t!

They are just clothes. Blouses are women’s shirts! Women’s trousers are not men’s trousers. A man should not wear women’s trousers!

Modesty, and whether the garment is men’s or women’s, are the deciding factors. And, as I say, women’s trousers are not men’s attire!

So there’s no question of women wearing men’s attire when they wear women’s trousers. And Cardinal Siri concedes in his letter that trousers are often not as immodest as some skirts!

Just my opinion.

Other trads have a real bee in their mantillas/birettas about this though.

Triumpha.
 
CCCatholic17 said:
What do you suggest we wear when it’s cold?
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When I was in Iowa, I wore tights and thick socks tucked into my boots. One of my greatest shocks was when I switched back to jeans and discovered that I was colder in my pants.:eek: I think that this was because the pants can only fit so many layers beneath them before they look too bulky. More layers can actually fit under a skirt. Boots also help.🙂
 
Jehanne_Darc said:
I’ll just leave the question open as is.
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It depends on the woman and what she feels that God puts on her heart. We can get in a discussion about which choice is more logical, but in the end, this is a personal choice.
 
I agree with the idea that what decides is modesty and whether it’s men’s or ladies’. I don’t think God minds fashion, actually. What’s a problem is abandonment of certain roles of the sexes as intended by God, or denial of one’s own masculinity or feminity. If a particular pair of trousers is something I’d be shot before putting on, given they actually fit on my 6’5’’ self, then it’s not likely cross-dressing for a lady. 😛

In my view, what matters is attitude. I don’t like the attitude of masculinisation. If I see a woman wearing men’s clothes and a manly haircut, as well as generally behaving like a man, even if not hitting on men, I have a problem with that in the sense that it strikes me as unnatural. It would have to be real transvestitism to create a genuine problem in the strictly religious sense, something comparable to a man wearing a dress in our culture (not talking about the frock, which is the ultimate male garment, of course :D). I find it troubling how women become like men in appearance and attitudes, yes, although I don’t have a problem with their wearing trousers specifically. But by this I mean some jeans or some bell trousers… whatever it is other than strictly male fashions, which I don’t like women wearing. For example, I don’t like it when businesswomen wear practically men’s suits and I really feel that men’s ties are wrong on ladies.

On a historical note, as much as there’s some similarity between ladies’ and men’s trousers these days, there was between tunics and others in the Biblical times. Just look at the early saints! Would you tell if they swapped faces and the female statues were a bit less curvy? Trousers didn’t even exist back then unless among primitive tribes. It must have been about sexual perversions, disordered self-identification, improper social roles and similar, but not about fashion. If we were to be fashion absolutists, it would be improper for a lady to wear a jacket or coat she got from her man in a cold evening. 😛
 
women can wear pants, but men cant wear skirts , just annother double standard.
 
During the period of Ancient Rome, the Romans abhorred the wearing of pants by anybody. Pants were those things that barbarians wore, and no respectable Roman man would ever wear such things. For the casual look they preferred a nice tunic, and of course the toga for special occasions. Even in the army they wore no pants, and ridiculed those cultures that did. I think you can guess my answer to the question, with this understanding of a historical perspective on the fluidity of fashion.
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Yes, I was hearing about this the other day from my latin teacher. They found pants barbaric and even effeminate. So I wouldn’t get too caught up in an absolutism of modesty.
 
lol, I started to read this thread and was shocked 🙂 …then I remembered you’re all American…and pants must mean trousers lol

when I think of an immodest woman I imagine a short skirt and tight low cut top…

out of interest: is immodesty for a man an issue at all? I’ve read a few threads concerning women’s dress but not men’s.

S
 
Triumpha said:
That notification from Cardinal Siri is about the only document produced to defend the opinion that women may not wear trousers.

It seems to take for granted that trousers are, per se, men’s attire.

But men never used to wear them! Our Lord didn’t!

They are just clothes. Blouses are women’s shirts! Women’s trousers are not men’s trousers. A man should not wear women’s trousers!

Modesty, and whether the garment is men’s or women’s, are the deciding factors. And, as I say, women’s trousers are not men’s attire!

So there’s no question of women wearing men’s attire when they wear women’s trousers. And Cardinal Siri concedes in his letter that trousers are often not as immodest as some skirts!

Just my opinion.

Other trads have a real bee in their mantillas/birettas about this though.

Triumpha.
Click to expand...
Triumpha, thanks for your response. I think it a bit semantic to say that trousers are not men’s attire. Yes, in a way, they aren’t as men don’t use the word trousers. However, my impression from Cardinal Siri’s Notice (which I linked above) is that he is referring to a type of clothing which women wear which has two legs and is not a skirt or a dress. Thus he is addressing women who wear that type of clothing whether they are trousers or jeans. Of course he grants that trousers can be more modest than something like a mini skirt.

However, he also is saying that trousers (or jeans), regardless of their level of modesty, tend to masculinize women and are not as feminine as skirts or dresses. I personally don’t want to judge the heart of women who wear trousers or jeans (and most women I see today wear jeans, not trousers), yet Cardinal Siri makes some very interesting points in that article about how what we wear, over time, can affect us as a society. And perhaps we have seen some of that played out in the U.S. where women’s dress has become less feminine in general and there is a constant push for “equality” as if men and women are basically the same (or ought to be).

God bless.
 
I only wear dresses or skirts (and not short ones either:o ) to church but that’s just my decision to wear them. I don’t see anything wrong with wearing pants either but i’d rather wear my skirts or dresses. Here at home and to the stores or whatever, I do wear pants.
I don’t think one should wear short skirts to church. :eek: One should be modest. Call me old fashion. lol
 
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