So, I’ve been doing some research on women’s fashions in the Civil War-era, specifically the incidence of pants-wearing women, and have found some very funny stuff.
Here’s a big news flash for all my readers who may be unfamiliar with various lunacies of the fundie crowd: pants are sinful. At least on women. Here’s my favorite online resource about hell-bent ladies’ trousers– Jesus-is-savior.com. My most favorite part is how, in his fervor to denounce all of us panted hussies, he gives free advertising to rap artist, Chingy. Mr. Stewart, after not getting enough titillation-factor from the title alone, felt it necessary to include all of the lyrics, suitably sanitized for our virgin eyes of course. I find it very interesting that Mr. Stewart is apparently taking his cultural direction from Chingy. I mean, come on, he is totally ignoring the incredible artistic contribution of one Trace Adkins and his incomparable “Honky Tonk Badonkadonk.” Man, that’s just sloppy.
I won’t even go into the historical flap that women’s pants have caused; the modern stuff is too much fun! Whenever one of these discount-theologians wants to back up his (usually a man, sometimes a defeated woman) personal biases, he quotes Deuteronomy or Leviticus. Yeah, these guys always use the Old Testament when they feel the need to condemn others, but I just always wonder how many of them have eaten bacon or a cheeseburger recently. Oops.
But Deuteronomy says that women shouldn’t put on things that pertain to men! And that men shouldn’t dress like women! Oh noes! Interestingly enough, nobody wore pants in the Old Testament. Everybody wore some version of a robe-like garment. So even if one is given to a literal interpretation of the O.T., except for that whole bacon-thing of course, there is NO specific prohibition against women wearing pants! But God-fearin’ folk will work themselves up into knots fretting about, not poverty, not injustice, not genocide, not oppression, not violence, but pants. Pants. Let the absurdity sink in a bit. Let it roll around in your brain for a while, as you try to understand someone whose faith is so shaky, so tenuous that it can be destroyed by pants. O.K., by women in pants. The devil’s own pants.
If you would like to see the preponderance of this opinion for yourself, just google women wearing pants, you’ll see. Another common theme in the know-what’s-better-for-women-than-the-women-themselves crowd is bringing up dubious sociological studies that allegedly prove that the eyes of both women and men are drawn to a woman’s butt and crotch when she is clad in pants. As opposed to what happens when said woman is dressed in a shapeless, ankle-grazing calico bag of a dress, where people look only at the woman’s face. My opinion on that one is that people are desperately trying not to stare at the hideous dress, because staring is rude.
And you know what, people notice each other’s appearances. We all look at faces and hairstyles and clothing and even shoes. We notice if someone’s hair is unkempt, we notice if a woman’s slip is showing, we notice if a kid has on an emo belt, and yes, we notice if someone has a nice caboose. Sighted people always notice appearances first, so what. Women have shapes, curves, actual physical bodies, and if a man can’t handle that it’s his own fault, not the woman’s.
The anti-pant crowd wants women to believe that shapeless dresses are somehow freeing. Freeing us poor, helpless frails from the unwanted lustful stares of big, bad men who just can’t help themselves in the powerful presence of our awesome sexiness. And they say feminists hate men. But I’m not in charge of another person’s lustfulness, I’m only in charge of my own. And that’s another thing. Men wear pants, does that mean I’m supposed to stare at them and not be able to control myself?
I guess the assumption is that women don’t lust after men. Maybe we’re too busy tempting hordes of fine, upstanding christian gentlemen into sin with our devil-pants. So, on one hand, we are wicked temptresses, well-versed in the siren-call of trousers-wearing. And on the other hand, we are demure, innocent creatures, who never lust after anyone, suitable only for patronizing and protecting. The only reason that fundamentalist heads are not exploding over this dichotomy is because fundamentalists are given to living unexamined lives. But, guess what, women do lust, so what.
But, but, but. Lust is a sin! You say that like it’s a bad thing. Hate to tell these people, but lust is sort of the very thing that has kept the human race going during the worst of times. The Great Depression wasn’t the most stable time to have children, but humans just insisted on reproducing. Times of war, disease, and famine are terrible times to bring children into the world, but since one of those things is almost always happening, what are we to do? Let the human race die out because we think lust is icky? But I digress.
For centuries, women were hobbled by their clothing. Corsets made it difficult to breath and impossible to move freely. Hoop skirts made the mere act of sitting down an exercise in embarrassment. Long skirts and multiple petticoats had to be held aloft as women walked around, effectively tying their hands. And those long skirts and petticoats often cost women their lives, by catching fire or becoming heavy with water and drowning them, or by catching in machinery. Long sleeves could also be caught in household or farm or factory machinery, causing injury or death. Yards and yards of heavy fabric were literally shackles around the ankles of the women who had to wear them.
And this pining for the modesty of an earlier time is misplaced at best. Corsets and bustles were designed to exaggerate the natural curves of a woman’s body. And we fetishize what we take pains to hide. There were times when the bodices of dresses were cut just barely high enough to cover the nipple, yet a stolen glimpse of black-stockinged ankle was scandalous! And trust me, people given to the practice of fetishisizing women are only going to be spurred on by the all-covering, ankle-grazing dress. Imagination is often more titillating than reality. “What’s under that dress!”
The issue here really is freedom, or rather, freedoms. Fundamentalist men, of all stripes, want the freedom that comes with not taking any responsibility for their own baser desires, and instead, off-loading all of society’s ills onto all women. I should actually say all females, because these men get started with the woman-blaming while the women are still little girls. Hello? Purity Balls?
And pants give freedom to women. The freedom to move without restriction, the freedom to do the hard work that our lives require, the freedom to run if we need to, and the freedom to fight if we must. The freedom to not worry about a stiff wind, the freedom to get dirty, and the freedom to have warm legs.
It is this feminine freedom that the fundamentalists fear. Before the freedom of pants and the throwing-off of the corsets, men could rest assured, basking in the certainty of their superiority over the “weaker sex.” But it was the clothes, the fabric shackles that kept women weak and helpless. The days of corsets and crinolines and fainting couches are over! Now we have the vote, our own jobs, and the devil’s own pants–the fabric shackles are off.
