Posted on 06/16/2008 8:03:47 AM PDT by Pyro7480
We live in times when blatant immodesty is rampant. Everywhere we are bombarded with intimate sexual details of the lives of strangers....
It is human nature to oscillate from one extreme to another. Lady-like clothes have been replaced by either scanty attire or boyish sportswear, as Genevieve Kineke ponders in her book The Authentic Catholic Woman:
The everyday dress of women should work to their advantage and call to mind the inherent dignity of a child of God. There is tremendous latitude in style today, but few current fashions really flatter women. From the nearly indecent clothing once restricted to red-light districts to androgynous athletic gear, young women are pushed into choosing styles that make social statements that may be far from what they have in mind. (Kineke, Genevieve. The Authentic Catholic Woman, Servant Books, 2006)St. Paul enjoined his Christian women converts to cloth themselves modestly. "In like manner women also in decent apparel: adorning themselves with modesty and sobriety, not with plaited hair or gold, or pearls or costly attire."(1Timothy 2, 9) Two thousand years later, the Catechism of the Catholic Church echoes the words of the Apostle: “Modesty protects the mystery of persons and their love…. Modesty is decency. It inspires one’s choice of clothing.” (CCC, 2522)
However, there seems to be a trend among devout Catholic ladies to react against the gross immodesty of the general society by dressing themselves in bleak, shapeless, androgynous clothes. Modesty does not imply androgyny; a woman can be modest and feminine without being frumpy.
Let us avoid the extremes of Gnosticism. Gnostics, such as the medieval Cathars, thought that the body was bad, created by the devil. We Catholics believe the body is holy....
(Excerpt) Read more at teaattrianon.blogspot.com ...
Read the rest of this interesting blog post at the link above. I'm interested to see how others react to it, and the discussion isn't limited to Catholics (per the ecumenic tag).
Catholic ping!
Ping!
Freeperette Tamar (a.k.a TSN Queen!) has clothing links here:
I absolutely agree.
I have to say that I really like the image of the woman wearing a long dress. I wish more women in my age-range dressed like ladies. Also, some young women might be surprised by the number of men who find a woman wearing a dress to be more alluring than dressing as though they are for sale.
There are surprisingly modest yet feminine skirts and dresses in the stores these days, more than I’ve seen in many years. Maybe because as the baby-boomers move into middle age, not all of them want to look like aging hippies or hookers.
I absolutely agree, and I'm saying this as a man turning 28 next month!
I’ll be frumpy if I wanna be, thanks very much. When I’m 50, and join the Red Hat Society and become Egregiously Silly, my kids are going to wish they’d never criticised my boring cotton dresses and straw sun hats!
LOL! Somehow, I knew you were going to be the contrarian, but I didn’t know it was going to be in the way you said it. ;p)
More like they are ON SALE, at a DISCOUNT!
Leave frumpy to the political left.
Good to know. I am just waiting for the demise of the “low-rise” jeans. Seriously, women without hips can’t kee the things in place, and they make the wearer appear as though they graduated from the Heidi Fleiss School of Interpersonal Skills.
I have always preferred women who dress like, well, women. Sun dresses, long dresses, short dresses, etc. are all quite fetching (a bit more so if a slip is also worn).
But seriously, it's a thoughtful article, similar to others I've read over the years. I do think the author doesn't quite understand the Statement that an unapologetic Frump is making. She says (or quotes, I couldn't quite tell): I look at it this way-- what would it say to our daughters if we who stay home with them looked like drudges all the time? It says that being a stay-at-home wife and mother is boring, tedious, dehumanizing and slavish.
Yes, that's one way of looking at it. However, when I do yardwork (or go hiking) in a long dress, chip-straw hat, and steel-toed boots, I'm saying to my daughters that I can wear what I want to wear, as long as it's decent. That's one of the privileges of being a mother instead of a wage-slave. They appear to have gotten the message.
I’m frumpy because I don’t have the money or time to shop for modest clothes. I dress as simply as possible but it’s functional and not trampy. I’ll look classy when my kids are grown and gone! :0)
And women with hips treat the rest of us to an unappetizing look at their "muffin tops".
I have always preferred women who dress like, well, women.
I imagine most men think the same. I know my husband certainly does.
I noticed yesterday that the skateboarding boys seem to be wearing girls’ low-rise jeans. This allows them to show their underwear without breaking their necks in those idiotic Size-50 pants boys have been wearing the last several years.
Maybe this means they’ll go out of fashion for girls, who are wearing high-necked but skimpy baby-doll frocks this summer and looking quite silly.
I go to the Salvation Army store, and my mother gives me something once in a while.
In all candor, the model could be wearing a tarp and still be a distraction.
Protestant Evangelical Calvinist Antinomian Ping*
There are boys wearing girls’ clothing? Sheesh. When I was a lad, we had names for such “blokes”.
Emo. LOL.
OTOH, not all dresses are created equal. Downtown yesterday I saw a young woman in a dress that looked like a trash bag. Literally. In fact, the first thing that came to mind was "Hefty Hefty Cinch Sack!"
LOL!
Maybe they’re actually made for boys, but the design was the same as the girls’ jeans - tight in the legs, and only a little bit of “top.”
They looked like idiots; my daughter was unimpressed, although they were all trying to get her attention.
Maybe it was a political statement.
But the grass and underbrush cuts my upper legs (especially blackberry brambles! ouch!) so I don't even wear shorts in the field. I usually wear heavy jeans and gum boots or hiking boots (depending on if working land or water). Which has its own problems -- we had a young dog get into trouble too far out to wade, and I was the bird boy and closest to the dog. I had shucked off my outer shirt and my boots and socks and was starting on my jeans when he righted himself and swam to shore. Just as well -- but decency has to go by the boards when somebody's dog is drowning. Although I've seen bathing suits that cover less than my rather utilitarian undergarments.
Then, of course, there are the horses . . .
Yes, you don’t want to scare the horses promenading in your utilitarian undergarments :-).
There’s more to modesty than a long skirt: the model in the picture that opens this thread is using that carefully-positioned skirt to draw a lot more eyes to her legs than your jeans or my orange cotton capris do.
It’s not all in the intention of the wearer, but a lot of it is. You can have all the skin covered, but still be out to get men looking at your (ahem) assets, and everyone knows it. Back when I was reenacting, I had a heavy, dark blue wool dress - high neck, long sleeves, slight train - that stopped guys in their tracks. When my friend was helping me fit it, I told her, “I want to knock their eyes out.” She said, “Do you need to breathe?” and I said, “That’s not important.”
I see these types all around. What they need is a few sets of BDU’s, A good hair cut, and a deployment to Iraq for several months humping a 80 pound pack with a weapon in hand to adjust their attitude a bit.
These twits do not know anything about the world and yet they walk around looking all angst ridden like they have a clue while living off of mommy and daddy.
My old Laura Ashley dresses with the short sleeves and below the knee hemline are FAR less provocative, even though some skin is actually visible.
Then there are my authentic hand-made Regency sprig muslins that I used to wear for Scottish Country Dancing -- but those are positively indecent unless you wear an underdress. I'll probably never wear those again, and I sure don't want my daughter to wear them!
LOL! That's exactly what my daughter says!
I had a pink satin dress with long lace sleeves that was a Regency ballgown pattern worked over to pass for Italian Renaissance. I probably should have been arrested.
I do that and it's not silly. I have a theory. If a "dress" doesn't cover my knees when I sit down in a chair, it's not really a dress, it's a tunic and I wear it accordingly, with jeans or other slacks.
Then, why wear the dress at all? It would be like me wearing a pair of Bermuda shorts over trousers.
By the way, I was not trying to be snippy in my previous post. I am just curious as to why one would wear a dress at all if they are wearing trousers.
They’re wearing the “dresses” because it’s not legal for women to walk around topless...
No, seriously, it’s a tunic shirt not a dress. I’m not a fan of the look but hey, at least they aren’t those awful bellyshirts.
On the other hand... my mom’s the only mother-of-lots (she had seven) that I knew growing up that didn’t wear the awful “uniform”: jean jumper, long unwashed hair brushed straight back, high-collared shirt and the cheapest tennis shoes Walmart sells. Yes, your priorities change with lots of kids but I always thought her jeans and good looking shirts, and carefully tended hair, looked so much better. It was a nice message that you can have kids and still take the time to look good and I know my dad appreciated it.
I prefer jeans or slacks and shirts, myself. At church I wear skirts. If I’m going out with my husband I dress up too. I’ve had jobs where skirts would just have got in the way, crawling under desks to disconnect computers or hauling boxes or working in a pizza shop. I could wear them to work now but I hate dresses so I don’t.
I dress modestly. I’ve had a Muslim coworker who mentioned once that Islam considers any outfit on a woman that shows she has legs, as immodest. Ever since then I’ve been a little cynical about articles promoting over-modesty. They’re always aimed at women who already are modest anyway. The others won’t care.
For two reasons:
1. The material/design of the tunic is pretty
2. I believe that women should cover their private area. Wearing a long tunic makes it more difficult to see the shape of the upper legs.
If it is indeed a tunic, then no worries. I was commenting more on what I have seen on campus (young women wearing what looks more like a one-piece frock over pants). Basically, it looks as thought they shortened a sun dress and decided to wear pants under it.
thought = though
Ok I’ll go throw away all my crotchless jeans.
Sorry. That was a bit sarcastic. But that line - I’ve only ever heard something like that before from a Muslim coworker who wouldn’t shake a woman’s hand. I’m a bit touchy ever since.
Seriously. There are shirts that are immodest, there are shorts that are too revealing and dresses that are too skimpy. But a nice pair of jeans is not immodest just because you can tell the woman has legs, and if someone thinks it is, that’s the person with the problem.
Everyone has to draw the line between immodesty and burkas somewhere, and I’ll drawn my line so as to wear the jeans... greatest clothes invention ever, I believe.
The skimpy, tight fashion jeans that you need a pair of pliers to zip up are pretty immodest.
I wear men's jeans when I'm dog trialing, just because there aren't very many women's jeans sold in camo or with the double-layered waterproofing over the lower legs. . . .
(that's me on the left, without the mallard in my mouth)
The dress (or what looks like a dress :-) over pants style was in fashion when I was a young girl, in the early 70’s. It looked rather silly then, imo, and it still does, but at least it’s decent, unless the top has a Regency ballgown neckline.
of course, I always loved one piece bathing suits as well.....call me a dinosaur
“Homeschooling Barbie comes with a denim maternity jumper, two sweatsuits (no two pieces the same color!) and a pair of Keds.”
This thread is making me want to go to The Salvation Army store. Maybe tomorrow when Pat’s at gymnastics ...
Thank goodness I had other homeschooling role models like my mom! I’m a software engineer, I like my job most days, I like having money to spend on things - it’d be really easy to do like most of my peers and stick the kiddies in gubmint schools, but that has never been an option. Women like my mother and mother in law, and some of the other homeschool moms I knew, show me it’s possible to raise a bunch of kids and still care about other things too.
Of course I don’t have any kids yet so that’s easy to say...
ROFL!
Priorities do change once you have children, especially if you have a lot of children in a short time. Sometimes just being clean is the best you can do, and that denim maternity jumper is a step up from a bathrobe (and essential if you’re going to open the front curtains).
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.