Posted on 03/29/2006 12:39:50 PM PST by NYer
LINCOLN, March 29, 2006 (LifeSiteNews.com) – The Family Life Office of the Catholic diocese of Lincoln, Nebraska, has endorsed a lay-led effort to make more feminine and modest clothing available to women by retailers.
Project Mother’s Day 2006: a Call to Catholic Action, is an undertaking of the lay apostolate, The Leaven that promotes the family and feminine values. The event, says its organizers, is “in honour of the spiritual maternity inherent to the unique, feminine nature and vocation of women.”
Project Mothers’ Day will feature the popular writer and broadcaster, Colleen Hammond, a radio & television talk show host, comedienne, and mother and author of the book Dressing With Dignity. Hammond is a frequent speaker on the preservation of the family and feminine values. A review of her book says, “Gone are the days when women dressed with beauty and charm that accentuated their femininity.”
The review says, “Much of what passes for women’s fashions today appeals to the baser senses of men and women, making it increasingly difficult to maintain the respect that women deserve.”
Juliana Davis, co-founder of The Leaven and organizer of the Lincoln event, says that “secular sexuality vis a vis immodest fashions, contraception, and abortion make a mockery of women.”
“Though I always knew that immodest fashions were insulting, it wasn’t until I read Colleen’s book that I realized immodest fashions are tied to a multi-faceted affront to our sacred dignity," Davis says.
Project Mother’s Day organizers say they hope the event will help empower women to petition area merchants to provide tasteful, modest fashions in keeping with women’s sacred dignity.
“I really hope other grassroots groups will follow suit to begin similar Mother’s Day initiatives,” says Davis
Hammond, who is becoming a one-woman crusader for feminine values, is collecting signatures for a petition to clothing manufacturers to make more tasteful and feminine clothes available through retail outlets. Hammond operates two blogs and a personal website to support her efforts.
Sign the petition:
http://www.colleenhammond.com/petition.html
Visit Colleen Hammond’s Blogs:
Colleen Hammond
http://colleenhammond.blogspot.com/
Dressing With Dignity
http://dressingwithdignity.blogspot.com/
What's even worse than young women not being able to find clothing that doesn't show all is the fact that a woman of my age, 45, can't either. I wear a size 10 or 12 and cannot find jeans or slacks that arent't either very low-waisted or stretch, or both. It makes shopping a big pain.
Land's End clothes are the opposite of what's in the stores: they're too old-fashioned. I like a pair of casual slacks or jeans that sit at the waist and have some flare at the bottom, such as bootcut. Is that too much to ask?
Agreed.
Exactly. Young boys don't wear skirts, either.
It's not that hard to find clothes without having to resort to lands End, LL Bean and the other outdoor outfitters. Not to mention Talbots. It just takes a little effort - and for some of us, learning to sew.
Actually, it's quite freeing to only wear jeans and pants when you are gardening, cleaning out the warehouse, etc. Men treat you like a lady. And skirts, IMO, look much better on most women than pants.
I've never understood the objection. If you wear them long and full enough, skirts are far more comfortable. My preference is actually dresses with no waist. I call them my pajama clothes. I'm comfortable all the time.
I've actually been having a problem finding modest maternity clothes, this time round. I'm a bit on the tall side (5'9", nothing freakish), but they cut the styles so fine now, tops as short as possible, bottoms as low as possible, that that extra couple inches above average is killing me. Nothing covers.
And don't even get me started on Motherhood Maternity's "Just Because You're Pregnant, It Doesn't Mean You Can't Dress Like You're Easy" advertising campaign they've been running this past season.
Currently, I believe there is a huge confusion between dressing handsomely, in ways that flatter people, and dressing "sexy."
Our current fashion sense, which is driven between a combination of youth culture and designers noting that, thinks that sexy-slutty is good because it gets attention. They don't understand handsome at all. There are also have very scrambled moral codes (tolerance is good, sexual activity is good, standing up for the old values is bad) in the people that are driving this, both in the youth culture and designer's circles.
Last fall, I started to put a site together that would have resources, and other information, and was going to update it regularly, but couldn't follow through. I need to get back and prune the site, but I do have some info that might be useful to someone working through the issue:
about modesty (from a wide spectrum of viewpoints)
http://www.escproductions.bizland.com/mod/modestysclosetlamode.html
Sources for modest clothing:
(some of this is very modest, ala plain dress in the mennonite tradition, some less so)
http://www.escproductions.bizland.com/mod/modestysclosetlamode2.html
Adaptive strategies: things to do and things you can buy to make up for the low cut and such:
http://www.escproductions.bizland.com/mod/modestysclosetlamode3.html
The other day, I went to Walmart to look for a low end pullover top, and everything was cut too low. So I went and bought a shirt out of the men's department.
That's a sad thing, when even all the tees are too low.
"Actually, it's quite freeing to only wear jeans and pants when you are gardening, cleaning out the warehouse, etc. Men treat you like a lady."
To each her own, of course, but I also wear a top.
"In general, women shouldn't wear pants apart from exercising, manual labor, etc. The regular wearing of pants by women is defeminizing.
"
That's your opinion. I believe you'll find that opinion is not shared by most women.
But as a parent, why would you let your child give in to peer pressure? Today it's clothing, tomorrow it's experimenting with sex and/or drugs. But, Dad, Mom, all the kids are doing it! I don't want to be different!
Exactly (like a number of his other opinions). Pants can be very dressy, well tailored, and I am most definitely still All Girl when I wear them.
See post #20.
Here's the full context of that comment.
"Advertising agencies quickly prepared marketing research to find out the reaction of men to a woman wearing pants. Do you know what they found? Using newly developed technology, they tracked the path that a man's eyes take when looking at a woman in pants. They found that when a man looked at a woman in pants from the back, he looked directly at her bottom. When he looked at a woman wearing pants from the front, advertisers found that his eyes dropped directly to a woman's most private and intimate area. Not her face! Not her chest!"
"I have received letters and emails from men who have read the first edition of the book and wanted me to tell women that they didn't need a marketing study to tell them what they already knew: When a woman is wearing pants, a man's eyes (much to his embarrassment) fall to a woman's crotch. These men also pointed out that it is something that happens without their wanting to do it, or without their realizing it. It's the nature of men to look... and they do! By the way, you'll notice that, in ads, models in trousers will sit with their legs far apart. This isn't being done by accident."
Why do you think I now walk with my eyes toward the ground when I don't need to be watching where I'm going? Our world is one huge occasion of sin now.
The sign said "Shirt and Shoes Required for Service" so I took my trousers off before going in ..
Probably not. Most women also dress immodestly, so I doubt they'd share many of my opinions about dressing.
But incredibly common these days. My wife was out with a group of her girlfriends and, as women do, they ended up talking about this sort of thing. 4 out of the 6 were Brazilianed.
Oh for heaven's sakes!
My husband said that was a load baloney. He said he'd rather see a woman in a skirt because it is more appealing. And yes it is true about looking at a woman rear end. But the crotch?
Any men out there want to comment? Maybe my husband is the odd one out.
Don't forget "All Immodest".
This isn't an issue of women wearing men's clothes (no normal man would be caught dead in women's slacks), but the too tight cutting of pants being provacative, just like to tight a cut of shirt is.
My husband prefers skirts, and I definitely wear them when we go out together (I know my rear gets studied more in a skirt than in pants!). But he also knows that for work, pants are more comfortable and often more appropriate for me, and he respects my autonomy (and, my salary!).
Mine are tailored appropriately. Perhaps you know women who buy cheaper clothes than I do.
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