By Dr Carol Byrne
 |
Cardinal Giuseppe Siri of Genoa predicted that the change
from skirts to trousers would modify the Christian perception of womanhood as
essentially ordered towards motherhood, and that it would subvert the divinely
ordained order in which the husband is the protector of his wife and head of
the family. He said: “First, the wearing of men’s dress by women affects the
woman herself, by changing the feminine psychology proper to women; second, it
affects the woman as wife of her husband, by tending to vitiate relationships
between the sexes; and third, it affects the woman as mother of her children by
harming her dignity in her children’s eyes. … This changing of the feminine
psychology does fundamental, and, in the long run, irreparable damage to the
family, to conjugal fidelity, to human affections and to human society…Nobody
stands to gain by helping to bring about a future age of vagueness, ambiguity,
imperfection and, in a word, monstrosities.”
|
The
ancient Egyptians were afflicted with plagues of various kinds – blood, frogs,
lice, beasts, cattle, boils, hail, locusts, and darkness – each one more deadly
than the one before, but the last and worst has been reserved for our times: a
plague of legs. They get everywhere now that women have adopted the trouser
culture. Once not considered in keeping with sartorial propriety, everywhere in
the Western world trousers on women now predominate. If you walk down the
street of any city or town, the proportion of women wearing trousers to skirts
is something like 10:1. The fashion has become so institutionalised that some
women can be said to ‘live in trousers’. For nearly 6,000 years, women always
wore long dresses, but only since the last 40 years, a dress is suddenly
“impractical” to wear. Formerly, women performed a wide variety of jobs,
including farming, in skirts. Nowadays, they can’t so much as rake a few leaves
in the garden without feeling the need to put on a pair of pants.
The
moral consensus
Feminine
modesty has been understood as being distinctive from its male counterpart in
every society since the dawn of history, even in places where God’s word has
never reached. (St Thomas Aquinas holds that the behaviour of all is subject to
moral judgement, whether or not they know of the Revelation of Christianity.)
Women have never, in the entire history of civilization, in any era from
earliest antiquity or in any part of the world until our times, stalked about
in trousers that delineated the lower half of their body and gave visual
prominence to their hips and legs. Why not? Because they had the good sense to
realise their physical vulnerability as the ‘weaker vessel’ vis-à-vis male
readiness to exploit it, and besides, they wanted to be cherished and respected
for their personal qualities other than their physical endowments. The
fundamental issue is that a bifurcated garment worn as outer attire was
considered by people of all civilisations, even the most barbarian and pagan,
to infringe basic levels of feminine decency and identity.
The
custom of women wearing trousers did not start with Catholic women. Like the
New Mass, the fashion was inaugurated and promoted by liberal-minded people,
particularly feminist agitators, intent on discarding Christian traditions and
altering people’s understanding of Christian values. (It is true that the Dress
Reform Movement was also a protest against the cruelly restrictive clothing of
the 19th century that was injurious to women’s health, but there are modest and
immodest solutions to every problem.) Just like the New Mass which broke with
the whole of liturgical tradition, the custom has in no way developed from the
innate sense of decency passed down from one Catholic woman to another
throughout 2000 years of the Church’s influence on society. The skirt-trouser
dichotomy had become established within all civilisations, including Christian
culture, as one of the main differences between men’s and women’s clothing.
Only very recently has this difference been obscured.
As
we shall see later, Catholic clergy, nuns and educators before the Council
denounced the fashion of women wearing trousers as unbecoming in the sense of
being unfeminine (appropriate only for men) and indecent (inviting immodest
regard). Thus, in the period before Vatican II, a Catholic dress code for girls
and women was closely linked with the concept of feminine decorum and the
avoidance of the occasion of sin. From their knowledge of the Gospels in which
Our Lord demanded purity in glances, thoughts, desires and actions and warned
against giving scandal, Christians generally understood that immodesty is
related to lust and causes temptation to others. And so a moral conscience was
formed which told them that immodesty, particularly in a woman because of her
nature as the temptress of man, involves an offence against God and a lack of
respect for ourselves and our neighbour. Not to disapprove of trousers for
women is to shrug aside the seriousness of the situation.
*
In non-Christian countries such as India and parts of the Far East, where women
wore trousers, they took care to cover them amply with a flowing robe or a long
tunic that concealed the outline of their body below the waist.
*
Among Eskimo women and those who inhabited the Polar region there was a
tradition of wearing long dresses made of hide or an ensemble consisting of
seal skin leggings worn under a poncho-style garment that descended well below
the knees. Whether they were the early Celts or Vikings or the women of the
tribe of Attila the Hun who swept down from the Steppes of Central Asia, there
is no recorded case of a fashion for women to wear trousers as an outer garment
until the 20th century.
*
In the eighteenth century, the Empress Elizabeth of Russia known as the “Merry
Tsarina” organised costume balls in which she regularly required that women
dress as men and vice versa. Trousers were indeed worn by women as part of a
fancy dress costume but they were only partly visible under shortened skirts,
and their use was restricted only to a frivolous occasion.
*
During the Napoleonic era and in the American War of Independence there were
women volunteers called “vivandieres” and “cantinieres” who wore trousers as
part of the military uniform. These were the “filles du régiment”, wives,
mothers and daughters who followed their men to war to share the dangers of
battle and the hardships of life in the camps. They braved the bullets to
administer sustenance to the soldiers and tend the wounded. The important
feature of their uniform was that all wore calf-length dresses over trousers or
baggy “Zouave” (Turkish-style) pantaloons.
*
Moralists of all denominations raged throughout the Victorian era against the
emergent fashion of trousers on women. Amelia Bloomer gave her name to a
revolutionary style of dressing, but even her ‘shocking’ innovation (1851) that
sent ripples of indignation through polite society and drew fiery condemnations
from every pulpit, came with a mid-length skirt worn over billowy pantaloons
that were tied at the ankle.
*
There is no doubt that from Victorian times women wearing trousers were
considered both immodest and unfeminine. The early feminists who wore trousers
were often lampooned in the press in their attempt to ape manliness. A common
criticism was that trousers gave a woman “an extremely mannish look”.
*Here
is what G.K. Chesterton thought about women wearing trousers:
“And since we are talking here chiefly in types and symbols, perhaps as good an embodiment as any of the idea may be found in the mere fact of a woman wearing a skirt. It is highly typical of the rabid plagiarism which now passes everywhere for emancipation, that a little while ago it was common for an “advanced” woman to claim the right to wear trousers; a right about as GROTESQUE as the right to wear a false nose…It is quite certain that the skirt means female dignity.” This commentary was written in 1910 when the custom was in its infancy; it may be a century old, but it is even more relevant in our times than it was in Chesterton’s.
“And since we are talking here chiefly in types and symbols, perhaps as good an embodiment as any of the idea may be found in the mere fact of a woman wearing a skirt. It is highly typical of the rabid plagiarism which now passes everywhere for emancipation, that a little while ago it was common for an “advanced” woman to claim the right to wear trousers; a right about as GROTESQUE as the right to wear a false nose…It is quite certain that the skirt means female dignity.” This commentary was written in 1910 when the custom was in its infancy; it may be a century old, but it is even more relevant in our times than it was in Chesterton’s.
*
All dictionaries up to the early 20th century defined “trousers” as “a garment
worn by males.” This identification of trousers as a male garment did not
change until the 60s after women began to liberate their legs publicly in the
50s, thus altering the public perception.
*
In wartime, women workers in munitions factories wore dungarees under overalls.
It
is evident that trousers were historically associated with men, and wherever
they were adopted by women they were subject to ‘purdah’, that is skirted
around by cultural restrictions and limited to specific circumstances. There is
thus no recorded history of women adopting the fashion of wearing trousers like
their menfolk until the 20th century.
We
can deduce two things from this enduring and universal phenomenon:
–
a moral consensus, based on instinctual feelings of shamefacedness, existed up
to modern times among all women, and that their desire to conceal rather than
reveal was not a social construct but a natural reaction.
–
trousers as an outer garment are not and never have been feminine apparel, and
by putting them on women (with a different designer label) does not make them
any less men’s clothing.
This
evidence quite escapes those who deny the significance for our time of God’s
edict given to Moses: “A woman shall not be clothed with a man’s apparel;
neither shall a man use woman’s apparel: for he that doeth these things is
abominable before God ” (Deuteronomy 22:5). The mere mention of such an edict
is enough to make some people hiss “Old Testament fundamentalist” in my
direction, but it was the basis on which the Church formed her teaching that
women must dress in a distinctively feminine manner and be modest in heart as
well as apparel (I Peter 3:3-4).
The
Church’s teaching before Vatican II
The
Church’s teaching on dress is an authority prevailing over every social
tendency and every fashionable choice, because it was to her and not to society
that Christ entrusted the supernatural wisdom to discern what constitutes a
spiritual danger and to fight soul-destroying customs such as immodest and
egalitarian clothing. Many of us are too quick to write off the Church when it
comes to subjects like trousers on women. It is claimed that the Magisterium
has not issued any prohibition on them and that in dubiis libertas (where a
doubt exists freedom should be granted). But this argument overlooks the fact
that it was only in the second half of the 20th century that women in general
began to exchange their skirts for trousers, and that by the time this
fashionable option had become widespread, the post-Conciliar Church had fallen
silent, having already adopted a more indulgent attitude to the question of
modesty in general and the sins of the flesh in particular. It is hardly to be
expected that in their condemnation of immodest fashions the pre-Conciliar
Popes would have given particular emphasis to a fashion that was rarely seen in
public. (Certainly before 1960 it was unheard of for women to wear trousers to
church). However, it was customary before the Council for individual bishops,
especially in Catholic countries such as Ireland, Italy and Latin America, to
make statements regarding the unacceptability of trousers on women.
The
Archbishop of Dublin and Primate of Ireland, John Charles McQuaid C.S.Sp., was
well known for his tirades against women wearing trousers. He continually
denounced women’s participation in athletics for reason of dress in mixed
company. For example, in a sermon to a congregation in his native Cavan, he
voiced his opposition to young women rowers being dressed in men’s scanty athletic
attire. There is no doubt that throughout his lengthy career (he reigned for
more than three decades from 1940 to 1972 before resigning in 1972 in disgust
at the reforms of Vatican II and dying, they say, broken-hearted the following
year), the legendary Archbishop McQuaid exerted an enormous influence on every
aspect of Catholic Ireland. It was common knowledge that Dr McQuaid had a
direct influence on University College Dublin, and this has been confirmed with
the recent opening of the Archbishop’s archives. I have a vivid recollection of
an incident that occurred during my university days in Dublin when a foreign
female student wearing trousers was approached by a woman official and asked to
leave the premises because she had infringed the dress code. What would McQuaid
have said about today’s trousered women? He would have used up all his
vocabulary, and have had nothing left but tears.
The
last official document on the subject was, significantly, issued shortly before
Vatican II. It took the form of a letter by Cardinal Siri of Genoa warning all
the clergy, teaching sisters, those involved in Catholic Action, and educators
in his diocese, of the grave dangers in women wearing trousers. Written on the
12th June 1960 at a time when Italy was more or less still a Catholic country,
the letter addressed people who still had some instinctual sensibilities
concerning modesty, formed by centuries of Catholic culture. Its very title,
“Notification concerning men’s dress worn by women”, indicates that slacks and
shorts were considered as men’s clothing, and that the fact that the offending
garments were tailored for the female figure and therefore not bought in the
menswear department of clothes shops, does not justify their adoption by women.
Cardinal Siri condemned trousers on women from a two-fold perspective: firstly
that they involved a degree of immodesty (albeit not as grave as abbreviated
skirts), and secondly that they were a symbol of feminist ideology, “the
visible aid to bring about a mental attitude of being ‘like a man’”.
(Incidentally this is exactly what Bishop de Castro Mayer meant when he said
that trousers were even worse than mini-skirts because the latter attacked the
senses while the former attacked the mind, thus constituting an ideological
weapon in the feminist battle for the de-feminising of women). Since the
clothing a person wears “modifies that person’s gestures, attitudes and
behaviour”, the Cardinal predicted that the change from skirts to trousers
would modify the Christian perception of womanhood as essentially ordered
towards motherhood, and that it would subvert the divinely ordained order in
which the husband is the protector of his wife and head of the family.
Alas,
it has all come to pass as he had forecast: women have adopted men’s dress, and
there has been a wholesale paradigm-shift in society’s perception of
femininity. Misled by the tenets of feminist dogma, women are being won over to
the idea that the Catholic teaching of the man being the head of the woman and
family is all irrelevant nonsense, and totally absurd in the modern world. The
effect of this is to blur God’s purposes in giving men and women distinctive,
though complementary, roles in society, and to abolish the “headship of man”
doctrine in every area of life – Church, family, education, government etc. As
Cardinal Siri put it:
“First,
the wearing of men’s dress by women affects the woman herself, by changing the
feminine psychology proper to women; second, it affects the woman as wife of
her husband, by tending to vitiate relationships between the sexes; and third,
it affects the woman as mother of her children by harming her dignity in her
children’s eyes. … This changing of the feminine psychology does fundamental,
and, in the long run, irreparable damage to the family, to conjugal fidelity,
to human affections and to human society…Nobody stands to gain by helping to
bring about a future age of vagueness, ambiguity, imperfection and, in a word,
monstrosities.”
Because
shorts and slacks break both the modesty and gender barriers, we have a superb
medley of immodesty AND ‘masculinity’ all gift-wrapped nicely for today´s
modern career woman!
How
teaching sisters shaped Catholic culture
When
I went to a convent school in England in the late 1950s, the Headmistress would
give each year group fortnightly tutorials designed to prepare Catholic girls
for the temptations and dangers to the life of the soul that they would face in
the modern world. Among the warnings and admonitions, the following three items
were candidates for the greatest condemnation by the teaching sisters:
television, pop music and women’s trousers. All three were treated from the
perspective of Original Sin and its effect of Concupiscence (a word, I recall,
that almost stretched from one side of the blackboard to the other, and was the
devil’s own job to spell) which leaves human nature vulnerable to the assaults
of the devil. We were admonished to discipline our senses, sanctify our souls
with the graces that make us pleasing to Our Lord and Our Lady and avoid the
‘broad path’ of modern fashions influenced by pop psychology and television
culture which threaten our souls with spiritual dangers.
As
so little has been written in appreciation of teaching orders of nuns, it is
easy to underestimate the tremendous impact that women religious had on the
development of Catholicism before the Council and the strength of the Catholic
Church in the British Isles as in other countries of the world. The very
cohesiveness of a large congregation of women religious in every area allowed
them far more influence over the minds of their pupils than any group of lay
women could have exerted in the same period. Their presence was a major force
for moral rectitude and stability in every neighbourhood where they taught the
faith and helped young girls to conduct their lives according to Catholic
principles. In the 1950s, convent schools were so prevalent that it was impossible
for them not to influence the outlook of Catholic girls with regard to modesty
in dress.
The
Church’s interpretation of what constitutes modesty in dress was hugely
influential in Catholic countries principally because it was preached and
defended by popes, bishops, clergy and religious and echoed by lay teachers in
charge of young people in their formative years. It is not exaggerating to say
that if the adoption of a Catholic dress code for girls is attributable to any
sector of the Church more than others, that sector was the congregations of
teaching sisters from which it received its most powerful impetus and
orientation. In the days before the Council, good Catholic girls and women
dressed decently because they had learned repeatedly from their earliest years
to subordinate their own opinions and desires to the standards that were
required of them. I know for a fact that even in Irish Primary Schools the
teaching sisters operated a strict dress code: mothers who had sent their girls
to school in too short dresses would find their daughters returned to them at
the end of the day with a strip of paper pinned to the end of the dress to show
the required length!
In
Ireland, women teachers were trained in Catholic colleges such as the Mary
Immaculate Teacher Training College in Limerick, run by the Sisters of Mercy.
The nuns taught their students the moral principles governing feminine modesty
which they, in turn, were to pass on to their future pupils. We can gather some
insights into what this entailed from a journal produced in 1927 by the trainee
teachers. Echoing the Irish Bishops’ concern about the spread of what they
termed “indecent fashions”, they launched “the Mary Immaculate Modest Dress and
Deportment Crusade” with the intention of rescuing “Irish maidenhood from the
grip of the pagan world”. Among the articles of attire to be reprobated were
trousers, referred to as “mannish and immodest” dress.
In
promoting modesty in dress for those under their charge, teaching sisters were
complying with Rome’s decrees. In 1930 Pope Pius XI had directed the Sacred
Congregation of the Council to issue a strongly-worded Letter on Christian
Modesty to the whole world (as had Pope Benedict XV before him):
“Nuns,
in compliance with the Letter dated August 23, 1928, by the Sacred Congregation
of Religious, must not receive in their colleges, schools, oratories or
recreation grounds, or, if once admitted, tolerate girls who are not dressed
with Christian modesty; said Nuns, in addition, should do their utmost so that
love for holy chastity and Christian modesty may become deeply rooted in the
hearts of their pupils.”
The
same message was reinforced in all Catholic schools, colleges and universities
before the Council. The only concession made for gymnastics and sports in
convent schools was shorts of the culotte type with boxed pleats reaching
almost to the knee, and then only in an all-girl setting.
Once
a Convent Girl…
There’s
something about a convent girl who received her education before Vatican II
that marks her out from other girls of her generation: she has had her
conscience formed by the teaching sisters in the basic moral principles of
obedience and chastity, with the word MODESTY branded in letters of fire on her
subconscious mind. True modesty, they taught, begins in the soul which must be
protected from being laid open to dangers. Girls were admonished never to lose
their innocence, always to avoid anything that might rob them of it, such as
immodest fashions, and to fight like heroines to preserve it at all costs.
Their role model was St Maria Goretti, the Italian girl canonised in 1950 who
died in 1902 heroically defending her purity. Modesty was therefore taught as
an inner virtue – one of the twelve fruits of the Holy Ghost – and the true
cause and ground for outer modesty as expressed in one’s attire. Whether or not
the convent educated girl always adhered to a Catholic dress code outside
school life, an inescapable sense of ‘shamefacedness’ remained long after she
has left school, and she carried this principle in her innermost mind even if
she could not always articulate it with reasoned arguments.
Whereas
other girls have no reliable standards by which to judge modest dress (some
fundamentalist Protestant sects use biblical references to preach feminine
modesty, but do so using their own interpretation), the convent girl has been
gradually educated in responsibility towards the moral well being of herself
and others. As Pope Pius XII put it:
“...without
the faith, without Christian education, deprived of the help of the Church,
where can bewildered woman find the courage to face unfalteringly moral demands
surpassing purely human strength? ”
The
Seduction of Vatican II
Adapting
Catholic morals to the modern world, as Vatican II did, had disastrous effects.
When the Council called for an adaptation of the Church to the Modern World,
what it was saying is that the Church needed to end the separation between the
religious life and worldly life and conform herself to the values of the world.
Belief in the supernatural was assimilated into faith in naturalism, and the
distinction between the two was lost. This change is of paramount importance to
what happened next: religious orders of nuns were among the first to embrace
the Vatican II reforms both in their own communities and in the wider world.
Caught up in the current of the New Thinking, the sisters were like sitting
ducks: the best they could do was to take a defensive stand in a situation that
was indefensible, and they were an easy target with no chance of escaping the
hunter. Most took to the reforms like ducks to water. Whether they were
progressives or conservatives in their outlook, all were obliged to adopt a
more indulgent, admiring view of the modern world and its fashions and stop
regarding it as a spiritual enemy. No longer shocked at the sight of women in
trousers, they got into them themselves and mounted the sanctuary steps where
they continue to challenge the supremacy of the all-male priesthood.
With
the disappearance of an authoritative guide from our religious leaders on a
Catholic dress code, the New Thinking affected the Church in its membership and
social and cultural environment. It is well known that when the practice of
modesty, like any other moral principle, has simply become a matter left to the
individual’s sense of responsibility, it is gradually forgotten. Unfortunately,
modern Popes have not given specific advice on women and trousers, priests have
failed in their duty to give the traditional moral guidance, and women have been
left unprotected by their pastors. If they are not guided in this matter by
Popes, women will be guided by the bad example of their peers, by fashion
designers and retailers who have a financial interest in promoting trends, and
by feminists with an ideological agenda to tear down the conventions that
Christian civilisation has established as safeguards of the virtue of purity.
The
implications for women’s fashions are clear: we now have a relativisation of
standards of decency and loss of a sense of decorum. Nobody blushes any more –
or hardly. This relativism has slowly weakened in consciences the notions of
good and evil, sin and grace, vice and virtue, and, by analogy, the standards
of modesty in dress. It has led to a curious irony – the modernist clergy,
brazen in defending the freedom of women to wear trousers even in church, are
bashful when it comes to preaching about modesty! What a shocking indictment on
the blindness produced by too much exposure to the world: they do not see a
violation of modesty in women wearing trousers or a profanation of holy places
by such attire. Instead of exhorting their flocks to transcend the pressures of
fashion, modernist clergy have laughingly adopted the “New Morality” including
a “New Modesty” (they regard the ‘old modesty’ as a joke!) which allows
immodest styles of clothing to be worn in church. The silence of the clergy,
indeed their laxist complicity with immodest clothing, provides the means for
women to pursue their own pleasure, comfort and convenience with the Church
assisting them. It is one thing to tolerate wrongdoing by being silent when
God’s laws are mocked. It is something else to contribute to it by not working
to eradicate it as best as one can.
Certainly
the Society of St Pius X cannot be accused of turning a blind eye to the
problem. By speaking out against immodest fashions, traditional priests are
fulfilling Pope Pius XI’s exhortation: “Let parish priests and preachers,
according to the recommendation of Saint Paul, and as the occasion presents itself,
“insist, explain, reprove and exhort”, to the end that women should dress in
such a way as to radiate modesty, and their clothing enhance and protect
virtue. Let them, also, admonish parents not to allow their daughters to wear
immodest outfits.”
Bishop
Williamson was right in line with traditional Catholic morality when he said:
“Let not wild horses drag you into shorts or trousers.” and “Let the wife then
sacrifice her own will, her emancipation, her trousers, her money and
pseudo-career in order to attain the glorious freedom of motherhood to bring
into the world and raise whatever children God sends.” He was only fulfilling
his duty as envisioned by Pope Pius XI:
“Nothing
is more reasonable or more necessary than that the Bishops – as is fitting for
ministers of Christ – should, with one voice, raise a barrier against these
bold and licentious fashions, bearing with serenity and courage the insults and
mockery which they will receive, because of their unyielding position…”
“You’ve
forgotten your skirt!”
Some
Catholic girls and women can be incredibly naive about the effects of
immodesty; they sincerely want to lead a Christian life, but seem to be unaware
of the link between a chaste heart and a chaste appearance, and of their
potential for leading others astray. Pope Pius XII warned:
"Numbers of believing and pious women…in accepting to follow certain bold fashions, break down, by their example, the resistance of many other women to such fashions, which may become for them the cause of spiritual ruin. As long as these provocative styles remain identified with women of doubtful virtue, good women do not dare to follow them; but once these styles have been accepted by women of good reputation, decent women soon follow their example, and are carried along by the tide into possible disaster".
Pope
Pius XII did not mention any particular article of clothing by name – modesty
and discretion would prevent him from doing so – but it is obvious that shorts
and slacks come under his censure as being “bold” and “provocative”. In
contrast to modern Popes who praise women’s participation in sports that
require such clothing, Pope Pius XII warned against them. It is reasonable to
assume that if he condemned athletic outfits for women on the sports field and
in the gym, he would have been even more critical of their adoption for
everyday life.
No
such thing as modest trousers on women
If
women are “dressing to kill” these days, there is no doubt that they have
succeeded in killing the morals of men and endangering their souls by wearing
provocative styles, particularly midriff-baring tops and how-low-can-you-go
jeans. Some women appear to have been melted down and poured into their
garments. A good question to ask oneself by way of analogy is: “Which outlines
the form of the hand more – a mitten or a glove?” and then apply the question
to a skirt and a pair of trousers, both of which provide adequate coverage. It
is obvious that there can be varying degrees of immodesty depending on the cut
of the trousers, but that there is no such thing as ‘modest’ trousers – they
may look modest on the clothes rack, but they behave like any other trousers
when you put them on. The ‘crux’ of the matter, (if you get my meaning), is
that even if trouser legs are of generous width and not particularly clinging,
the fitted area is bound to offset the female form to a greater or lesser
extent, and its very visibility is what causes an immodest impression to be
fixed in the mind. Any woman who does not agree should take a long, hard look
in the mirror and try to see herself as others (especially men) see her!
Perhaps then she will agree that trousers reveal much more than gender.
Let’s
talk modesty – and honesty
Women
often say they wear slacks because they are more comfortable or convenient for getting
in and out of cars, warmer in winter etc., and shorts because the weather is
hot (but it is even hotter in Purgatory!). But with a little of the ingenuity
and resourcefulness for which women are famed, a judicious combination of
articles of apparel can be chosen from among the contents of a woman’s wardrobe
to enable her to wear skirts for many occasions – windy days and sub-zero
temperatures, cycling, hiking and riding side-saddle, for instance – all
without the need to wear trousers. There are some sporting activities which
cannot be done in a skirt and so must be out of bounds for women. Sacrificing
convenience and freedom is not easily done, but if a more restricted life-style
for the sake of modesty and propriety is the path of greater holiness, it is
also potentially one of greater sacrifice and will bring its rewards in
increased graces.
Let
us be perfectly honest: even if an individual does not comply with the
surrounding a-moral culture, it is giving the wrong message for a Catholic
woman to don trousers which align her with the outward appearance of those who
wish to detach themselves from a Christian way of life. After all, what would
people think if you walked into a room wearing a tee-shirt with a large
swastika emblazoned on it? If you are not a Nazi sympathiser, why give the
impression of being one? Yet there are Catholic women even in traditionalist
circles who, while not fitting the strict definition of “feminist”,
nevertheless reflect that ethos to some degree, not least in their vehement
protest against anyone declaring trousers as unsuitable attire for women.
Feminism is so pervasive in our society that traces of the feminist mindset can
be found even among those Catholics who would disavow the feminist label.
Conclusion
The
key to the whole issue is for women to dress in a feminine manner so as to
communicate the language of submission and acceptance of womanhood rather than
the language of rebellion and rejection of God’s design. As Christian women, we
have a biblical obligation to dress modestly and reflect holiness, and so we
should dress in a feminine manner, to show that we accept the place God has
given us in the Church, in the family and in society,. God’s message about
modesty may seem embarrassingly old-fashioned in our culture, but God’s word
does not change. There are no general circumstances either in the past or
present which mitigate or set aside this teaching. While it is acceptable to
have feminised forms of coats, hats, shoes etc., trousers are in a category of
their own because of the area of the body on which they are worn and their
inherent “suggestiveness”. It will never be right for women to overshadow or
displace traditional Catholic teaching by claiming the right to wear trousers.
If
we judge the question in the light of the virtual collapse of the Catholic
Church in society after more than forty years of religiously neutral teaching,
it would suggest that the trouser culture, insofar as its basic premises have
now become enshrined in society, has indeed served to injure Catholicism and
the overall social good. It has the effect of undermining the priority, both in
public and then in private life, of supernatural or spiritual reality.
Part
of the problem is that what was taught before the Council as Catholic morality
is now viewed as a threat to the liberal values of tolerance, individual
freedom and egalitarianism – all of which have become the orthodoxy of the age.
This means that, in practice, the pre-Conciliar condemnation of trousers comes
into conflict with the self-serving tendency in (wo)man. It is seen as being
contrary to the freedom of the individual and likely to frustrate her
self-fulfilment and/or happiness. But St Thomas shows that the punishment for
Original Sin was not only the subordination of woman to man but its
unpleasantness, and that woman would not always be readily obedient.
Has
the trouser culture really elevated our uniqueness as women? Has it contributed
to an increase in chivalry from men? On the contrary, the fashion has become
counter-productive for women:
- their dignity has been lowered both in the eyes of society and of their own children
- as fashions have become bolder, their innate sensitivity to immodesty has been blunted by sensual overload
- their minds have been ideologically corrupted by feminist thinking so that they have generally rejected God’s design for the family
- there is widespread confusion in society about what constitutes femininity and masculinity
- the de-feminising effect of trousers on the younger generation is unedifying. Young girls of today have, for the most part, worn trousers most of their life, and as a result they tend to behave like boys. It is little wonder that they feel uncomfortable in dresses and that, as Pope Pius XII noted, they have lost the instinct for modesty. Our age has witnessed a general coarsening of conversation and manners among young girls at a time of their life when they should be learning Mary-like standards of modesty and deportment.
The
women’s trouser culture is one of the most insidious by-products of modern
liberalism, and it is therefore not surprising that all it has promoted is
moral frivolity and exhibitionism, confusion, the debasement of women, a
coarsening of attitudes among women themselves and a lowering of moral tone in
society.
We
need to rescue the Christian concept of womanhood from modern society’s
confusion over marital duties and family life. In order to maintain standards
of decency in dress, women need the graces that come from frequent prayer. They
also need the moral support of their menfolk: in the first place of the Holy
Father, then of the hierarchy, clergy and religious and also of their husbands.
But women have been spiritually short-changed and woefully let down by the
silence of the Magisterium after the Council. However, there is the other side
of the coin: the problem of the unruly wife and the passion with which some
women pursue the ‘right’ to wear trousers. Instead of having a “gentle and
quiet spirit” (1 Pet. 3:4), they frustrate their husband’s attempts to counsel
them by continually usurping his authority in the home. The Magisterium may be
silent, but women are vocal! The plague of legs is a just punishment.
“God
allows us to be punished by the silence of the Magisterium today for the sins
of not obeying the Magisterium when it spoke up: just as God, as punishment,
did not send more prophets to the people of the Old Testament after the people
had killed and rejected many of the prophets He had already sent to them.”
For
those who are new to Catholic morality, or who are unaware of what the Church
has taught before the Council, it would be good to cultivate the habit of
thinking that if the Church has preached against women wearing trousers, then
somewhere there is a good case for believing it drawn from Revelation,
Tradition or natural reason. They would do well to heed the teachings of
the past as they strive to inculcate a spirit of purity and awaken a sense
of the angelic virtue among the young. The result would be perfectly Catholic:
modern ‘Bloomerites’ who still cling doggedly on to the trouser-leg of feminist
culture should stay at home to look after their children and cut their trousers
into strips to make mops.
Source: True Catholic.
