Long pants, long pants!: Or, Why I'm not wearing pants to church on Dec. 16th

To clarify, I will be wearing something. Just not necessarily pants.

Not sure how many of you have come across this little story. For those who don't want to read the article, here's the first sentence that sums up the story: "A group of Mormon feminists has declared Sunday, Dec. 16, as 'Wear Pants to Church Day' and is calling on sister Saints across the globe to join the effort."

Reading about this "event" and the several comments I've seen scattered across Facebook has left me with mixed feelings and I can't stop thinking about it. As I don't want to get tangled in the back-and-forth of commenting on Facebook, and I feel like I have more to express about it than will fit there, I finally decided to just write about it here.

First of all, I actually do consider myself a feminist in many respects. In some circles of the Church, "feminist" is practically a swear word. But really most people I know are feminists--they just don't realize it. They agree that women should have rights to vote or hold office, have equal access to education, be paid equally for jobs they are qualified for and perform well, should not be considered or treated as property, should not be subject to abuse, and so on. But "feminism" has taken on some angry, negative connotations and has been taken to some extremes that I don't always want to follow it to.

So this group, All Enlisted, has called on Mormon women all over the world to wear pants to church this Sunday. Now, I don't exactly see this as quite the extremity of feminism that so many people fear. I don't even think it will be that big of a deal in the end. Not exactly the "historic" event they are hoping for. Women wearing dresses to church is a cultural phenomenon, not a doctrinal one. In 1971 the First Presidency stated that, "The Church has not attempted to indicate just how long women’s or girls’ dresses should be nor whether they should wear pant suits or other types of clothing. We have always counseled our members to be modest in their dress, [. . .] We have advised our people that when going to the temple they should not wear slacks or miniskirts, or otherwise dress immodestly. We have not, however, felt it wise or necessary to give instructions on this subject relative to attendance at our Church meetings, although we do feel that on such occasions they should have in mind that they are in the house of the Lord and should conduct themselves accordingly." (Priesthood Bulletin,June 1971.)

I think what they are hoping will be a big statement will be met with more shrugs than gasps. We're not talking about Susan B. Anthony walking into a voting booth. People have seen pants before, and in a church building. There are already places where women wear pants to church. I've been in wards in the U.S. where there were some members--men and women--who came to church in their blue jeans and no one batted an eye. The reason no one cared was that everyone knew that for these new members, that was really the best they had, and we were just glad to have them there with us. In many ways, this is kind of a non-issue that these women are turning into an issue.

So my reason for declining to "attend" the "event" has less to do with its extremity and more to do with my personal worship.

A few issues arise here. A while back I read an article (don't have the link, sorry) about teaching modesty. It had some interesting points about talking about this with children, Young Women, etc. It had a lot of points I liked. One area I didn't fully agree with, though, was it's discussion about how we shouldn't be dressing for others, just dressing for ourselves. I see what they were getting at, but I don't think they were entirely right. We often dress for others, and need to. Policemen aren't wearing those uniforms just for kicks. It's for our benefit, so we know who they are. Part of why we dress the way we do is to identify who we are. When I taught, I usually didn't wear a t-shirt and jeans because I would look too much like I was just one of the students. I dressed up a bit to set myself apart, give myself a little authority with them. Soldiers in uniform have distinct markings to indicate their ranks to one another. Teenagers have all kinds of ways of doing this in high school. Gangs do this. Everyone does this. We dress for other people.

So, my question is, when we go to church, who are we dressing for? At different times in my life I probably would have answered this in different ways. Hopefully I'm to the point that I can honestly answer that I am dressing for God. That my purpose for church attendance is worship, and so I want to dress in my "Sunday best" out of respect and worship for my Father in Heaven. It's why I don't wear the same shoes to the temple that I wear to do yard work. Respect and worship. For me, Sunday best is a dress or skirt and nice blouse or sweater. I don't think I have any pants that would be as nice as any dresses I own, so it would not be respectful for me to wear them. They might be fine to wear standing up in front of an English 293 class at BYU,  but I wouldn't feel worshipful in them. The same goes for some skirts I own, which I have determined are a bit too casual for church. Maybe someone else has a killer pantsuit that is nicer than any dress they own and wants to wear that. More power to them. If that is really why these women are wearing pants to church, if that is Who they are dressing for, then who am I to judge?

Some of you might think this is all just steeped in tradition for me, and if I just broke out of the tradition I'd be fine wearing pants. Perhaps it is just tradition for me. If we uphold traditions without meaning, we become Pharisees, worshiping the tradition above the Lord. But I think I've explained pretty thoroughly that this tradition does still hold meaning for me. It's a tradition that points me toward worshiping, not toward itself. Clearly, this tradition has lost meaning for some women and they want to reevaluate.

Many might respond and say this movement is about more than just pants. I get that. I get that a lot of women really are struggling to find their place in the Church; they legitimately do feel pain and are feeling displaced, and I don't in any way mean to minimize that. I haven't had these struggles with finding my place in the Church. I haven't felt repressed or lesser in my position in the Church. And I haven't felt the need to make Sacrament meeting my place of protest. Again, I don't reject the idea that some women genuinely struggle with issues of equality and want to feel more at home in the Church and are not just trying to be troublemakers (some might just trying to be troublemakers, but not all). And I don't deny that women's voices need to be heard in the Church. I hope we can find this space and listen to each other in a productive dialogue, rather than divisive stances of "us" vs. "them." As long as we see each other as "those guys" who just don't "get it," I don't think we'll have an easy time being united in one heart or one mind and just keep having contentious comments circulating on Facebook.

On a lighter note, this whole situation totally reminds me of a great joke:

Knock-knock:
Who's there?
Panther.
Panther, who?
Panther on panth, I'm going thwiming!