What to Wear: Why Mormon Feminism is Barking up the Wrong Red Herring

Have you seen this?

Good. Your mind is a little broadened to the variety that is feminism.

I'm a feminist too! And these are just some of my ideas about feminism and clothing.

Let me tell you EXACTLY why I will not be bifurcating my outer clothing at church this Sunday. And why I'd love it if some people did.

They're right: we, as a culture, don't accept diversity very well, despite God's frantic admonitions. Our bad. So if you see a woman wearing pants to church, revel in it. Her courage, or diversity, or whatever she is being/expressing, is awesome, even if she's just expressing that she didn't get all her laundry done that week. We've all been there. I wore flip-flops a couple of times because I had forgotten to travel with shoes. Nobody cared. Okay, one little girl asked, but her mother defended me.

If you want to worship somewhere with a dress code, there's always the Temple, where diversity is very much beside the point, and where we embrace the things that make every person equal - our status as children of God, and our will to return to Him someday. The Temple is a place to discard worldly differences like income, fashion, age, and background (class, ethnicity, nationality, language, etc).

Church could be as Celestial, in my opinion, but for now, we attend our weekly services still steeped in the nonverbal and verbal rhetoric of our earthly existence. And that includes our clothes.

One of the things that this controversy really awakens, is an awareness that our clothing doesn't communicate clearly. Feminists interpret skirts to mean subjugation, or conformity. The responses seem to indicate that others interpret skirts to mean girl power, or just girliness. Neither of these interpretations is an ideal message to be sending. Neither do I think they're precisely true.

The tacit female "dress code" is actually a LOT more loose than the male dress-code. Men are expected to wear dark suits, ties, and white shirts, especially if they are administering ordinances. Some of them kick the code, but nobody grouses too much. I've seen (and encouraged) men attending in jeans and work shirts. I've known them to attend the temple that way, when it was necessary. How you look walking in doesn't matter as much as people might think.

That the men's dress code is MUCH more specific than simply "skirts or dresses," still leaves the code different for men and women. Nobody mentions colors, cuts, lines, fabrics, accessories (can you IMAGINE!?), or anything but modesty* to women of the church, for one very good reason. The rhetoric of our clothing, while communicating complex and often confusing messages to our friends in and out of the church, is meant for someone else entirely.

I wear clothes that speak to me, and to God. I control that message as best I can, and what I want to say to God is that I love Him, and respect Him, and the building, and the people I will meet there. I wear skirts because in our society, skirts differentiate my worship clothes from my workday clothes. I wear jeans and T-shirts to school. I wear sweaters and slacks to work. At church, I will wear skirts to show reverence, because that is how my culture dresses "up." If my culture dressed "up" by the reverse standard, wearing skirts every day, and wearing slacks only for ceremonious occasions (medieval Scotland?), I'd switch without a thought, regardless of the gender rhetoric. Our culture has different standards of "up" for men and women, and we hold our services in the vernacular.**

Wearing dresses tells me that I love me, too. They remind me that Sundays are different, and that church is a place of grace and healing. The message I send myself is one of humility and confidence, yes, but humility before the Lord, not men, and confidence that God loves me.

I have been known to wear odd things to Sunday services. Last week, I wore black leather boots, and a tie. And an ankle-length purple skirt. The boots were for walking in the snow, and I wear ties because I feel more formal in them. I wore the skirt because skirts are formal, and the sacrament is a formal occasion. But if my closet burned, I would go to church wrapped in a blanket, because church is more important than clothes. And a blanket still isn't bifurcated.***

* a related, but separate issue

** until Fast and Testimony meeting, when it's all in Mormonese.

*** that was a joke