Catholic Candle note: The article below is a companion article to our article about Mary-like Neckline Modesty, which can be found here: https://catholiccandle.org/2023/05/21/marylike-neckline-modesty/

Both of these articles apply to girls as well as women and assist them in fulfilling the role and great work for which God created women.  Read more about this role and great work here: https://catholiccandle.org/2019/12/02/the-role-and-work-that-god-gave-to-woman/

 

Women should Wear Dresses and Skirts,
Not Pants

We live in a pagan world (as we see all around us).  Even many Catholic women adopt the evil fashions they see all around them.  Let us inquire whether women should ever wear pants.

But first, let us inquire whether this issue is one that only women need to know about.

Is it Important for Men (as well as Women) to Know the Catholic Standard of Modesty for Women?

Men and women should all care about feminine modesty and know the standards of Catholic modesty.  It is obvious that a woman should understand and live the Catholic standard of modesty so that she can please God, edify her neighbor, be a good example, teach her daughters, and avoid sin.

But there are five reasons why men should know these standards too:

1.    It is important for men and boys to know the standards of female modesty because they have a duty to avert their eyes from women’s and girl’s attire which does not comply with such modesty standards.

 

This is obvious.  The main reason why women and girls have standards of modesty (and must not “wear whatever they want to”) is because there are men and boys who will look at them. 

Women must cover up for the sake of the men.  This is common decency and is a minimum charity that they owe to their (male) neighbors.  Women would be callously disregarding the salvation of men (and themselves) if women dressed without concern for the temptations their attire would cause in men.

This is like the fact that a person must not wildly swing a butcher knife “whenever he wants to” without regard for the risk of injuring those around him.  In fact, immodesty is more dangerous than the butcher knife because immodesty can kill the soul whereas a butcher knife can only kill the body. 

Of course, it is also true that men must dress modestly for the sake of the women too.  This is men’s minimum charity toward their (female) neighbors.  However, there are three reasons that female immodesty is a greater problem:

➢  Women are the more beautiful sex and so are more attractive;

➢  Men are more prone than women are to sins of impurity by looking impurely at the opposite sex, as is evident by the fact that the filthy practice of viewing pornography is a sin which is far more frequently committed by men rather than by women; and

➢  Men and women both are more inclined to weaken on women’s standards of modesty than on men’s modesty.  This is because women have a stronger focus on pleasing men by their (i.e., women’s) appearance, and men have less of a focus on pleasing women by their own (i.e., the men’s) appearance but have a greater tendency to be pleased by women’s appearance (than are women focused on and pleased by men’s appearance).  Here are three signs that this is true:

first, women desire and usually have a far larger wardrobe and wear far more jewelry than men do;

second, women take many other pains to look attractive for men, such as wearing makeup, getting their hair curled or permed, etc., and

third, men’s clothes and shoes are more practical and serviceable.  By contrast, women’s clothes and shoes are much more likely to be less comfortable because they are more designed to please men rather than for comfort.  (For example, women’s shoes are designed to make a woman’s foot look smaller.) 
 

2.    It is important for an unmarried man who is called to the married vocation (and not to the life of consecrated virginity) to have prominently featured in his “blue print” of the future spouse he seeks, that she possess and love this great treasure of the Catholic standard of holy modesty; 

3.    It is important for a man to know the Catholic standard of feminine modesty so that he can give moral support and defend the modesty of good women against scoffers, mockers, and other enemies of Our Lord.  (For example, it is all too often that women who take modesty seriously are made to feel prudish and isolated, especially by other women who have a more liberal dress code.)  Men should be gallant and gentlemanly.  They should defend women, especially good women who are living the standards of modesty and other virtues;

 

4.    It is important for a man to know the Catholic standard of feminine modesty because he will be responsible for guiding his wife and daughters (when God sends him his own family) and will be ultimately responsible for this standard being implemented in his own home and family; and

 

5.    It is important for a man to know the Catholic standard of feminine modesty so he can love this beautiful virtue and admire and appreciate the Mary-like women and girls who practice it.

 

Four Reasons Women Should Not Wear Pants

There are four reasons why it is a sin for women to wear pants:

1.    It is objectively a sin against the revealed Divine Law for a woman to wear pants;

2.    It is objectively a sin of lewdness[1] under the Natural Law for a woman to wear pants, even apart from the issue of pants being more revealing of a woman’s body;

3.    A woman who wears pants objectively commits a sin of feminist usurpation of man’s role and “nature” and denial of her own “nature” and role in God’s plan; and

4.    A woman wearing pants objectively sins because pants are immodest for her due to their revealing too much of her figure.

Below, we consider each of these reasons.

1.     It is Objectively a Sin against the
Revealed Divine Law for Women to Wear Pants.

God has revealed His law that it is evil for a woman to wear a man’s clothes (and also for men to wear women’s clothes).  Here are the words of God’s law:

Let not a woman wear men’s clothes nor a man use women’s clothes.  For they are abominable with the Lord who do such things.

 

Deuteronomy, 22:5.

One article of man’s clothing is pants.  Although at any time in history, one can find deviant persons wearing clothes which are taboo in order to get attention or to shock those around them, nonetheless, it only relatively-recently that the enemies of Christ succeeded to such an extent in their cultural revolution that society more generally was desensitized to women wearing pants so that it became no longer shocking to most people.  This occurred roughly in the revolutionary 1960s, when society also became desensitized to other evils such as to tattoos[2], to cremation[3], to rock and roll “music”, and to wives and mothers being career women[4].  These things are still sins despite most people accepting them.

One history of women wearing pants (published by Time Magazine), noted that the popular fashion magazine, Vogue, did not print a picture of a woman wearing pants until 1939 and that people were shocked by that picture.  Here is that entry in that history:

It wasn’t until 1939 that Vogue pictured its first woman wearing slacks in a spread, at a time when those garments still weren’t widely worn by women and had the power to shock.[5]

Citing a book on women’s clothes and their style during the 1900s, another history called it “radical” that society began to accept women wearing pants.  Here are the words of this history:

“One of the most radical developments for women was the gradual acceptance of trousers, which were no longer considered either eccentric or strictly utilitarian,” write historians Valerie Mendes and Amy de la Haye in their book, 20th Century Fashion.[6]

This history correctly calls this change “radical” because, as a third history remarks, “wearing trousers was considered shocking by many women at the beginning of the 20th century”.[7]

Lastly, a fourth history (of women wearing pants) points specifically to the cultural revolution of the 1960s as the turning point in which women in pants had become common enough that there was no longer much outrage at the practice.  Here is how that history phrases it:

By the time the counter-culture movement of the 1960s had reached its height, a woman in pants wasn’t much to be outraged by, even if in workplaces pants remained the preserve of men for a while longer.[8]

In a 1977 New York Times retrospective on feminism’s effect on women’s “fashion”, the newspaper explains that:

The early 1970s was the period [in which] … women seeking to express their individuality wore pants.[9]

This, of course, is because such women thought themselves to be showing “individuality” because women wearing this men’s garment was still uncommon then.

This 1977 New York Times article continued, pointing particularly to the influence of a fashion corrupter named Calvin Klein, who led this revolution in women’s “fashion”:

Calvin Klein was instantly successful with clothes that were influenced by menswear — pants, tailored coats and jackets. “Ten years ago [i.e., 1967] a woman wore pants as a way of showing daring and security in herself,” he says ….[10]

The reason why it was considered “daring” for a woman to wear pants in the 1960s and early 1970s, is because society considered her to be provocative by wearing men’s clothes.

So, we see that our culture was not degraded enough until roughly the 1960s or 1970s, and only then was society callous enough to no longer be shocked by women wearing these men’s garments.

It is true that a person could wonder whether women wearing pants was accepted in other parts of the world earlier.  It seems that in some places in the world, where a false and corrupt “religion” formed a different and corrupt “culture”, women wearing pants was accepted earlier because the “culture” was worse. 

However, in former Christendom (the Western World), which had been formed by the Catholic Faith, and by true Catholic culture, women wearing pants was not generally accepted earlier.  It was only when (former) Christendom had slid far enough into degradation that people were no longer shocked by women wearing pants.  Again, this was roughly in the 1960s – 1970s.  Only then had Our Lord’s enemies sufficiently prevailed in their cultural revolution.

2.     It is a Sin against the Natural Law for
Women to Wear Pants.

A person could suppose that it might have been permissible for women to wear pants and other men’s clothes (or for men to wear women’s clothes) if God had not forbidden this in the revealed Law in Sacred Scripture.  But that supposition is false because such cross-dressing is forbidden by the Natural Law, too.[11]

This prohibition under the Natural Law is especially because wearing the clothes of the other sex causes lewdness.  Here is how St. Thomas Aquinas, greatest Doctor of the Catholic Church, teaches this truth:

It is in itself sinful for a woman to wear man’s clothes, or vice versa, especially since this can cause lewdness.[12]

Pants are men’s clothes and it is a sin for women to wear pants just as it is a sin for a man to wear a dress because dresses are a woman’s clothes.  This particular reason why it is sinful for women to wear the clothes of the opposite sex does not depend on how much such clothes reveal a woman’s body.  For example, even if she should wear a complete men’s suit with a dress shirt buttoned up to her neck,  nevertheless, it is inherently sinful to do so.

It would also be a sin of cross-dressing for a man to wear a dress even if it were a “very modest” dress, precisely because it is woman’s attire.  The same example (a man wearing a dress) is all-the-more cringe-worthy if the dress is pink calico with lots of lace and frills as well as accompanied by broaches, pearl necklaces, and 4-inch-high spike heels.  But those conditions and accessories are not necessary circumstances for the man to have committed the sin of cross-dressing (although such feminine accessories might increase the sin).

This is because, as St. Thomas explains, such cross-dressing is a cause of lewdness and sensuality.  This lewdness arises because it is lewd for a man to insert his body into women’s clothes (i.e., for him to commingle his body with women’s clothes).  Similarly, it is lewd for a woman to insert her body into a man’s clothes or commingle her body with man’s clothes.

Again, this reason we are discussing now (why it is a sin for men and women to cross-dress) does not pertain to whether a woman’s figure is more revealed in pants (which it is) but pertains to the fact that pants are men’s clothes.  In other words, it is a sin for a woman to wear men’s clothes regardless of whether such clothes would immodestly reveal her body.

This is the second reason it is a sin for women to wear pants.

3. It is a Sin for a Woman to Wear Pants  because it is a Feminist Usurpation of Man’s Role and “Nature” and is also a Denial of Her Own “Nature” and Her Own Role in God’s Plan.

Above, we saw that women wearing pants is a sin against the revealed Divine Law and against the Natural Law.  But besides that, women wearing pants is a declaration promoting feminism.  This is because feminists wear men’s clothes to challenge the natural order that the man is the head of the family.

It is evident to society at large that there is a clear connection between feminism and women wearing pants.  For example, the New York Times published a lengthy article concerning how it first became “normal” in the 1970s for women to wear pants and the Times called its article Feminism’s Effect on Fashion.[13]

Along somewhat the same lines, here is how actress Elizabeth Taylor characterized her feminism:

I’m loud and I’m vulgar, and I wear the pants in the house because somebody’s got to, but I am not a monster.  I’m not.[14]

Look at her interesting word choice.  A monster is something strange, unnatural, and abnormal.  She is saying: “I am loud, unfeminine, and wear pants.  But I don’t want you to think that I am an abnormal woman.”  Elizabeth Taylor is trying to deny the obvious: viz., her being the way she is does make her an unwomanly woman – which is something strange, unnatural, and abnormal.

Here is how a History of Women Wearing Pants connects pants to feminism:    

Nothing says equality [viz., with men] more than a nice [sic] pair of pants.  In the language of clothes, pants equal power.  Pants on a woman disrupt the status quo.  They certainly aren’t “lady-like.”[15]

These words recognize that wearing pants opposes the “nature” that God gave to woman.

We commonly express authority in the home and family (and even in other situations) by saying that a person “wears the pants in the family”.  The expression “wearing the pants” refers to wearing men’s clothes and this is connected to and represents man’s role in the family.  So, for example, one dictionary defines “wear the pants” to mean “to be in charge in or control of a relationship”.[16]

So, when a woman wears pants, it is a declaration by her actions that she claims to be in charge and is “wearing the pants” in the family.  But this is contrary to what God intended a woman to be, i.e.:

Ø  Quiet and meek;[17] and

Ø  Subject to her husband.[18]

It is no wonder that wearing pants changes a woman’s outlook and her relationship with those around her!  She is “wearing the pants” indicating that she is “in charge or in control of a relationship”.  This not only indicates promotion of the evil of feminism, but this has real-life influence on her and those around her.  Here is how Cardinal Siri warned his flock about the evil effects caused by women wearing pants:

Notification about Women Wearing Male Clothing

The wearing of men’s dress by women affects firstly the woman herself, by changing the feminine psychology proper to women; secondly it affects the woman as wife of her husband, by tending to vitiate relationships between the sexes; thirdly it affects the woman as mother of her children by harming her dignity in her children’s eyes.  Each of these points is to be carefully considered in turn:

A.   Male Dress Changes the Psychology of Women.

In truth, the motive impelling women to wear men’s dress is always that of imitating, nay, of competing with, the man who is considered stronger, less tied down, more independent.  This motivation shows clearly that male dress is the visible aid to bringing about a mental attitude of being “like a man”. 

Secondly, ever since men have been men, the clothing a person wears demands, imposes, and modifies that person’s gestures, attitudes, and behavior, such that from merely being worn outside, clothing comes to impose a particular frame of mind inside.

Then let us add that a woman wearing man’s clothes always more or less indicates her reacting to her femininity as though it is an issue of inferiority when in fact it is only diversity.  The perversion of her psychology is clear to be seen.

These reasons, summing up many more, are enough to warn us how wrongly women are made to think by the wearing of men’s dress.

B.   Male Dress Tends to Vitiate Relationships between Women and Men.

In truth, when relationships between the two sexes unfold with the coming of age, an instinct of mutual attraction is predominant.  The essential basis of this attraction is a diversity between the two sexes which is made possible only by their complementing or completing one another.  If then this “diversity” becomes less obvious because one of its major external signs is eliminated and because the normal psychological structure is weakened, what results is the alteration of a fundamental factor in the relationship.

The problem goes further still.  Mutual attraction between the sexes is preceded both naturally, and in order of time, by that sense of shame [shyness] which holds the rising instincts in check, imposes respect upon them, and tends to lift to a higher level of mutual esteem and healthy fear everything that those instincts would push onwards to uncontrolled acts.  To change that clothing which by its diversity reveals and upholds nature’s limits and defense-works, is to flatten out the distinctions and to help pull down the vital defense-works of the sense of shame.

It is at least to hinder that sense.  And when the sense of shame [shyness] is hindered from putting on the brakes, then relationships between men and women sink degradingly down to pure sensuality, devoid of all mutual respect or esteem.

Experience is there to tell us that when woman is de-feminized, then defenses are undermined and weakness increases.

C.   Male Dress Harms the Dignity of the Mother in Her Children’s Eyes.

All children have an instinct for the sense of dignity and decorum of their mother.  Analysis of the first inner crisis of children when they awaken to life around them even before they enter upon adolescence, shows how much the sense of their mother counts.  Children are as sensitive as can be on this point.  Adults have usually left all that behind them and think no more on it.  But we would do well to recall to mind the severe demands that children instinctively make of their own mother, and the deep and even terrible reactions roused in them by observation of their mother’s misbehavior.  Many lines of later life are here traced out – and not for good – in these early inner dramas of infancy and childhood.

The child may not know the definition of exposure, frivolity or infidelity, but he possesses an instinctive sixth sense to recognize them when they occur, to suffer from them, and be bitterly wounded by them in his soul.[19]

4.     A woman wearing pants also sins because pants are immodest for her due to their revealing too much of her figure.

Let’s start this section with a recap to see the connection between rebellion and immodesty:

Recap of the Three Types of Rebellion Present When Women Wear Pants

The devil is the inventor of sin, as St. Thomas Aquinas teaches.[20]  The devil is the first revolutionary and his battle cry is “non serviam!”  We see Satan’s rebellious spirit in his inducing women to wear pants:

➢  He leads their rebellion against God, getting them to wear men’s clothes against the revealed Divine Law.  Deuteronomy, 22:5.

➢  He leads their rebellion against Nature (getting them to wear men’s clothes) against the Natural Law.  Summa, IIa IIae, Q.169, a.2, ad 3.

➢  He leads their rebellion against men’s authority (getting women to wear men’s clothes) as a feminist rebellion against living the role in life that God intends for women.

But rebellion is only one of Satan’s favorite weapons.  Immodesty is the other.

Satan Promotes Immodesty at the Same Time, Using These Rebellions

Considering that Satan chooses women wearing pants as a tool of rebellion, we would expect (even before looking into the issue) that Satan’s tactics would not only foment rebellion but would also promote impurity, since impurity, like disobedience, is one of the most common sins that Satan promotes. 

Satan knows what Our Lady warned at Fatima that “more people go to hell because of sins of the flesh than for any other reason.”[21]  Thus, Satan promotes impurity because he knows impurity is such an effective tool for damning souls.

Upon reflection, we see that our preliminary expectation is correct that Satan’s tool of women wearing pants combines the sin of rebellion with the sin of immodesty because pants are too revealing of a woman’s body.   

Let us now look at this issue of pants being immodest on a woman.

Different Dangers for Men and Women Regarding Impurity

Men and women are different and possess different tendencies towards impurity.  Men are more easily led into sins against purity through their sense of sight.  For this reason, modesty for men chiefly requires custody of their eyes as the guard of purity. 

By contrast, women are more tempted in matters of impurity through vanity by seeking to attract the eyes of men by excessive exposure of their (viz., the women’s) bodies.  Thus, it is in the “nature” of women that they are more interested in being admired by men for their appearance rather than admiring men’s appearance.  That is why also, that men are more interested in the appearance of women than they are interested in women admiring their appearance.

Of course, this does not mean that men should be unconcerned with the modesty of their own dress or that women should be unconcerned with custody of their eyes.  But the stronger, typical tendencies are for men to encounter dangers against purity because of looking at women, and women to encounter dangers against purity by the way they seek to attract men’s eyes by their appearance.  These different tendencies of the two sexes are why men are the usual consumers of pornography and women are the usual subjects of pornography.

Further, God made woman the more beautiful and attractive sex, and He made women’s bodies more sensual.  Thus, the virtue of modesty requires that this greater attractiveness be concealed with womanly attire, which takes Nature into account.  So, women must wear clothes which cover up more.  They must wear loose-fitting dresses and skirts. 

Three Ways Pants are Immodest for Women

Pants reveal too much of a woman’s figure because:

❖  Pants make a woman’s legs more visibly defined.  A dress, compared to pants, fits the lower body in a way similar to how a mitten fits a hand, compared to a glove.  Plainly, a glove reveals more of the hand’s shape. (This importance of a woman concealing her feminine silhouette is also the chief reason why modesty requires her to wear a slip under her dress, viz., to avoid the outline of her legs being visible.)

❖  Pants “allow daylight” (to show between her legs) all of the way up to her private parts.
 

❖  Pants also reveal more of the contours of a woman’s backside than does a dress or skirt.

So, because women are obliged to dress in a manner that conceals the contours of their bodies, rather than reveals them, this is why they must wear dresses and skirts, not pants. 

Answers to Six Objections

There now remains only for us to answer six objections to this key moral principle (viz., that women should wear dresses or skirts, and not pants):

1.    Objection:  A person could object that some (so-called) “modest” pants can be permissible because they conceal more of a woman’s figure than do “some skirts”. 

Response:  This “justification” only shows that there are some skirts which are immodest also and should never be worn.  Further, although a woman should never wear an immodest skirt, nonetheless, such a skirt does not involve her committing the sins of rebellion which occur in wearing men’s clothes.

2.    Objection:  Couldn’t we say that our modern society has now accepted women wearing pants so that pants have become women’s clothes (as well as men’s clothes)? 

Response:  No.  As we already saw above, pants were not generally accepted by society as “women’s clothes” until relatively recently, when society got sufficiently corrupt so as to accept women wearing pants.  This was in the same period in which society began to accept various other evils (e.g., tattoos[22], cremation[23], rock and roll “music”, and wives and mothers being career women[24]), all of which showed and promoted the degenerateness of society. 

But what is accepted by a corrupt society is not the proper measure by which we should make the determination what is acceptable.  Here is one way that Pope Pius XII teaches this truth:

[A] garment must not be evaluated according to the estimation of a decadent or already-corrupt society, but according to the aspirations of a society which prizes the dignity and seriousness of its public attire.[25]

3.    Objection:  A person could say that women wearing pants is “no big deal” and that “I’m used to it”. 

Response:  Such excuse merely shows that the person has become used to sin and has suffered some moral taint.  Here is one way that Pope Pius XII warned against this attitude:

The most insidious of sophisms, which are usually repeated to justify immodesty, seems to be the same everywhere.  One of these resurrects the ancient saying “let there be no argument about things we are accustomed to”, in order to brand as old fashioned the rebellion of honest people against fashions which are too bold ….[26]

4.    Objection:  Suppose a woman has duties which “require” her to perform activities for which a dress is immodest because the wind blows her dress upwards, or she is on a ladder cleaning, or because of the way she “must” move her limbs during such activity.

Response:  It might be that some activities would require a dress that is longer or of heavier fabric than modesty requires for other activities.  But there are no activities which a woman should perform which cannot be done under appropriate conditions and wearing modest and womanly clothes.  Furthermore, all activities suited for women have been performed in earlier generations, by good women in dresses or skirts.

5.    Objection:  “But where I live it gets so cold in the winter!  So. I ‘need’ to wear pants to stay warm.”

Response:  Cold weather is not a new phenomenon and winter is not a new invention.  Throughout the history of mankind, women have dressed modestly, in womanly clothes, and stayed warm.  But, of course, warm, womanly undergarments will help accomplish this, as well as long winter coats and dresses made of thick fabrics suitable for the season.

6.   Objection: There can’t be anything wrong with a woman wearing pants when she is alone, when no one will see her.

 

Response: 1) Notice that God’s Commandment in Deuteronomy does not forbid cross-dressing only when the person will be seen.  Cross-dressing is forbidden all times.  2) Further, it is a sin of lewdness under the Natural Law to cross-dress even in private.  Perhaps this is easiest to see in the case of a man who, in private only, dresses in a pink calico dress (as in the example given above).  3) Wearing pants changes a woman’s outlook even if she were to wear them only in private, since she is still wearing the “feminist uniform” and still showing (though in private) that she “wears the pants in the family”.  We are creatures of habit and this practice would have a deleterious effect on the woman.  4) It is generally unwholesome for a person to walk around nude without a good reason to do so such as showering, even if no one sees him/her.  Likewise, (although to a lesser degree than nudity), it is unwholesome and sensual for a person to dress indecently even when alone if there is no good reason to do this.

Three Additional Consequences of this Standard of Womanly Modesty

Please note the following consequences that flow directly from the above Catholic requirement of Mary-like modesty that women should never wear pants:

1.    Just as women and girls should not wear pants, this same standard also applies to photographs, paintings, and statues, whether the woman or girl who is depicted is known or unknown.  It would obviously be illogical for a woman to carefully dress modestly herself but also to promote or display scandalous art on her wall (or scandalous pictures of her relatives hung with magnets on her refrigerator, etc.).  For the very same reason that she is forbidden to dress this way, a Catholic is forbidden to promote or display such immodest images.

 

2.    Parents, especially mothers, have a duty to guide their daughters not only to comply with the Catholic standard of modesty but also to love this beautiful virtue.

 

3.    If we somehow come into possession of pants that are meant to be worn by women or girls, we should not give them away or donate them, because then we would become an accomplice or accessory to someone else’s sin of wearing these pants.

Conclusion

From the above considerations, it is clear that women should not wear pants because the virtue of womanly modesty forbids this and also because it is a revolt against God in three ways.

We live in pagan times.  Just as a living organism only stays alive (i.e., remains a living plant or animal), if it resists the corrupting influences (e.g., of bacteria) which are all around it, likewise we must protect the life of our souls (which live the life of grace) by resisting the moral corruption of sin all around us.

Let us beware of rationalizing immodesty by saying that the standard of Mary-like modesty is too old-fashioned and that we live in modern times where the requirements of modesty are weaker.

It is Catholic Common Sense that we should not adopt the dress or other practices of the anti-Christ revolution (including women wearing pants) no matter how many other people do so in our corrupt times.  So, however much the cultural revolution has accepted “unisex” clothes and women dressing in men’s clothes such as pants, nonetheless, when women wear pants “they are abominable with the Lord”.  Deuteronomy, 22:5.

Let us live our Catholic Faith!  We need to restore all things in Christ!  One important aspect of this is for women to dress like women and to not be an abomination to the Lord.

Catholic feminine modesty is a beautiful ornament of a good woman or girl.  All of us – men and women – should love and appreciate this virtue!