Schultheis 1
Nicholas Schultheis
Mark Hlavacik
CAS 137H
28 October 2013
Tighter Pants, Looser Restrictions
Skirts shorten, shirts tighten, and pants becomes non-existent. This is the nature of
women’s clothing. One need look no further than the current popularity of yoga pants. While
few seemingly have problems with them, I have even heard it be said that yoga pants can’t even
be considered “pants”. They represent a trend towards the more-revealing and lessconcealing. Some exclaim this trend as immoral or unethical, casting down insults like “slut” or
“skank”. But what if I told you this knee-jerk response is the incorrect one? What if I told you
that when women willingly show their skin, they are actually demonstrating what it means to be
equal?
Very recently, the clothing known as “yoga pants” have become very popular. Despite
their popularity, or maybe because of it, many policies and rules have been put into place
regarding their use. In particular, middle and high schools across the nation have banned or
considered banning yoga pants, claiming that they are too revealing and act as a distraction to the
male students. Across America, from California (Bindley) to Minnesota (Rupar) and on to
Pennsylvania (Pa.), yoga pants have been barred from being worn on school premises. What is
surprising is that this reaction is occurring now, as opposed to decades ago, when tights first
came about. While the yoga pants seem to some to be pushing the bounds of propriety, they are
part of a much larger trend.
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They actually reflects a gradual change in women’s clothing throughout time. This
change also mirrors advancements in women’s rights and their recognition as “equal” to men.
When I speak of “equality”, I mean to say that the society and culture of the women view the
women as having the same societal worth as men. Because of how clothes represent the person
and the person represents the clothes, with increased power and worth we are likely to see
decreased coverage and physical cloth.
Before we go much farther, it is important to comprehend and appreciate the two
opposing forces that act on how provocative a woman can be in a given situation. By
“provocative”, I mean that it “defies contextual norms of modesty” (7 Yale J.L). These two
opposing forces are the “modesty imperative” and the “objectivity imperative”. The two
imperatives form opposite societal commands wherein either one may prevail depending on the
situation. Society demands that a woman covers herself up and follow rules of propriety, and
this forms the basis of the “modesty imperative”. However, the patriarchal society also demands
that a woman “be reduced to sex in her mind and in the minds of others” (7 Yale J.L). When
objectified, a woman can only exist as a representation of sex, and exposing herself too greatly
would cause this to occur and fulfill the “objectivity imperative” (7 Yale J.L).
Bear in mind, though, that these imperatives play and interact with the subconscious
signals about clothing that we see. “[D]ress is perceived both as a description of the wearer and
as the wearer’s means of communicating her persona to the viewer” (7 Yale J.L). People
describe themselves through the clothing they choose, but the clothing may also say something
about the wearer without the person’s recognition of that possibility. In addition to this, there is
also a relatively feminist view that believes the clothing of the woman places the woman herself
into her “proper” place within the patriarchy. An outsider looking into a society may see how
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the woman’s body is treated based on the clothes she wears. The third and final signal given by
clothing is given to the female wearer herself. The clothing is “both self-expressive and
oppressive” (7 Yale J.L), and the wearer gains or loses emotions and feelings based off of what
they choose to wear (7 Yale J.L).
While the imperatives and the viewpoints help us interpret what a person says when they
clothe themselves, it is also important to consider the basic reasons why humans wear clothing in
the first place. Through the clothing they choose, “men and women address themselves not only
to each other, but to themselves and to their world” (Greek). Clothing acts as a higher form of
communication that works to separate humanity from animals and the wild. While a commonlyheld belief is that clothing works and was designed as “protection”, this is most likely not true.
Better forms of protection are seen in shelters around the person, not in clothing on the person.
Experts on the matter, though, tend to agree that clothing was developed to express a sort of
“superiority” that the wearer possessed. It raised them above those with less or lesser clothing,
including even the supernatural and the animals. It exaggerated and displayed one’s power
(Greek).
However, there still exists a societal backlash to this. Society demands that we hide our
shame. As such, those who exaggerate and gloat through their clothing past what is their due
risk facing condemnation. Women in particular face a “moral condemnation”, as their clothing
makes them “more sexually attractive” (Greek). As a woman’s clothing is observed in the
context of sexuality (and therefore morality), when she violates the rules of clothing, she faces
the decrying and debasement of her morality.
It is through these perceptions and these relationships that the connections between rights
and clothing can be seen. Throughout history, restricted rights have mirrored restricted clothing.
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Whenever a society has directly limited how a woman can act, there has been a close relationship
with what they have worn. It is within this manner, though, that changing societies also bring
with them changing attire.
In Ancient Greece this dichotomy surely exists. Women were banned from dictating
governmental procedures and even voting in Ancient Greece, while at the same time they had
special rules for what they could wear in certain situations. When attending a temple, the women
encountered prohibitions against such things as “wear[ing] a brightly-colored robe” (Greek). For
people in mourning, the females were forced to wear gray robes while men had the option of also
wearing white if they preferred. Furthermore, certain improprieties called for ten-year curses to
be placed upon people. Men could have the curse removed at any time, but women had to go
through all ten years with the curse and being unable to sacrifice anything to the gods (Greek).
An important turning point in women’s attire and women’s rights occurred in the forty
years surrounding the turn of the 20th Century. In the late 1880’s, clothing styles became
“considerably more practical and more varied” (Clothing) than what they had been before.
Corsets were discarded and skirts shorter than had previously been accepted became normal,
while early, casual trousers became acceptable as well. One driving force for this was “the
increased number of women in the white-collar workforce” (Clothing). This relative freedom of
clothing-choice was part-and-parcel to the increased “social roles available to American women”
(Clothing).
Some important demonstrations of what woman could do occurred in this very same time
period. As mentioned before, jobs and careers opened up for women because of the Industrial
Revolution going on at this this time. Because women began to work the same jobs as men, they
were also begun to be seen as equal in value to the men themselves. This increase in perceived
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value was also followed demonstrably by an increase in social involvement and changes in
policy (Clothing).
It was in the year 1920 when women finally gained the right to vote, and this occurred
only decades after the women’s suffrage movement sprung forth from the abolitionist movement
(49 Vand.). Not only was 1920 the year in which women could first vote on a national level, but
it was also the year in which Prohibition was enacted. Women “played an extremely important
role” (Women) in the creation and overturning of the eighteenth amendment. Women originally
supported the prohibition of alcohol due to the belief that banning it would protect their children.
However, counter-prohibitionists formed once they realized it was in fact easier for children to
get alcohol with the ban in place. Saloons were not willing to sell alcohol to minors before
prohibition, but once all alcohol became illegal, they feared no consequences for doing so.
Furthermore, the mothers became worried that the children would grow up with no respect for
the law. If a child were to see their parents disobey prohibition, as was likely at the time, they
themselves would likely grow up ignoring rules where it suited them. Pauline Sabin was one
such oppose to Prohibition, and “[n]ational prohibition, in sum, seemed to Pauline Sabin to be
undermining American youth, the orderly, law-observing habits of society, and the principles of
personal liberty and decentralized government” (Women).
An important aspect of this conflict to consider is the fact that women organized groups
supporting prohibition and other groups opposing it. The Women’s Christian Temperance Union
(WCTU) was one such supporting prohibition, while the Women’s Organization for National
Prohibition Reform (WONPR), formed in 1929, was obviously opposed to the continuation of
Prohibition (Women). It is no coincidence that these wide-scale female conglomerations,
women’s suffrage, and a shift in women’s clothing all coincided and existed at relatively the
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same time. Each probably had a compounding effect on each other. Once women’s roles in the
market place change along with their clothes, both act as equalizers in the mind of society. This
not only raises men’s opinion of women, but it also raises women’s opinion of themselves. In
doing so, they create a wish to exert a greater influence over the men, pushing for things such as
Prohibition and Women’s Suffrage. In order to accomplish this, they form political and activist
groups, which increase their political power to an even greater extent. The end result of this
demonstrates not only that economic and political growth are tightly linked but that growth of a
people can be reflected in the clothes they choose to wear.
So what does the current trend of revealing and tight clothing reveal about females in this
current age? It certainly seems to bend knee to the “objectivity imperative”, but in actuality, it
does not. Due to the widespread acceptance and proliferation of these clothes, they have
redefined how we think about the clothes themselves. “[I]f women as a group would deviate
from the norm toward more provocative dress, their action would simply create another norm.
That style of dress would no longer be provocative in that setting, because provocative dress
exists, by definition only at the margin of acceptability” (7 Yale J.L). By subconsciously uniting
and choosing to change what we see as “normal”, women have changed what clothing we look
down upon and what clothes we do not.
Willingly choosing to test the “objectifying imperative” demonstrates the free will and
humanity of women. On an individual scale, we may morally condemn the scantily clad woman,
but on the scale of a population, a society can accept the new standard. Due to the
expressiveness and oppressiveness that comes with every article of clothing, provocative dress
can limit oppressiveness and “may entail an element of rebellion” (7 Yale J.L). While it may not
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be popular with everyone, dressing with less attire allows women to forge their own path and
grants them an increased portion of freedom.
It is important to not here that, while small, this can have widespread effects. Even if we
disagree with the choice of what a woman wears, by simply acknowledging that she has a choice
in the first place we recognize that the woman inherently has freedom. If all women were to
dress modestly all the time, the issue of what they can and cannot wear would never even enter
into the minds of men and society. This could not help but be a detriment to the perceived role
of the female in our society, as being ignored means nothing about it could advance.
Clothing not only affects outsiders, mind, but also the wearers of the clothing themselves.
By actively affecting the observers’ state of mind, the female will become affected as well. They
become more confident in their own capacity as a person, and in doing so, make it more likely
that they establish themselves as a person in other ways. Yoga pants are not inherently sexual;
they can in fact be expressive. As seen during the early 20th Century, a domino effect of political
power and self-esteem can be induced. While more revealing clothing definitely does not
constitute the entire basis of such an endeavor, and it can too easily lead to objectification, it can
be a start.
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Works Cited
Bindley, Katherine. "Leggings Banned As Pants: Backlash Over Girls' Dress Code At
Kenilworth Junior High." The Huffington Post. TheHuffingtonPost.com, 09 Apr. 2013.
Web. 18 Nov. 2013.
Clothing and Gender in America: Children's Fashions, 1890-1920. Jo B. Paoletti. Signs , Vol.
13, No. 1, Women and the Political Process in the United States (Autumn, 1987), pp.
136-143
Greek Clothing Regulations: Sacred and Profane? Harrianne Mills. Zeitschrift für Papyrologie
und Epigraphik , Bd. 55, (1984), pp. 255-265
"Pa. School Warns Students to Cover up Leggings, Yoga Pants." Wpxi.com. Cox Media Group,
2013. Web. 18 Nov. 2013.
Rupar, Aaron. "Minnetonka High School 'bans' Yoga Pants: Top 10 Tweets." The Blotter. City
Pages, 2013. Web. 18 Nov. 2013.
Women Against Prohibition. David E. Kyvig. American Quarterly , Vol. 28, No. 4 (Autumn,
1976), pp. 465-482
7 Yale J.L. & Feminism 87 (1995)
Undressing the Victim: The Intersection of Evidentiary and Semiotic Meanings of
Women's Clothing in Rape Trials; Sterling, Alinor C.
49 Vand. L. Rev. 660 (1996)
History of the Women's Suffrage Movement, The ; O'Connor, Sandra Day