Day 26: Wearing Pants

My thoughts today are very far from walking, but I hope my thoughts are very much a part of my journey.

Yesterday (Sunday, Dec. 16^th), a number of woman wore pants to church.

The sentence seems a little odd, doesn’t it? There are a large number of churches /denominations where women wear pants to church on a regular (if not permanent) basis. Pants can be modest and quite elegant. Pants are also very much an acceptable form of clothing and have been for all of my life.

In The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints a woman wearing pants on Sunday to Sacrament meeting is…well, almost never heard of. Is it wrong? No. Is it against our religion? No. Will the act of wearing pants get a woman sent home or excommunicated? No. It will; however, possibly, maybe, get a woman a lot of questions, comments and looks. But then again, no one may even notice.

The whole issue yesterday was not if a woman can or should wear pants to church. The issue was equality.

This is an issue I honestly do not understand. I, as a woman, have never felt unequal to anyone at church. I have felt inadequate, but not unequal.

Let me explain. Sometime in my teens I became acutely aware that I did not dress as other girls my age. The majority of young women I attended church with wore the most fashionable clothes, had a large assortment of stylish shoes & handbags and wore perfectly coifed hair & make up. I did not. Partly my family did not have the money and partly because I was not interested. (I must note that when we lived on Saipan I did not feel this way, but Saipan is a completely different culture to the United States.)

This inadequacy continued into college where I felt the difference even more acutely; especially when everyone else had someone to go on dates with and I did not (never mind that the majority of people knew I had a boyfriend “back home”).

I had always perceived myself as a girly-girl – very feminine, yet during college I started to wonder if perhaps I was really not feminine (my husband laughs at this).

Attending church was hard. Heck, going to work and school was hard too! I had low self-esteem. I had a shallow vision of myself and I looked to the world to better myself. It did not work. No matter how hard I tried to be current & stylish, wear makeup and nail polish…I felt like a phony. I felt inadequate. I felt I was still invisible.

During my second year of marriage, I announced to Steve I was done wearing makeup. He shrugged and said he didn’t understand why I wore it in the first place. I slowly started buying and wearing clothes that I felt flattered my figure instead of what were “current” styles. I slowly asserted myself to others – speaking my mind, answering questions, volunteering, and etc.

Slowly I stopped feeling completely inadequate and completely invisible.

After the birth of my children, I again felt inadequate and invisible. Other women seemed to do so much more than me after they had children. I wondered if I was doing something wrong. Now, I understand that my post-partum depression played a big part in those feelings.

Despite studying the scriptures, saying my prayers and attending church regularly, after we moved to Arizona I was sad all the time – I would cry at the drop of a hat. A wonderful Bishop suggested that I study a General Conference talk (subject matter was up to me). I chose a great talk by Elder Nelson M. Maxwell, which you can read here.

I studied this talk for 6 months. If he made a reference to a scripture or another source, I studied it. If there were footnotes and cross references to those scriptures and sources, I studied it. If there was a word I didn’t understand, I studied it until I understood it. Those 6 months were the highlight of my life. I felt that I had found true beauty (I use to call it my beauty routine). I felt that I mattered. I felt visible and equal. I felt loved.

Once again, I find myself struggling with feelings of inadequacy…but that is because I have forgotten the lessons from long ago. It wasn’t the article or talk or scriptures that made the difference it was how much time I spent with the Lord – being connected to His spirit and grace. How much I was inviting the spirit into my life made all the difference in the world.

Yesterday, when I saw a friend wearing pants, I was surprised – she seems so much more put together than I do. She was kind enough to share her story with me. I had feelings of inadequacy from within, she had others suggesting verbally that women in general were somehow inadequate. Yet, we both found the comfort and answers we needed from the Lord.

I am still not sure I completely understand or agree with the “wear pants to church on Sunday” as a movement to bring equality to church. I think wearing pants to church is like wearing a dress to church – you wear what you feel is modest, appropriate, respectful to the Lord and invites the spirit into your heart.

I do think if others (women and men) feel there is inequality within the LDS religion that an open dialogue needs to take place – along with a lot of personal soul searching. I can’t change how others feel, but I can change how I feel.

I may not have felt inadequate or invisible by what others have said & done, but I do understand the desire to be seen, heard, recognized and counted.

Here are some links that helped me to understand this movement:

 

Joanna Brooks - I have read a number of articles written by Brooks on this subject, but this is my favorite by far. There are several links at the end of this article which are worth viewing as well. My favorite two are here and here.

Women in the Scriptures - an awesome blog, but this post is what got me started on this whole thought journey of wearing pants to church!