They get it right, finally!

"Once upon a time, men wore the pants, and wore them well. Women rarely had to open doors and little old ladies never crossed the street alone. Men took charge because that’s what they did. But somewhere along the way, the world decided it no longer needed men. Disco by disco, latte by foamy non-fat latte, men were stripped of their khakis and left stranded on the road between boyhood and androgyny. But today, there are questions our genderless society has no answers for. The world sits idly by as cities crumble, children misbehave and those little old ladies remain on one side of the street. For the first time since bad guys, we need heroes. We need grown-ups. We need men to put down the plastic fork, step away from the salad bar and untie the world from the tracks of complacency. It’s time to get your hands dirty. It’s time to answer the call of manhood. It’s time to WEAR THE PANTS."

You've probably already seen this ad.  I'm usually the last to know.  This is interesting advertising, isn't it?  Surely calculated, definitely daring and culturally relevant or just clever?

This post is not about whether the ad really means what it says. I don't think so.  This culture has lost the male/female distinctions and roles a long time ago.  No one wants it back. 

I want it back.  That is why I wear skirts and dresses.  That is why my girls do, too.  All the time.  Not just to church but even in work and play.  Do we have to?  Of course not.  After all, the Bible doesn't even mention the word pants.  Why that is an argument is just too silly to even bother with.  What the Bible does teach are principles that are relevant to every culture and to every age.  The Bible says that God created male and He created female.  He created man first and then woman to help the man.  That's God's design and His order.  There is a distinct role that man is to play and woman is not to play man's role.  The headship of man is not only limited to the husband and wife relationship.  Sarah Palin should not have run for vice president.  As good of a vice president or even president she may have been, she isn't designed by God to take on that role.

So, what does wearing dresses have to do with anything?  If for nothing else, it reminds me that I am a woman.  A man, in our culture, may not wear dresses.  Well, I guess it's starting to be that he could and we're to be tolerant of that.  I think we haven't gotten to the point where it's normal for a man to wear dresses.  A dress is not as convenient or practical as wearing pants or shorts.  But that can be helpful in reminding me of my role as well.  Surely, I can do practically anything my husband does.  But I am better suited to being with my children.  I can serve in the kitchen.  When I purposely choose to limit my wardrobe to dresses and skirts, I am making a statement that this attire is exactly how I like to look.  I want to be feminine.  I want to be soft.  I want to be different from my husband.  Sometimes different is good.  It brings out the distinctions better.

Could a woman appear less modest in a dress than in a pair of pants?  Yes, some women choose to reveal their bodies in a sensual way by wearing dresses.  I think wearing modest dresses and skirts that don't draw attention to particular areas of a woman's body gives a picture of femininity that wearing modest pants don't.  The main problem with wearing pants, though, is that they really aren't modest.  How many women do you see wearing baggy pants?  Pants are usually worn form-fitting on a woman.  Jeans could be the most popular kind of pants for both men and women to wear.  I made a point to look at women wearing jeans recently.  From behind, I could see her bottom accentuated and her hips moving quite plainly.  From the front, it's no better.  It's easy to see where her crotch area is.  "Pants accentuate your body," a fashion expert said but really one doesn't need to be told that.  It's evident just by looking.  Another thing I've noticed is the way a woman sits is different if she's wearing pants.  Younger women will sometimes sit with her legs quite far apart.  Straddling a chair.  Pants allow her to do that.  Sit like men.

It's only been 2 generations since women starting wearing pants.  Leaving the home to work prompted women to adopt the attire of professional workers.  There was no going back.  Most women have more pants than they do dresses or skirts.  Many young girls I know do not have any dresses.  Women who wear modest dresses these days are either at a function, at church or Amish.  My girls and I attract attention just by the fact that we wear skirts or dresses.  People actually ask me about it.  It's good to be different in a godly way.  It's my desire that this world can easily tell that there's something different with our family.  That may give us the chance to share our faith.  Even if I don't get that chance, I'm letting my family know that we're serious about our God-given roles.  If we're accused of being legalistic, so be it.  Better more modest and old-fashioned than open the door to the world's ways and fashions.  Why did women not wear pants before?  Was it because they didn't know better?  Because they had no real freedom to be like men?  I think in the past, society expected men and women to be different.  There were probably not too many stay at home dads and women who went off to the battlefields.  Reading Little House on the Prairie made me think how so many things are totally opposite now.  Laura recalls that she couldn't wait to wear the long dresses that went down to her ankles rather than the shorter dresses because that meant she was growing up.  Women were to be protected and men were supposed to be gentler around them.  Clothing really does reflect a lot about a culture.  When the communists took over China, all the old ways were despised and men and women were all mandated to wear blue uniforms.  The Chinese men and women looked so ... without individuality.  Men and women really didn't appear to be very different.  I think that's how women wearing pants are starting to appear in our culture, too.  Women are now just like men.  Like the Virginia Slims ads said, You've come a long way, baby. 

Women have the liberty to wear pants.  They can try for equality in any area of their lives.  For me, there is liberty in knowing that I've left the pants-wearing part of my life behind.  I used to think that I could do whatever I wanted to.  Now I don't even want to.  Whenever I feel that I need to remind myself to be submissive to my husband and not usurp my role as wife and helpmeet, I think of a young lady from a church we used to go to.  She wore the pants in her house, literally and figuratively.  A scene I remember is a gathering we were at and this young lady ordered her husband to change the baby's diaper.  He humbly submitted even though she wasn't doing anything that should've prevented her from taking care of the baby.  I remember thinking that surely that is not a picture of the Bible.  

My body was made for my husband alone to enjoy.  I feel more clothed and less sensual wearing skirts and dresses.  That may be reason enough for me not to wear pants.

Is this ad going over well with the feminists?  Of course not.   How typical.