Whether you are Mormon or not, it’s a pretty interesting phenomenon that we are pretty much the only church that wears skirts/dresses to church exclusively, but wears pants the rest of the time (Orthodox Jews, Fundamentalist Christians, Amish: the women wear dresses all the time. If you aren’t one of these than you can wear pants, skirts or even–gasp–shorts to church).
Why is this? And will it ever change? It’s not in the doctrine. It’s not really even spoken about. It just is.
I’m over at Segullah talking about that today. I’d love to hear your opinions. If Segullah scares you, you can leave a comment here.
I’ve started wearing skirts full time, for the past 2 months, and I like it so much better. No more hitching my pants up, no more scruffy looking jeans, and skirts are much easier to make on my own than jeans; I have a much bigger wardrobe now! 🙂
Plus there’s the added bonus of staying cool in the summer. Do you find that you are more concerned with how your legs look (shaved? tan?) or are you more like “meh, who cares?”
Definitely don’t care! I decided not to care about shaving my legs when I noticed how many friends and acquaintances don’t, either…. who cares!
I never notice when women haven’t shaved their legs. So I’m hoping the same applies to people looking at my legs!
I was raised Protestant (Assembly of God, to be exact) and folks always wore their finest on Sunday. Women in dresses, skirts, and skirt suits and men in dress slacks and button down shirts, if not full suits. I converted to Catholicism in college and remember being scandalized that some people wore shorts and t-shirts (even beer advertisements) to church. I generally still wear skirts and dresses to church, I dress my daugther in the same, and my husband wears dress slacks and button downs. I don’t have a problem with those that choose to wear shorts, but I feel for me personally, I like to dress up when I come into God’s house.
That’s it exactly! I mean, we wear skirts as our finest. I think if the finest thing I had available was my jeans, I would be acceptable to God in that, because he would know it was my finest. But even if I wasn’t traditionally a skirt girl, in our particular society, finest for women, your “dress up” stuff, usually involves a skirt. and I’m Southern, but don’t get me started on folks wearing flip flops to church. It might have sequins on it, but it’s still a flip flop…. (but there’s no doctrine about that, lol.). In and of itself, though, I do have gentlemen friends who attend in their lavalavas, which is fine, too, and a Scottish friend who periodically wears his kilt. Finest is between yourself and Him, but for ladies, especially traditional ones, skirts are it. But, nobody is going to shun anybody else if they come in jeans or whatever. Eventually, folks catch on and start wearing skirts, hopefully from respect and not from feeling like they have to conform or anything? (BTW, yeah, I’m LDS. And from Segullah…)
First let me start by saying that I found your blog on 7/3 by asking Google if I could paint regular nail polish over my gel nail polish. I got this horrendous glowing pink manicure and wanted to paint over it with red- a) because I HATED the pink and b) because red was way more patriotic for the 4th. Anyhoo, I read your post on the ‘gellish’ nails and then kept reading more and more posts, until earlier today when I realized that I read every post on your blog! You have really great and interesting posts! 🙂 I for sure want to bake those cinnamon rolls and I have a list of new make up to try out now. Anyway, as far as wearing skirts/dresses to church, I think that women should dress up as nicely as they can for church service. With that said, I was born and raised in Utah as a member of the LDS church and I know that wearing your ‘Sunday best’ aka skirts for us women is expected as it shows respect, reverence, all of that. However as an adult, I moved to Florida, years later left the church (although they’ll be no church bashing from me, I greatly respect the Mormon church as all of my family are members) and joined a non denominational Christian church where we can wear whatever we like. I still continue to dress nicely since that is what I’m used to, however not everyone does and there is still reverence and respect for the Lord in our worship service as well as a strong spirit. My thoughts… God doesn’t care about the clothes on your body, instead He cares about the heart. If you go to church service with a pure heart and an open mind to receive his message & his blessings then he doesn’t care if you’re wearing slacks 🙂 From my experience, I’ve encountered some of the most beautiful skirts that have clothed some of the ugliest (on the inside) women and there is no fooling the Lord. (sorry so long…)
Ali, welcome! I think you deserve some sort of award for reading so many blog posts! Good luck with the nails (and cinnamon rolls)!
I absolutely care more about my legs when I’m wearing a skirt. I always make sure to shave and appply a fresh coat of self-tanner on Sat. night so I can feel more confident in my skirt/dress on Sun. morning! In the dead of winter, when my shaving habits are more lax, I find I am more likely to wear dress pants.