I recall watching this same conversation in my own church: Should women wear pants to church. Only difference was, I watched that conversation back in the 1970s.
A call for Mormon women to wear pants to church, begun this month by a small group of women, has stretched across the globe, but not before creating a backlash and even generating death threats.
“Wear Pants to Church,” an event on Sunday, was meant to draw attention to the role of women in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, using attire as a symbolic first salvo in a larger struggle over gender inequalities.
Though the Mormon Church has no official policy against women wearing pants to church, many say they feel peer pressure to wear a dress, particularly in the Western United States, organizers said. So on Sunday, thousands of Mormon women arrived at church in pants in places like Cambridge, England; Heidelberg, Germany; Austin, Tex.; the Marshall Islands; and Kotzebue, Alaska. A number of the women posted their photos on Facebook and other Web sites. Others said they could not participate because they were fearful of ridicule or reprimand.
This can be an important issue for some women. I remember my grandmother struggling mightily, wondering what would happen if she wore pants. When she finally succumbed to the lure of the pantaloon, she generally picked wide bottomed pants with fabric that resembled that of a dress, never denim, khaki, and such.
“Wear Pants to Church” was the idea of Stephanie Lauritzen of Salt Lake City. She and some fellow Mormon women who belonged to a group called All Enlisted posted an events page on Facebook on Dec. 9. Within days, thousands had pledged their support, but one person threatened to shoot women who showed up in pants. Ms. Lauritzen, 26, also received threats on her own Facebook page that are being investigated by Facebook and the local authorities, she said.
On Dec. 11, the Salt Lake City-based church leadership issued a statement: “Generally church members are encouraged to wear their best clothing as a sign of respect for the Savior, but we don’t counsel people beyond that.”
The All Enlisted “friends” page has drawn hundreds of posts, both for and against the idea. JoEllen Swarts of Las Vegas wrote: “What is wrong with all you women??? If you’re not happy with the LDS church, move on, find another place of worship. You will not change Mormon Doctrine.”
About the time I wondered how this event went, I read this:
On Monday, a private All Enlisted Facebook page had collected about the same number of “negative experiences” as “positive experiences” from women across the country. Julie Tuovi Baker Hansen, a lawyer in Burbank, Calif., who participated while visiting a Salt Lake City suburb, said she was surprised to see a man raise his hand and say, “Women who want to wear pants, they just don’t know how to follow the Lord.”
Ms. Hansen, the only woman wearing pants in a room of about 50 people, said she felt “pretty irritated.”
Aimee Hickman, the editor of a Mormon feminist magazine called Exponent II, said she originally had reservations about the event. But then she saw the negative reaction by church members online. “This made me rethink my original position,” Ms. Hickman said. The attention drawn to the effort, she added, “has people talking about Mormon gender roles more than anything I’ve seen.”
Yup. That’s about what I expected.
