That Whole Pants Thing

I didn't hear about the feminist call to arms until CJane blogged about it.  And I will admit right here and now that I never bothered to read the original blog posts that got it all started.  Because I already knew that I wasn't interested in wearing pants to church-- partly because skirts are a LOT more comfortable in my pregnant state, but mostly because I don't think it's appropriate to stage a protest at church.  I go to church to worship.  And I go to see my friends and to do the things I'm asked to do-- teach lessons, herd children around, provide a musical number, or whatever.  I go so that I can strengthen my own testimony.  And partake of the sacrament and renew my covenants.

The way our church is run, wherein we believe that our leaders are called by God, I'm not sure that it's ever appropriate to stage a protest.  But if you do have problems with the church (and these problems don't mean that you simply stop going), I guess a more appropriate outlet would be to write to the leaders or something.  Wearing pants one Sunday is such a localized thing, I can't see how it would really accomplish anything.

So I didn't really agree with the pants protest (and admittedly, maybe reading the actual sources would have changed my mind, but I kind of doubt it).  And in light of Friday's tragedy, worrying about a Sunday dress code seemed beyond silly to me.  There are so many more serious problems in our world that we should be working to address than the issue of what we wear to church (especially in a church where the official statement on dress and grooming doesn't mention anything as specific as whether or not women should wear pants).

But I will admit that I really enjoyed reading many of the other blog posts that sprung up-- the discussion that this protest generated was fascinating to me, and a lot of posts really spoke to me.  So if you've been following the pants protest, here are my favorite contributions to the dialogue:

Heather, at Women in the Scriptures, wrote about how she would be wearing a skirt, but wouldn't be bothered by others wearing pants.  She then talked about how she had learned not to "shelve" issues she had, but rather to think of putting them on a stair, and she would strive to climb to that point where she had reached understanding.  Beautiful.  I sometimes worry that I'm a little too good at putting things on the shelf and forgetting about them.  Using issues to find things to study and pray about and ultimately strengthen your testimony is a much better way of dealing with the questions we will all inevitably have about religion.

Jessie, at Bloggity-Blog, had my favorite list of points both for and against the pants thing.  I pretty much agreed with everything she said.  And she's funny, too, so bonus points for that!

And then Brandon went and summed up all the feelings about Book of Mormon Girl that I hadn't bothered to acknowledge to myself and in the same blog post, linked the single best explanation of Mormon Feminism that I have EVER read.  Honestly, it blew me away.  If you only click on one link in this whole post, choose that last one.  I think I need to read it again, it was so rich in doctrine.


So, yeah, to sum up: I didn't particularly agree with Pants Day, but I did enjoy the discussion it engendered. 

(See what I did there?)