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NOTE: I am sick as a dog with something that renders me stuffy-nosed, headachy, coughing up lots of nasty gunk, exhausted and generally feeling like Trump's dirty Depends, not to.mention calling behind on the Pursuit of Blinds Costu m e-- Mr. A ordered me a panniers petticoat to keep.me from having to.handgather 40 yards of tulle to go over the short panniers I had already finished. This is gonna be a cranky rank, so be prepared for a bumpy ride.
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Earlier, a diary on David Brooks proclaiming women wearing yoga pants as partly responsible for the decline of Western Civilization turned into a discussion of yoga pants and leggings. A lot of people gave into the urge to express their opinions on the current fashion, including who can wear them,how they can wear them, where they can wear them, the appropriateness of wearing them, at what age we should stop wearing them, whether women should expect rude remarks if they wear them. One person expressed the opinion that unless the leggings or yoga pants are paired with a top long enough to.cover the arse, it is "undignified" .
To all of the above, especially the bit about lack of dignity, I wish to blow a very loud raspberry.
Allow me to Point out a hard truth. Two hard truths, actually.
*****Women's bodies and clothing choices are nobody else's business. We wear leggings and yoga pants for comfort, not for men to admire our asses. Or for other women to critique our bodies.
*****Unless you are going to work or somewhere else with a dress code, and your body is more covered than the Naked Cowboy in Times Square, it is AGAIN nobody's business. If you consider someone else's fashion choices I fortunate,kindly keep your disapproval to yourself. Remember what your mother told you that if you can't say something nice, say nothing at all? Oh, yeah even admiring comments can backfire unacceptable, especially from.strange men--and I am not even talking about car-calling which is a whole If you are enjoying the way a woman looks in leggings, unless you know her very well, keep your admiration to yourself.
Having said that, I have to wonder why it is considered acceptable to critique women's fashion choices, but not men's. I recall a women's mag which had a section entitled "Dos and Don'ts" which feathered pictures of random women in the street wearing the same style,but one of them wearing it "wrong" in the eyes of some fashion editor. I don't think any men's magazine has ever had the equivalent, despite a large percentage of men being, um, aesthetically challenged when it comes to.fashion (*time's Rump immediately comes to.mind).
I have decided to remedy that lack. (SNARK, in case you missed it)
Men, next time you are tempted to criticize some woman for, in your opinion. weighing too much for leggings even with a long tunic or the like, please ask yourself if you commit these fashion atrocities.
Irishwitch's List of Clothing Men Should Say No To :
*** Golf pants in strange colors. If your pants look like you belong on a box of Fruit Loops, they are just wrong. My father had a clo***set full of them ( the lavender ones were the worst but the flaming pink pair were a close second). I was mortified to leave them at Good Will, so I sneaked them into adrop box under cover of darkness. They would make Chris Evans look bad.
***Cargo shorts two.sizes too big, especially if they bag over chicken legs. Women admire a good pair of male legs ( from the Elizabethan days through the mid 1800s, men padded their stockings, hose and pantaloons,along with the shoulders of their costs and doubles to.give themselves better legs and shoulders). But If the shorts legs are so baggy they make you look like Don Knotts as Barney Fife on vacation at the beach-- forego them.
***Jeans that are so big, the crotch is at mid-thigh, your underwear is showing so much I don't have to.wonder "Boxers or briefs?" and you can't walk without tripping over them. I don't care what race you are, it is just, eell, tacky from.an aesthetic PoV. I will, however, defend your right to wear them if your school bans them, because the ban usually has more to.do.with race than aesthetics,just as bans on headgear tends to really mean abandon humans and a ban on pentacles really means a ban on a non-Christian religious symbol worn by Wiccans( they have yet to.figure out a Thor's Hammer is equally pagan; please do not tell them).
***Pants two sizes two small because you refuse to accept that your 34 inch waist is now a 40. This usually happens with older men.
*** Tee shirts ditto. If your gut is exposed, but new ones. If you think cropped tops on a woman baring a pudgy tummy, it doesn't look.any better on you.
***Hammers on non-surfers. If you aren't an route to the beach, at the beach, or coming home from the beach, forget it.
***White tennis shorts that are too small ( think*rump), or yellowed.
***Polo shirts on non-polo players, mostly because they are paired with loud golf pants.
***Beards that make you look like a cousin of the Duck Dynasty family, a Civil War General,or a member of ZZ Top.
*** The whole hipster look because it makes me think of scruffy beatnik and Maynard G.Krebs from Dobie Gillis.
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And special advice for incels:
****Take a shower and use deodorant every day.
****Change your underwear daily. If it has holes in it, replace it. You.might get lucky someday.
****Leave your "Women Suck," "Roosh Was Right!" , "I Heart Jordan Peterson"and "Women Deserve Rape If They Won't Sleep With Me"T-shirts at home if you ever want a woman to not flee from you as fast as her leggi-clad legs can carry her.I
I don't have to tell women not to tell out sexually-charged compliments, because we just don't. We may smile a little more broadly or whisper to the friend walking beside us If Chris Evans (yes, I am obsessed with him) or Hugh Jackman or pretty much any Marvel lookalike walks by in a nice suit or a pair of well-written jeans, but we don't yell out our admiration (it is okay for us to admire, however).
I do have one other pet peeve: school dress codes. These are mostly used against girls and minorities and those belonging to non-Christian religions.
***Girls ' collarbone are not obscene. This obsession with tops that bare the shoulders needs to end unless you are at a state dinner with Her Maj the Queen. Or a member of the Royal Family, though that rule seems to.be going away.
***Tall Girls frequently have a problem.finding prom.dresses that come down to their fingertips. It is just reality. Short women like me have to get our skirts; tall.girls cannot lengthen them,so unless the skirt is only two inches below her crktch, deal with it. Just because the principal or make chaperone gets a hoodie at the sight of a pair of long legs don't give her a hard ti me. Either that or simply require floor-length dresses for all female promgoers--don't punish girls for being too tall or having long arms.
***Create an exception to the "No.Headgear" rule for religious headgear like humans or yarmulke or headbands worn in certain tribes by young men I undergoing a rite of passage.
That's my two.cents worth. As for my own choice of clothing, I wear what pleases me. I am sure some would disapprove of the fact that I favor keeping my hair long and curly, wearing my neo-Victorian skirts and tops (I was Goth before there was a name for it, and since I had to replace 90% of my wardrobe when the movers stole everything, I decided to buy only clothing I love and which suits my body and my look and tell everyone else to piss off),laced Victorian boots,pirate boots that go over the knee with legging s. If this offends someone, it is their problem, not.mine. I get compliments from.complete strangers over my choices. I give them out too. What I don't do is comment on someone else's weight or fashion choices. I t isn't my business. And it isn't your either.