Women have been wearing leggings for a very long time. Particularly now that athleisure is such a huge trend outside of simply gym wear, girls and women wear them in situations other than just working out.
This mother, however, does not agree. She wrote an open letter called “The Legging Problem”, in which she said that women in leggings are to blame for temping men. She is worried about her sons and how to navigate that temptation.
Maryann White is a Catholic mother of four sons. She claims she’s not trying to infringe on anyone’s rights or offend anyone. That being said, she says women in leggings are to blame for young male temptation.
“A world in which women continue to be depicted as “babes” by movies, video games, music videos, etc. makes it hard for Catholic mothers to teach their sons that women are someone’s daughters and sisters. That women should be viewed first as people — and all people should be considered with respect.” she wrote.
She claims that leggings are far too revealing and cause young men to be tempted and think thoughts about women they shouldn’t be thinking. With four young men at home, she is worried about what leggings might “cause” them to do.
First, White made reference to the outfit that Princess Leia was forced to wear in the Star Wars movie where Jabba the Hut made her his slave. She said the gold bikini was meant to make her body the focus and nothing else and likened leggings to this.
“Leggings are hardly slave girl outfits. And no one is forcing them on the countless young women who wear them. But I wonder why no one thinks it’s strange that the fashion industry has caused women to voluntarily expose their nether regions in this way.”
She then went on to liken wearing leggings to nakedness. We don’t walk around naked, so why walk around wearing leggings?
“Leggings are so n@ked, so form-fitting, so exposing,” she wrote. “I’m fretting both because of unsavory guys who are looking at you creepily and nice guys who are doing everything to avoid looking at you. For the Catholic mothers who want to find a blanket to lovingly cover your nakedness and protect you — and to find scarves to tie over the eyes of their sons to protect them from you!”
Maryann White thinks that she is teaching young people about modesty, what she is really teaching is that women are wholly responsible for the unwanted attention they get from men.
