125 thoughts on “Skirts?”

        1. {GASP!} GAMBLING??? HOW could you even THINK to suggest that? I must say, I am quite disappointed in you right now pastor’s wife. I will be making an appointment to speak with your husband about this as soon as my busy schedule permits. This is just quite alarming.

  3. That’s Hilary? I thought she was thinner than that. That doesn’t look like Hilary to me. 😕

      1. Eww orange? I didn’t know she had put on weight, and that orange suit is not flattering at all.

        1. I guess, like me, Hillary has put on a few pounds! I like the orange better, but I am a real colorful person.

      3. Poor Hillary! I don’t particularly like the lady, but I think it’s kind of sad that she’s become the Poster Child for Frumpiness. 🙁

      2. So, JoeR, are you implying a huge badonkadonk is a bad thing?

        I’ll give you a few minutes to pray about your answer… 😈

  4. Ain’t this the truth! I typically only wear skirts when I *want* attention from the fellas….not the other way around… 😀

  5. Hilary’s picture might be a recent one. I thought she had shorter hair. Is the skirt picture a picture of Grace Kelly? Then again, it looks like a 1940’s photo.

      1. Veronica Lake, wowzers! My all-time favorite blonde. In my opinion, the sexiest woman to ever walk on planet earth. Compared to her they would have never even launched as much as a canoe to recover Helen of Troy. 😉

        1. I’m going to disagree with you (I’m feeling rather Fundy today), and insist that Katherine Heigl is prettier. 😀

        4. Don, did you mean to say “oogle” or were you trying to say “Google” and George is just in a particularly humorous mood today?

        7. I’m disappointed to find the dropped g was a mistake. I was going to compliment the pun. Oh, well.

        2. I’m still trying to figure out how long Don’s marriage is going to last since he is telling us how beautiful certain women are and none of them are his wife?

        3. mmmm, idk?? It’s a mystery to me how we’ve made it 25 years so far. (well it will be 25 married in April) Of course I could get hit by some random falling space junk before then… 😯

          I guess we have been together long enough to be honest with one another rather than, “Oh, you’re the most beautiful thing in my life… yada, yada, yada.” I know she’d rather have Adam Levine than me, but she has me… not Adam. I can appreciate beauty as well.. but I have her. We don’t have to put on the dramatic, “I love you because you are the most beautiful person in the room” sap-crap. I love her for so much more than her looks and I know my marshmallow physique along with my long salt-n-pepper coiffure and facial hair isn’t a passion igniter… but we have been together for over a quarter century (counting dating and engagement we’ve been together 28 years this March).

          May get a divorce tomorrow but I’ll leave that in God’s hands. 😉

        4. Aww, Don! This is SO nice. Your wife sounds like a keeper!! So, I am glad you did. Keep her. 😉

  6. I converted to skirts in a church where the pastor’s wife wore jeans. Guess I’m always causing trouble 😉
    I have dropped standards right and left in the past few years, but I’m keeping my skirts. Aspergers and comfy go hand in hand, and so does being blunt 😉 ~ pants do not feel comfy in the crotch. TMI, probably. I do work out in sweatpants, I would not have done that in the olden days.
    Skirts are pretty, and I take all the pretty I can get.

    1. I feel pretty in skirts – well, some skirts, not the type a lot of us wore in the IFB. But it’s nice to wear a skirt because you WANT to, not because someone says you HAVE to and that you’re displeasing God if you don’t.

      1. Exactly. I still wear skirts and jumpers. I only wear stretch pants to the gym. But not because Fundyville says I must wear only skirts and dresses but because I am more comfortable in them and they give me more freedom of movement than pants. But I no longer judge myself as more spiritual than a woman in pants. Whatever anyone else wears is between them and the Lord. :mrgreen:

        1. My one and only weight loss goal is to feel pretty in skirts again. I am close. But I do agree, skirts are definately more appealing, but not the kind I used to wear.

        1. My above comment was @Pastor’s Wife’s above comment. Sometimes you never know where your comment will end up.

      3. YEEEEEEEEEEEEES!!!
        Ahem, pardon my exuberance.
        I still do love skirts, especially pencil skirts <3 But I like them much more now that I choose to wear them.
        Jean skirts though, just make me feel frumpy =/ Maybe I can get over that once I leave my fundy church and actually have a choice in the matter.

  7. “Just because the women of the world around us wear pants doesn’t mean Christian women should, amen?”

    The question to address is this: “When the Bible uses the term ‘world,’ is it talking about culture?” If so, shouldn’t we separate from everything that culture produces (i.e. television, internet, automobiles)?

    I read an article recently that used St. John’s usage of “world” in 1 John 2.15-16 to define it as “sin.” That cleared up so much for me. Romans 12.2 says to not be conformed to the sin around us. Ephesians 2.2 says that we previously walked in sin. Demas loved his sin (2 Timothy 4.10). Titus 2.12 speaks of sinful lusts, not cultural lusts.

    I hope this helps you as well. The original article was here: http://theotruth.wordpress.com/2011/10/04/have-i-left-fundamentalism/

    N.B. “World” can be used in other ways as well: people of the world & third rock from the sun.

    N.B. “Amen” is not a question.

    1. Thanks for linking that article – it’s an excellent read. I’ve struggled for a long time with how to put into words why I left “fundamentalism” – that article did it very well.

  8. I think Veronica’s outfit would actually check at BJU! It’s a little hard to tell at that angle, but I think that dress comes to the bottom of her knee, or at least the middle. It’s amusing to me that she’s quite covered up!

    2. Truly, sexy is not in the clothes. Veronica Lake would have looked sexy in a burlap sack down to her ankles.

    3. She’s wearing peep-toe shoes, which is just 2 toes away from open-toe shoes, which is half-way down the slippery slope to Birkenstocks, pants and lesbianism.

    1. I have to admit, I’ve considered an idea like that in the past. I know she wants to have the STRONG FEMALLE WOMYN image, but… her pantsuits are just not all that flattering.

      1. And as the fundy pastors told us, a woman’s most important job is to be sweet and feminine.

        1. You got it, Camellia Girl. I mean, really, what else could the Secretary of State have to worry her pretty little head about?

        4. Then I’ve failed miserably as a woman because I’m neither sweet nor feminine. Alas …

  12. I’m just gonna say, results may vary depending on the who is wearing the pants/skirt/dress….

  13. She reminds me somewhat of Bridget Fonda. Watched her and Nicholas Cage in “It Could Happen to You” last night. She is cuuuuute!

  14. I love me some Hilary, with her honky-tonk badonkadonk, frumpy suits and all.

    And women are gonna be creeped on in pants or skirts…maybe we should compromise by wearing culottes under muumuus.

    1. I think I’ve said this before, but a man who needs a woman to be “immodestly dressed” before he can lust after her has something wrong with him.

  15. My parents were fairly fundy-lite in a few things (well, my mom, and when it came to clothing, my dad didn’t really interfere beyond making noises about ‘preferring’ us in skirts :P), but funnily enough, it’s now that I’m not a Christian that I spend upwards of 95% of my time in skirts. I just like them! Pants are great, and I wear them when I’m – say, going to the barn with my friend or working out, but skirts and dresses are the best.

    Okay, mostly they’re easy to make out of old bedsheets and I’m broke 😆 . But they’re so comfortable too.

  18. I find the best way to avoid male attention is to cut my hair short and wear my husbands clothes. Then only the pervs that are into 13 year old boys chase after me, but they are a lot fever and far inbetween than the regular old horn dogs.

  19. What would be delightful, whether we agree with her politics or not, would be if we all could just appreciate the Secretary of State for the job she does and the wits she brings to the table, and not give a crap about her posterior or her color choice or anything, really, that has nothing to do with her position.

    2. IKR? Can you imagine the American public ripping apart a male politician’s clothing choices like they do hers? It’s absurd. Her outfits have nothing to do with the job she does. She could show up in slinky satin, burlap, or outrageously colored pantsuits — as long as she does her job, who cares? At least she’s not showing her genitals on Twitter or diddling interns in a back office.

      1. And with that single post, Persnickety Polecat ZOOOMS to the top of Seen Enough’s favorite post-ers list… THANK YOU, P.P.!!! I could never have said it so well!!!

      2. You’re right, but women are always judged more on their clothing than men are. All of the first ladies have been. And why was Sarah Palin judged so harshly when she was running for V.P. on her clothing, and whether or not the republican party was paying for it? No one said anything about John McCain’s clothes. Women always have to be so careful in our clothing choices. It really has nothing to do with which political party you belong to either. 😮

        1. Because it’s easier to control women when we are no more than the sum of our parts. But this is nothing more than sexist bullying. And the press is waaaay out of line for doing it — if more people called them out on it, maybe it would stop.

        2. She was mocked because she was an airheaded moron.

          Any clothing mockery was based on her transparent motivation on appearing attractive, as in style over substance.

        3. I definately agree with that, Lone Wolf. I had more to say but decided to leave it at that. I don’t want my favorite website to get all political. I have other sites for that.

  20. There was a book I remember reading when I was a young girl, for school (fundy school, of course) called Fascinating Womanhood. I wish I still had it because it would be a GOLD MINE of horrible advice to post here. I remember from it gems like always dress and act like a little girl to stir up the protective nature of a man, and don’t lift heavy objects or do anything for yourself if your man is around, pretend you can’t to make him feel strong. Of course after 35 years of marriage, my husband still doesn’t know how that couch got upstairs.
    But anyway, back to my point, in this book I learned to ALWAYS dress in frills and lace even when it wasn’t appropriate to the activity. “If it couldn’t be done in a dress, it shouldn’t be done by a lady.” Yeah… good times.

    1. ” Of course after 35 years of marriage, my husband still doesn’t know how that couch got upstairs.”

      Nearly lost it on this one. HILARIOUS! 😆 😆 😆

      Oh, yeah, I “lost” my copy of FW as soon as I finished reading it for stupid Christian Womanhood class. Barf-o-matic.

      1. You actually had to take a class called Christian Womanhood? Was this class a requirement for all the girls? Was it taught by Cindy Schaap? If it taught the utter falderal garbage taught in the magazine I’d never have been able to sit through even one class without a super industrial sized barf bag. (Insert barf emoticon) No wonder none of those women ever laugh or crack a smile. 😥

        This was something I did not understand back at my old church in Michigan. Most of the staff and their wives were graduates of HAC and something funny would be said from the pulpit. I’d laugh. Some of those HAC educated women and their daughters would look down their noses at me like I was wrong for laughing! Did they teach that women ought not to laugh? Why? Do they consider it women “speaking” in the church? Well doggone it if you don’t want me to laugh don’t say something funny! 🙄 👿

        How dare they tell women to remain childish. Maybe this is why they make women sing those idiotic songs they have the VBS kids doing? To keep us infantile? Heaven help those of us who possess a little bit of intelligence! 👿

        1. Ahem. When Sims and I were in CW class, Cindy Hyles Schaap was in high school. Marlene Evans taught it, and it was ridiculous. I hated it even then. But I never did fall in with the Marlene-and-Carol fan club, and neither did Sims. In fact, Sims will go down in history for saying one of the funniest things EVER to Carol Frye, and I get hysterical just thinking about it. Ask her to tell you.

        2. To get back to your question: Women were always noticeably silent in FBC Hammond church services. I do not recall ever hearing one murmur an “Amen,” and I really cannot recall one ever asking a question in Jack Hyles Q&A time, wither. We did laugh, though. I think you may have gotten a crop of HAC freaks who were led by one more-powerful HAC-freak (female), and they all did what SHE did. My take: if a woman can still be sold on HAC after all the truth that has been revealed, she WANTS to be led by someone with a stronger personality. Gross. 😯

        4. When something funny is said in church, a proper lady will smile appreciatively, not showing her teeth, and nod so the speaker knows she thinks it was funny. She will not lose control and laugh out loud because it is unseemly. (I thought EVERYONE knew that.)
          Nowadays not only do I laugh in church, occasionally I will clap my hands. (OH DEAR)

        5. Oh! Sorry about that. I’d forgotten that you guys are closer to my age, I’m a few months older than Cindy Schaap. Of course I want to know what Sims said to Carol Frye.

          They brought one of those Ladies Spectacular to our church in Michigan, the only time our church held one. I thoroughly hated every minute of it. Since it was at our church we had to do all the work, provide all the eats and never even got a discount for all our trouble and expense. 👿

        6. One time I was arguing (very quietly) with my sister in the hallway (at HAC) and one of Marlene Evans’ minions approached us and told me to “Change my face because it looked like I had a bad attitude.” I told her to go and change her own face it was offending me. (I got demerits)

        8. Oh, but that wasn’t the story S.E. is talking about… she means the time Carol called me into her office and told me I ought to wear a little make up because I needed to enhance what God gave me or whatever (I forgot most of her reasoning, but in my opinion she always looked like a circus clown or a painted bear or something) So I told her I didn’t like makeup and that {Name witheld} (my fiancee at the time) didn’t like it either. She said, “Well, if I had a boyfriend who didn’t like ME the way I was (with makeup) I wouldn’t stand for it. I came back with, “Well, maybe that is why I have a boyfriend and YOU don’t.” (Of course I got to clean hair out of the shower drains the rest of the semester for that one.)

        9. Ahhhhh, that *magazine* actually had an article about how it wasn’t healthy to ever disagree with your husband. I read that section out loud to *my* husband. Who immediately began to guffaw. Sure, it’s probably not healthy to constantly disagree, but to never disagree? And where’s all that disagreement going? Just stuffing it inside, are we? My husband likes to annoy me just to watch me get riled up …

        10. And now that I have seen RuPaul’s TV show I have an idea that maybe that WASN’T why she didn’t have a boyfriend after all.

        11. @Sims, did the irony of her talking about him not liking you the way you were (um, sans makeup?) just escape her entirely? What an idiot! lol! My sister went to HAC for something like three years … I’m starting to understand so much now … I thought Fairhaven had their heads up their butts … now I’m seeing HAC just might have been worse.

        12. Still love it, every time. Good times. Macushlalondra, do you know who Carol Frye is? She was the Ass’t Dean of Women at HAC, and Marlene Evans’ beyond-loyal acolyte. She also seemed to consider herself the final word on style, fashion, femininity (though she looked like she could have been a Star Wars Storm Trooper, and that is an insult to Storm Troopers everywhere) and she insisted on blind loyalty from her (bunch-of-weirdos) fan club. There have been whispers of lesbian activities for years, but she sort of silenced those by eventually marrying. That poor slob who finally “landed” her… 🙄

        13. P.P., in my day, Fairhaven gave off an aura of irritated envy towards HAC. They resented the crap out of us. Hard to tell which one is actually worse, but HAC did have more influence. Fairhaven is still a bunch of loons, though, to this day. SMH…

        14. Also, @Persnickety: in re: to your post about never disagreeing: Those women at HAC/FBC had finally created their own little sorority of sorts, which I really believe came about as a method of dealing with their repressed feelings and frustrations. There were ALWAYS nervous breakdowns, abandonment, bizarre stories… but they were hidden away, and many are just now coming to light. One of the guys on my Chicago bus route was later killed by his wife, after she just could not take the abuse any more. All of this, rather than just ACTUALLY interpret Scripture correctly, and understand that God puts TWO people, each with a mind, together for a REASON… sigh.

        15. Of course you should never disagree with your husband. That would be UNSUBMISSIVE! I knew women like this. No wonder they always looked sad. Their husbands walked all over them.

          At the former church the pastor gave out free copies of the CW magazine to the ladies every month. And being in our church in Michigan for 23 years before moving to Canada and hearing about First Baptist and HAC all that time eventually some of the names became familiar. I only attended one ladies spectacular during that time other than the one held at our church. But I did learn to recognize some of the names. When they came to our church I remember Carol Frye talking about PMS.

          I know Marlene Evans was held in extremely high regard and ran all the ladies spectaculars, I guess was also the editor of the CW paper, at one time. Though I never attended there I have heard some things, and since getting online have heard a few other things. Like that these people weren’t quite as perfect as they were held up to be. On one site a woman spoke of how Marlene Evans didn’t have time to clean her own home so ladies had to volunteer (or be drafted) to do it for her. For free of course. And someone else had to have their hair done for free by one of the college girls and if she didn’t like how they did it they got demerits etc. I thought oh what a fun place. 🙄

          I never went to one of the fundy colleges and from what I’ve read here and in other places I wouldn’t have made it five minutes. I didn’t become fundy til I got married at the age of 26 and we began to attend a fundy church. There were things I failed to understand simply because I was not brought up fundy. 🙄

        16. @Macushlalondra, I *was* raised fundy, and I still didn’t make it in fundy u, lol. I dropped out of one and was kicked out of two. 😆 Whoops! Demerits for a bad hair day? Yeah, I’d have just shaved the old crab’s hair and been done with it. Why not? Some of those women had the worst cases of helmet hair I’d ever seen anyway.

          My husband’s always teasing me about not being a submissive wife, too, but I always point him to the verse that tells husbands and wives to submit to one another, and then I flounce off, lol. But seriously … there’s a lot more to marriage than subjugating your every need to another person’s whims. We don’t have a perfect marriage, but we’ve made it this far …

        17. @Macushlalondra: Yes, Carol pulled out the PMS shtick at every mini-Spectacular, everywhere. I could give it in my sleep. Be oh, so thankful that you never went to a fundy “college,” and oh, so thankful you always saw the idiocy of it! In my own life, I was late to see it; Sims saw it while we were still there at HAC, but I was a good little fundy robot. It was when the Dave Hyles scandals of the early eighties came out, that my eyes began to open. By the time the Jack Hyles scandals came out, in the late eighties, I was ready to read and believe the truth. What never ceases to astonish me is that ANYONE can still be a part of that “ministry” today. Incredible. 🙄

        18. @Persnickety: BWAHAHAHAHAHAAAAA… THREE Fundy U’s under your belt? AWESOME! You ROCK! Wow. I love it. 😆

        19. Well I refuse to be a doormat. I think sometimes my husband wishes I were more submissive but I’ve seen submissive women since being in a fundy church and they are BORING. Never smile, never laugh, just serve, serve, serve. Then they teach the next generation of girls to be just like them. Phooey on that! I guess my husband is not too unhappy with me, we’ll be married for 27 years in May. And if I’m not always submissive, he’s not always loving. It works both ways.

          It just really irks me 👿 when men stand up there and preach to women to submit and hardly speak of the mens’ responsibility to love. Only our last pastor in Michigan (who is still there) actually had a good way of preaching on this. (one I could accept anyway). He’d hammer more on the men to love their wives and do the things around the house she asks him to do like helping move furniture and stuff, and all those little chores instead of putting them off. Before him all I ever heard was that women ought not to nag men to do these things, just live with them never being done til he gets around to it. Oh but if he wants something done, do it right away! Therefore you keep your part of the deal, while he gets away without doing his part. And all that falderal about women nagging was nothing more than the man’s way of getting the women to shut up, after all you don’t want to be a nag! Meanwhile men can nag all they want, and it’s not called nagging when he does it, if he has to ask twice you’re not being submissive, if you ask twice you’re nagging. 👿

          This is directed at all those SEXIST preachers, not my husband, he’s patient and kind for the most part. He’s had to be to put up with me.

          I will shut up now, I didn’t mean to get on a rant. 😳

        21. *buffs nails* Yep, that’s me, the rebel. lol. It was sort of humiliating at the time, but I was never a koolaid drinker, so the humiliation was mostly due to my parents being pissed at me, lol. The rules were just ridiculous. I’d grown up in a repressive regime, graduated high school a year early to escape it, and *that’s where I ended up? No thanks! I think my parents finally gave up on me, and so I just got a job and moved out, only a little worse the wear (eating disorder notwithstanding — thanks, Fairhaven!).

          Anyway … my husband is totally teasing about the submissive thing. If I ever started doing any “yessiring,” he’d think I’d been taken over by a pod-person. My husband married a woman with a mind of her own, not an automaton. If a man wants a woman who will submit to his every desire, well, they sell those online these days … you just need an air hose.

        22. At BJU I took a class called ‘Biblical Role of Women’ and it was taught by Patty Berg (Jim Berg’s wife). What an absolute joke. My number one favorite thing she said in the class was that women should be ashamed to refer to their breasts as boobs. For an example she said ‘Would your Dr. ever say to you “I’m sorry, you have boob cancer.”‘ The whole class just about lost it. I wish I had written down more of the absurd stuff she said in that class.

        23. Macushalondra! (This won’t show up anywhere NEAR where you posted what you did, but I am late to the party) THAT WAS ME! The girl who had to do the old lady’s hair (for free) and got demerits when she didn’t like it. I just wanted to tell you that. I wish I could have gotten this comment a little closer to the one you originally posted about it though. Yeah lots of stories like that. Makes me crazy to think too much about it though. Still a little bitter I guess.

        24. Sims I hope this ends up underneath your reply. Before I discovered SFL I had read a site about exposes of famous preachers and Hyles was among those listed. This was while I was on my way out of Fundyville at least in my mind. Here is the link to the Hyles page.

          http://www.rapidnet.com/~jbeard/bdm/exposes/hyles/testim.htm

          I hope that comes out clickable. Toward the bottom there is a testimony of a woman who worked in the sailor ministry and what a thrill that was – NOT. These testimonies are all several years old but still valid. 🙂

        25. Sims & Seen Enough – thanks for all the stories about HAC-dom.

          I don’t know if I would have made it in any fundy U very long. I can conform, but I hate it when it’s forced. I’m not sure what would win. I’d probably get kicked out for demerits.

          About submission, I think CS Lewis had a statement “know the difference between giving advice and following orders”, and I think that fits… There are times when I want to have a discussion, and I want my wife’s frank input; I DO NOT want just a yes-woman or one who just rubber-stamps any idea I have. There are also times when it’s time to put away the advice-giving and just follow orders. It’s how I try to treat the people who have authority over me; if we’re having a discussion, I’ll give my concerns about a plan — one a decision is made, and that’s the way we’re going to go, it’s time to move on.

          Just my $0.02

      2. LOL, my husband’s just the opposite. He actually expected me to help him change my flat tire the other day. Can you imagine?? I would have been quite happy to let him do the whole thing, mind you, but he needed help lining up the spare with the lug-nuts or whatever those silly things are called. 😉

    2. I have a book somewhere called Beautiful Girlhood: I’ll have to find it and send in some gems.

      1. Are you sure it wasn’t “Fascinating Girlhood” because I think there was a junior version of Fascinating Woman too.

    1. Whoops, that was supposed to go in a different thread… ANYWAY, Sims knows I refer to the Frye. Who managed to be masculine in spite of clown makeup, pantyhose, and dresses only. I always remember Sherri Melton doing her Frye imitation, which consisted of heartily laughing while holding on to her own bazoongas… sigh. Good times.

  22. When the Furman University soccer team played an all-star team from BJU at BJU a few years ago, there was one group of people who looked out of place–the BJ faculty and staff women. They were the only ones who came in skirts. I felt sorry for them. The BJ students were all in pants, as were all the Furman fans.

  23. This is one of my must read web sites in the morning.

    In order: NY Times (digital), SFL, Wade Burleson, Watchdog FBC, Instaputz, Daily Kos, Bloomberg News and finally TPM. You are part of my daily beginning.

    And, save for the two new sites , you chronicle how totally loathsome, vile and hate-filled are many folks that dare call themselves Christian.

    I have almost come to the point that anyone who goes on and on about their faith are terrible human beings and are closet abusers of almost anyone they encounter, or even out of the closet. Abuse can take many forms including the thought that I am better than you and you should do as and say what I do and say.

    You and those that comment give me hope that all is not lost or so bad. Please keep on what you and most of folks commenting are doing. A lifeline, in a way, to sanity.

  24. Sorry Darrell, but your misogynistic, body-shaming picture doesn’t cancel out the misogyny of gendered dress codes.

  25. Hmmm after looking at the picture on the right for 30 minutes, I just noticed there is an airplane in the background….

  27. Many years ago, the City Council of Seattle was writing an ordinance on what standards of dress constituted lewd behaviour. They invited famous stripper Gypsy Rose Lee (a native of the city) to testify as an expert witness. Ms. Lee wore a conservative outfit with a blouse that had row of buttons at the cuff. As she spoke, she gently touched one hand to the other wrist, softly moving up and down. Then she gently unbuttoned one button…soon she unbuttoned a second then a third. By the time she finished speaking, she had the cuff entirely unbuttoned and rolled up above her wrist. Every eye in the chamber was focused on her wrist. 😳 And she firmly stated that their effort was futile because “it’s not what you do. It’s how you do it.” 😀

  28. OK, I’ll say it-I think Bill needs to find another intern. Hillary has hit the skids.

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