Reasons for wearing skirts and dresses
When considering if to wear skirts or pants, often not all aspects are taken into account. Maybe after considering these, wearing skirts does make most sense and is worth trying.
The whole topic of wearing skirts can be divided into two aspects
- modesty: being decent and providing coverage
- femininity: emphasizing a woman's femininity
History
When looking at the history of art, you can see the long history of women wearing skirts. They seem to have always worn dresses with long skirts, sleeves, something on their head and something around their waist to define their waist.
In all western societies around the world, long and flowing skirts are traditionally exclusive women's clothing. Until about 70 years ago, a pair of pants was not an acceptable everyday clothing option for women. Only in recent past, the majority of women is wearing pants.
Even if women wear pants for quite a while now, the association of skirts and women is still prevalent. Having to imagine a women in a classical outfit in your mind, she'll be most likely wearing a dress or skirt.
A woman is usually depicted with long hair adorning her head and a long skirt swaying around her legs, being the core elements of her appearance. A dress with its skirt swaying delightful around her legs is still the feminine symbol.
You can see this on formal occasions or traditional costumes, which usually imply a skirted look for women. On formal occasions, like weddings or balls, wearing skirts is still an implied requirement and a different outfit is considered inappropriate. Most cultures' traditional costumes also feature a dress or skirt for women.
Women became like men
During the last decades, due to changes in society, women had to begin to provide for themselves and thus had to join the workforce.
Jobs, that were considered high value, have been held by men. This made women in their classical outfit become a symbol of lower value. Dressing like men made women appear more valuable and being of the same status as men, finally giving them access to better jobs.
While only some jobs really required to wear pants, most women transitioned to wear them. At first only while being at the work, but soon they became worn permanently.
Over time, a woman wearing classical modest dresses became considered less valuable in society because looking feminine is still associated with lower status.
Today women are present in nearly all jobs and positions, but still are only considered equal when being like men. The term “wearing the pants”, commonly used for women, indicates that they cannot be in charge wearing skirts. It is not wrong to be a woman, and wearing dresses and skirts. Women should be able to dress classical feminine, while still being considered equally worth and intelligent, without having to wear men's clothing.
By wearing the same clothes as men, the gender identity vanished, which was needed as distinction to create identity. In order to distinct themselves from male, for a feminine look, women started to show their bodies by exposing their breasts, crotch, cleavage and thighs by wearing tight and revealing clothing, allowing everyone to check out their physical attributes. This led to today's women fashion, which looks like tight and sexy male clothing. And most women are following this expectation.
Taking over men's clothing
Women conquered the male fashion, while still having their own gender-specific clothing items reserved exclusively to them. Men on the other hand have only a few accessory items left for their own, while they have to share the majority with women.
Using their exclusive clothing items, women can always choose to switch to a feminine look if they want to, but men don't have an equivalent option.
Figure and privacy
Nearly every woman has some sort of issue with her body shape. The biological problem areas of a woman's figure are thighs, butt, tummy and hip shape. Many women squeeze themselves into pants with bulges forming. Despite women being unhappy with their shape of these regions, they are exposing exactly these by wearing pants, allowing unobstructed view of these areas and the crotch.
Buying pants, that fit well, is a struggle for most women. Only very loose pants are modest, but make a saggy derriere and a baggy crotch. Therefore most women choose fitting pants. But those reveal the complete bottom area, including the crotch, and become extremely revealing of the behind as soon as you bend over. Is that really what you want men to see?
Skin tight clothes might cover, but still show every curve in great detail and may not be considered modest. For example, leggings are completely covering but not modest. They just look as if you painted your legs.
Wearing pants attracts gazes, even subconscious ones, on the crotch and behind. Guys can check you out and judge your butt, thighs and crotch, if you want it or not. Many women are uncomfortable revealing these for anyone to see. A modest skirt conceals their shape and prevents the guys from gazing at your private areas.
Women don't dress to please men, but to match up with the other women around. The society’s standards of dress are extremely low and just because everyone else dresses this way, it is not becoming modest. If some women lived a more modest, humble way of presenting themselves in their way of dress, they will set a different standard for the other women around them. Many women automatically wear pants, because they a) don't own suitable everyday dresses, b) have no experience how to wear dresses in everyday life, and c) no other woman wears dresses. Raising the ladies' awareness and practice enables them to consider wearing a skirt or dress as a suitable alternative choice. The more women are dressing modest, other women are going to dress alike to follow the trend.
Long, flowing, modest skirts are reasonable clothing for women because they cover the form beneath.
Classical full skirts cover a woman in a modest and beautiful way that pants never can, and never will.
Skirts are easier to purchase because they aren't required to fit in the way pants have to.
Pants will always highlight and reveal the problem areas in some way.
Wearing a skirt helps to preserve the honor and dignity of your body by not showing it off to the world.
A skirt flatters the woman's figure, protecting her privacy by concealing the crotch area, and emphasizes femininity in a better way than pants do.
A skirt, sitting at the waist, conceals all of those problem areas. It raises the waist, hides hip bulges and smoothes out the bumps, while creating a beautiful hourglass figure.
Instead of exposing details of the nether regions, a skirt provides a proper female shape of waist and hips, looking attractive without being suggestive.
Even though being more concealing, a skirt looks more feminine that pants.
Symbol of Femininity
We are so used to women in male clothes that it might seem like skirts have become obsolete. But even today, the concept of skirts for women has not lost its meaning in our society and is still a strong symbol. Wide and long skirts are characteristic clothing items and have a strong association to the female gender.
The skirt emphasizes the femininity of a woman while being less revealing. A woman wearing a skirt is always perceived as more feminine than one with pants.
The most feminine clothing item is the dress, uniting bodice and skirt to a single-piece garment. It is a coherent unity with an inimitable charisma as a harmonious whole with a very feminine character, providing elegance and emphasizing your beauty as a woman.
The easiest way to dress both, femininely and modestly is to wear dresses and skirts. By wearing skirts, women are (re-)claiming their femininity in clothing.
Long and gently swaying skirts give grace to women and make them look better dressed and beautiful. Women wearing a modest dress or skirt look more feminine, without having to be revealing, maybe even because they are less revealing.
Instead of seeking to dress or act like a man, women should be able to be proud of being a woman and embrace their femininity.
Social norms
Many women shy away from wearing plain modest clothing because revealing their bodies is part today's culture and wearing modest clothing is the complete opposite of what they are used to. Because of the prevalent norm for women to dress masculine, it is difficult to break with that norm and dress feminine because of sticking out. Peer pressure lets some women, who want to dress more modest and feminine, but feel insecure about it or less worthy, dress in revealing male clothing instead.
It goes so far that many women have never worn modest skirts in their regular daily life. Most of them don't even possess such a skirt or have tried to wear one.
Attraction
Surveys show that men prefer a woman in a skirt to a woman in pants. Would you as a woman be attracted to feminine man? Man are in general less attracted to masculine women.
Think about what you want to convey through the clothing you are wearing. When a woman is dressed modestly feminine, instead of sexy, men are still attracted, but in a completely different way. Instead of being attracted by your revealed shape and body parts, they are attracted through dignity and femininity.
Interpersonal Effects
Femininity is not just the fact to be female. Femininity includes many non-physiological qualities, like how someone acts, and differences in ways of thinking and behaving.
Wearing a long and modest dress gives you a whole new identity in society.
It even influences your behavior and mindset, and also the people around you.
Just by wearing a dress, you will move and conduct yourself in a different and more graceful way, than a woman wearing pants.
Through changes in your behavior and the overall appearance, you will be perceived differently, changing how others look at and treat you.
Embracing this graceful femininity makes you feel more like a lady and appeals to the men's chivalrous nature.
In most men, perceiving ladylike women in their dresses, make them feel more manhood, which encourages courteous and polite behavior towards women, e.g. by holding a door open.
Whatever it is exactly, a pretty dress seems to just make people happy and improves respectful interaction between the genders.
Just try dressing feminine for a few days and try to notice yourself how you act differently and how you will be perceived and treated differently by others.
Wearing skirts practically
The female skirt separated from male clothing in the early 14th century. Shortly thereafter, the long and wide skirt became the defining and exclusively female garment.
For about 600 years, generations of women wore long skirts and dresses in their everyday life. Still for our grandparents, women wearing skirts only was the normal lifestyle and considered regular clothing. But only since the last two generations, skirts suddenly became impractical and have been completely displaced by pants.
Women mainly complain that they can’t get anything done being in skirts, without feeling the need to put on a pair of pants.
For many centuries women always wore long skirts and dresses in everyday life while performing hard work. Women in the Amish and Mennonite communities still today prove that they can do everything in a long dress, even physically hard yard work. They are not tripping on themselves and are getting by just fine.
If they are able to perform all the tasks they need wearing skirts and dresses, as generations of women were before, what is different for all the other women?
It is only a myth being told, that women can't do yard work in a skirt and that they can't exercise in a skirt. Of course it depends on the particular skirt or dress that is being worn.
It has never been easier to wear skirts than today
Today's life of an average women is way easier than it was ever before. All those machines around us make our lives as easy as never before. We use cars, electricity, washing machines and all the other comfort nowadays, but most women still state that skirts are impractical to wear. With most people working in service or office jobs, there is no physically hard work involved anymore at all.
Women being unable to do yard work or climbing ladders in skirts is just not true. Women in skirts can do that. But let's be honest, this is only a theoretical complaint because the vast majority of women will never have to climb a ladder or do something similar in their everyday life. Most of them probably would not even want to climb one at all. There are activities, like rock climbing or scuba diving, which are not possible to do in a skirt. But such occasions are unlikely and not a problem on average days.
Because of worries that it would be really hard to accomplish daily tasks while wearing a skirt, many women do not even consider trying wearing skirts in their everyday life from the start. They think they would snag their dress on a bunch of things or trip over themselves or it would be hard to get down on the floor.
With some good will and practice you may notice that wearing a skirt will not really prevent you from doing anything you were doing otherwise and doesn't really impact your life at all. Just try and see how it really doesn't affect as it seems like it might.
A recurring issue with skirts is that some don't have pockets. For a practical skirt, worn in every day life, to have pockets isn't a big deal.
A matter of practice
Most women only experienced dresses from special occasions, which are not suitable for everyday wear. Everyday dresses, which are suitable for everyday wear, are usually not part of a woman's wardrobe, let alone her wearing them. For those women having worn pants for all their lives, it will be a big adjustment to switch over and get used to dresses as their normal full-time attire, including being covered that much.
When starting to wear long and wide skirts, it feels like they are not suitable for everyday wear, because handling all the fabric feels unfamiliar and cumbersome. For inexperienced women it takes some time to get fully accustomed to wearing skirts and dresses, before it can become clear whether they are suitable for everyday wear.
With long skirts it behaves the same as with long hair. Long hair is impractical at first as well, because it requires more effort to handle and care for. It requires certain gestures to handle it, like brushing strands out of your face. Nevertheless, almost all women choose to have long hair because it is considered an essential part of the female appearance. Women don't consider long hair as impractical because they are use to it since childhood and handling it without even noticing is a second nature to them.
Wearing skirts requires some additional effort to manage all the fabric hanging freely around the legs. At first, long and wide skirts seem to be unsuitable for everyday wear because the required gestures to manage them are unfamiliar and appear impractical. Women will quickly get used to be and move in dresses when wearing them consistently.
The gestures to handle the skirts are constantly practiced and soon be performed subconsciously and unnoticed. With some practice, handling long skirts effortlessly in everyday life will become a second nature, making wearing long skirts as easy as long hair. Skirts are still as suitable for everyday use as there were for centuries of women before.
After getting along with wearing skirts, a woman soon discovers she can do way more things in a dress she never has thought of before. Eventually wearing dresses won't even be noticed anymore.All skirts challenge
If you want to get yourself in the habit of wearing skirts more often you can do a skirts-only challenge. It will be a helpful way for you to include more dresses and skirts in your daily living.
For a set amount of time, that you can make up for yourself, you can challenge yourself to wear dresses and skirts exclusively. You can start out with doing a week long challenge or going up to a whole month if you want a bit more difficult challenge.
This helps to get more used to wearing skirts to realize it being not as big of a deal as you may expect it to be and helping to break the habit of needing to wear pants.
Flexibility
A good thing about skirts is that you can layer underneath. Depending on the temperature, you can keep a pair of leggings and quickly put them on or off, even with the skirt covering everything.
Full skirts
A full skirt is flowy and long enough to provide total freedom of motion. You can sit in any position, walking up stair or ride a bike without worrying about immodesty. Everyday and working activities are no big deal with an ankle length skirt or dress, it’s just as easy as it is in pants.
This modest skirt is loose from the waist downwards, not exposing butt and tummy, preventing gazing at your crotch and smoothing out all the little bumps. It does not care about little gains below the waistline. The added femininity by this skirt compensates some bodily flaws here and there.
A full skirt is a very simple garment. It just takes some rectangular widths of fabric, sewn to a tube, and added a hem and waistband. That's all.
Often the simple things look and work best.
Dressing up with ease
Having to decide which separates to pair up every time takes up valuable time every day and renders a lot of the wardrobe useless because it doesn't pair well with other pieces. A dress has top and bottom are already matched up in one piece, with the entire outfit being all on one hanger. Instead of finding matching pieces of clothing, just pick a dress and be done with the outfit and ready to go in only a few seconds.
Not having to have extra pieces for matching up reduces the wardrobe enormously. With only few everyday dresses in your closet and the only difference among them is the color, it’s incredibly easy to get dressed.
Wearing alike top and bottom pieces is considered unfashionable for separates, but is appealing in a dress. A dress as a single-piece garment is considered more polished and pulled together than separates. Being in a dress makes a women better dressed, when she actually spent less effort on her outfit.
A dress keeps the skirt sitting at the natural waist and also prevents it from slipping if a toddler pulls on your skirt or it gets caught.
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Sources
1. Christine (2012) Why I Wear Skirts
2. Colleen Hammond (2015) Modesty in Dress - Dressing with dignity
3. Jessica (2019) Good Reasons for Wearing Skirts and Dresses Only
4. Lucy (2020) Why I Would (And Might) Wear Dresses Every Day
5. Kenzie (2019)
Wearing Skirts for a Week
Journey of dressing more Femininely
Modest Journey - Dressing with Dignity?