From the Exponent Back List: The New Garment Styles
Like many others, Exponent bloggers have been talking about the news of new garment styles. Here’s what some of us had to say from our blog email list.
Ann
“I’m like 20 percent happy about this and 80 percent angry. Why did we all have to suffer with sleeves for so long just to have this change suddenly happen?”
Heidi Toth
“I rationally see the good in these changes but am with Ann and am mostly angry. Why did it take so long? Why are we still so insistent on garments at all? Why not recognize the deeper issues so many people have around being told what underwear to wear? Is the response to people still objecting to garments going to be, well, we gave you some other options, so what’s the problem–just wear them? In my tired-of-the-patriarchy text chain yesterday, I called it rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic. There are major, major issues. This feels like crumbs.”
Nancy
“I want to start by saying that I no longer wear garments, but I am (probably) about to get a book contract for my book on the lived experiences of garment wearers. I have presented my findings from a 4500+ survey responses to the Church Correlation Research Division. I am really upset by these changes for a number of reasons.
#1 reason: this prioritizes women’s fashion over women’s health issues. While this change makes many happy, my survey points to the negative impact of garment wearing on vulvar and vaginal health. Its like the church put the Secret Lives of Mormon Housewives in charge of these changes. Instead of tackling big issues for women, it went with a small design fix that will make lots of people happy without making garments substantively healthier for people with vulvas and vaginas.
#2 reason: while women often reported feeling unattractive in their garments, men reported that they found their wives unattractive in garments. This change feels more like “let’s make the women feel less frumpy so that garments will be less of an impediment to sex and then men will be happier.” Men’s sexual pleasure is more important to Mormon God than women’s health.
#3 reason: women reported feeling unattractive in their garments, which made it difficult for many to connect with their sexual desire. While shorter sleeves (technically sleeveless) garments may help that, I doubt that many women locate much of their sexual attractiveness in their shoulders. The image of the new garments for women shows a bit more shoulder, but still has a lot of fabric covering the body. And so much of the message of April’s General Conference was about wearing garments continually.”
Linda Hamilton
“I’m honestly skeptical about how much this design will allow for new fashion choices. Based on the picture it doesn’t seem like that wide shoulder is much different than the current cap sleeve. Maybe some tanks would work but I’m doubtful. It kind of feels like a crumb meant to make us “so grateful.” Maybe I’m too cynical about garments in general, but it doesn’t change the fact that men are still dictating clothing choices and modesty for women, nor does it address the health issues unique to women.
I will say though that I like that the church is starting to think more globally! That feels positive.”
Caroline
“Yes, I don’t think the sleeveless option is really going to make clothing much easier or more liberating for women (or help them to feel good about their attractiveness, as Nancy mentioned). There’s still a lot of fabric on the shoulder, and I’m guessing the armhole won’t be that large. What I am happy about is the shift or slip option. That sounds to me like a win for women’s vaginal health, if women can wear that and either go without other underwear or wear light cotton regular underwear beneath it.”
April Young-Bennett
“My first thought was, “Hooray!” I am hopeful that this change will facilitate easier shopping for summer clothing and less necessity of a dreaded 4th layer in summer heat (the shirt to cover the garment on top of the bra under the typical summer shirt with not enough sleeve to cover a garment). I will let that happy thought lead.
I only recently posted about the sleeves, and how their existence is evidence that modesty enforcement and providing an easy way to judge women by their outward appearance are unstated motives for mandating 24/7 garment wearing. So, if this change does anything to mitigate that, I think it is a step in the right direction toward making the tool a better match for its publicly professed purpose as a spiritual reminder, although certainly not enough, because of the many other points I brought up in the post: https://exponentii.org/blog/3-other-rationales-for-the-garment-mandate/ Unfortunately, like Caroline, I’m suspicious that the new design will have tight, tiny armpit holes making it impossible to hide garments under sleeveless shirts anyway, so achieving the same modesty requirement but more insidiously.
But as I said in that post and in this previous one https://exponentii.org/blog/better-styles-and-fabrics-arent-enough-lets-end-the-garment-wearing-mandate/, I think the real solution is not in better design, it’s in eliminating the garment wearing mandate. Even a badly designed garment can be tolerable or even spiritually uplifting when worn in appropriate circumstances, like while doing a mostly sedentary religious ceremony inside an air-conditioned building. Forcing every person to wear the garment at all the times during every activity is the root cause of most of the health and psychological issues. So it is unfortunate that this welcome change in design is accompanied by a backward facing retrenchment in the 24/7 garment wearing mandate.
Also, the professed reasoning behind this change is to help people in African nations, but most of those countries do not have high mean income levels, and to benefit from the new design people will have to dig into their pockets and buy new garments, pointing to the ethical issue associated with the church requiring every member to buy their underwear from a monopoly supplier, which happens to be the church itself: https://exponentii.org/blog/the-mormon-underwear-monopoly/”
Bailey
“When I saw this news yesterday on ldschangemaker’s insta stories, my reaction was anger and frustration. I wish I had more eloquent words. I stopped wearing garments three years ago in the summer of 2021. They started giving me panic attacks. My mental health improved notably after I stopped wearing them. Once, in January of 2022, I put them back on to attend a niece’s baptism and I felt like I was going to crawl out of my skin. I have rage that not wearing this item of clothing, that is underwear, makes me not ‘temple worthy.’ It’s clothing. Can it have ceremonial and spiritual value? Sure. However, not wearing it is not even close to being dishonest, or abusive, or having sex outside my marriage. Even with a design change, that frankly is significant only in the context of modesty policing of centimeters of skin showing, there is still the underlying issue of this clothing being used to judge a person’s heart. I’m happy for the women who will hopefully benefit from this; happy that having a slip option will help for those who choose to wear it. And, at the same time, I am admittedly puzzled that so many women still wear it. In the last few years, all of my sisters, sisters-in-law, and a couple best friends have all gone from being TBM to nuanced or out. Claiming bodily autonomy by not wearing garments played a role for each woman.
I have often thought about what Jody (thank you Jody for your amazing words!) and Maxine Hanks shared when they talked about garments on Valerie Hamaker’s podcast. One thing in particular that I find frustrating was learning that decades ago (I can’t remember the year; I know it was before I was born and I just turned 47) that church leaders agreed that the garment is ceremonial clothing to be worn in the temple but *one* apostle (Joseph Fielding Smith?) disagreed. Since it wasn’t unanimous, the garment remained daily wear. How many thousands and thousands of women have suffered because of one man?”
