When a simple garment is a flashback point for some of your worst moments in high demand religious organizations.
This popped up bright and early this very morn on my social media feed.
The humble modest blue jean skirt. Merely one among a pile of “mend it/remake it” videos involving sewing I sometimes peruse. Costa Rica is notoriously hard on clothing. I believe it has something to do with the water and the fact that there is a dearth of well made clothing to buy. That fact has seriously impacted what I buy, and upped my repair and remake skill set. I watch a great deal of these videos for inspiration, but not this one. You could not pay me to watch it ever.
Why? Because the lowly blue jean skirt is a perfect hateful symbol of all I left behind when I fled my original non-denominational Evangelical church. Blue jean skirts flourished there, like mushrooms after a particularly hard spring rain. It was the nearly perfect all purpose garment many lived in because of its durability, and ubiquitous nature that could be paired with any shoe or blouse. But, most of all, it was cheap and practical.
It just happened to also be more socially acceptable than the cheap cotton jumpers with face-enhancing collars we wore at first. You know who also wore those jumpers? The earliest iteration of TLC’s the Duggar family. Michelle and daughters also ditched the jumpers around the same time as many in the Quiverfull movement. Jumpers got you stares and the occasional rude comment when out in public. Blue jean skirts did not, allowing you to be modest and blend into society at large where blue jean items seemed to be the uniform of the day. No staring.
I seem to remember one summer buying a new blue jean skirt along with another skirt, four tops and a blue jean vest. My own designated conference wear that made traveling from place to place much simpler with so much interchangeability. I wore that skirt often in the last eight years before we left, so much so I grew weary of seeing it. A sea of blue jean skirts at every service.
Now just seeing anyone wearing this item brings back the bad old times, the years I had to awkwardly do some inner cheerleading just to make it through the next day, conference, service, or worship service when I really felt like hiding away in my bed. I feel anew my inner angst and doubts being suppressed and pushed down. The hateful oppression of my soul being funneled into a conformist denim prison. It turned a simple cotton clothing item into an emblem of oppression to me.
This is just one of those things that goes so much deeper than the usual modesty police thing everywhere in high demand religions. Modesty standards are a completely separate toxic sliding set of goal posts that allows everyone else to try and police your body, and gatekeep all women’s sexuality and male purity. That image above, for example, would never pass the modesty police at most churches. Skirt too tight, tee too tight, tee too short sleeved, neckline far too revealing.
I’ve written a long chapter in my book about my own personal struggles with the modesty police in those days that involve the fact I wore a D cup bra in those days. Lovely lady lumps even hinted at was a big no-no! No breasts and derrieres need apply. But this is deeper and has little to do with modesty and more to do with unspoken difficult expectations and repression.
One thing I know for sure after having long conversations with many women is that this is not my lone struggle. For many of us during deconstruction whenever someone attempts to market one of these things to us its a bad old trip down memory lane. Just in time for Christmas!
Merry Christmas and just say no to the blue jean skirt. One day I may buy one and redeem it by adding my own spin, but that day is not today.