Day 22: Skirt Challenge

Last time you heard from me I was in great dismay over having to wear a skirt every day. While I still finding it frustrating from time to time (it’s just so much quicker and easier to throw on a pair of pants and a shirt!), I am definitely seeing the fruit of this challenge.

In my previous blog I told you all that I just felt prettier and more feminine in a dress. Since then I have been asking myself “why?” Why is it that I feel more girly? Why do I feel prettier? Is it simply the fact that only women wear dresses (generally speaking) that I feel like I’m really displaying my femininity? I even wear a nightgown to bed right now (normally in winter I wear pants to bed) just to really push myself to fully embrace this challenge (perhaps I’ve gone too far…ha). I remember when I got this nightgown last summer – it was the first one I had ever owned – and I wrote to my mother:

“Dear Mom, Thanks for buying me a ridiculously cute nightgown! I love it. I'm finally turning into a real girl!
Love, Ashley.”

What does that even mean?! Why would I think that? I felt like a “real” girl in a nightgown instead of pants or shorts?

I’ve even been observing other women and their dress as I think about this. How do I see a woman wearing a dress verses seeing a woman in pants? Do I view them differently? And if so, why is that?

Ponder. Ponder. Ponder.

It was during one of my Theology of the Body classes that I finally came to the answer. It hit me and the world turned sunshiney and rainbowy and birds were chirping in the cool winter air, and a light shone down from heaven and God said “this is my beloved daughter, with whom I have revealed the answer to her question…!”

Ok so it didn’t really happen that way.

I really was in class though, and as I sat there I realized that the reason I like wearing a dress and feel more ladylike in one is that it is an outward manifestation of an inward reality.

I was left with that thought over the weekend. What was this inward reality? What does being a woman mean, and how is that displayed in wearing a dress?

I was at a mall this weekend looking around and observing all the clothes in the stores when part of the answer came to me. I thought to myself, gosh, I just love clothes. Did Adam and Eve realize that it would come to this? Did they realize when they sinned that we would take the thing that hides our shame and make it into a way of expressing ourselves?

I mean think about it, Adam and Eve fall and hide themselves with some leaves. Now we still cover those same body parts. But in that covering of our bodies, we express something through the items we choose. We express our dignity and worth. We express what we perceive our value to be. We outwardly express an inward reality of our own self-perception. If we think that a certain part of our body is really great, we generally pick clothes that flatter that part of our body. We show it off. Because we find worth in that part of us. We want people to notice it.

This is where I’ve been finding the dress challenge hard. I love wearing some of the dresses I own, but some of them are just barely too short, or have an immodest cut (and usually shows off my legs, which I can tell you are a part of me I really like). Generally, I’ll throw on leggings and think it’ll be good (i.e. more modest). But someone recently told me that that really doesn’t make wearing the dress ok. I have an especially hard time grasping this concept. Probably because of our culture and the fact that wearing leggings with a dress seems so much better than wearing a t-shirt and leggings… and also because I’ve always received compliments about my little leggies, and I like that. I recognize that I have to be careful with this, and that that part of me does not define me. But it’s hard, because I find that I often really think that displaying this one part of me in a more flattering way shows worth.

NOT SO!

Shouldn’t we love our entire body, not just parts of it? And if we think those parts are valuable, should we really flash them around for everyone to see? If you had an expensive piece of jewelry you wouldn’t go showing it off and throwing it around in everyone’s face all the time, right? It’s valuable and has great worth, so you keep it nice and only bring it out on special occasions, and when you do bring it out, you are very, very careful with it, and you don’t let everyone hold it and touch it. You keep it to yourself and guard and protect it.

This is what we must do with our own bodies! Especially in the way we dress, as it expresses what we perceive our value to be. I want the wonderful qualities of womanhood that I possess to be perceived in me through my dress, rather than the qualities of just my flesh. We’re body and soul. I want people to recognize the dignity of both in me. I know that this can, and should, be seen in my actions, but one of the biggest actions I perform every day is choosing my outfit. Shouldn’t that action contribute to displaying how I see myself as a woman?

This skirt challenge has really pushed me to find ways to express myself in the way I wear a dress modestly. I’m not gonna lie, I still find myself falling into the “it’s-ok-with-leggings” trap. I’m working on it though. I am much more aware of it and try really hard to avoid doing it. I am asking myself how I can wear a dress appropriately and still express Ashley in it. How do I see myself? I see beauty, dignity, worth, and value. I want to see that displayed in my clothing choices. And I want to see a lady, dang it!

Since she’s the most perfect and beautiful woman of all time, I really, really, really want others to see Momma Mary in me (I totally want to be just like her). So for the past few days I’ve been asking myself how do I express Mary in this challenge? (Maybe I should start asking myself what would Mary do when I get dressed in the morning…)

Then I came across this little gem: Edith Stein says "The soul of a woman must therefore be expansive and open to all human beings; it must be quiet so that no small weak flame will be extinguished by stormy winds; warm so as not to benumb fragile buds; clear, so that no vermin will settle in dark corners and recesses; self-contained, so that no invasions from without can imperil the inner life; empty of itself, in order that extraneous life may have room in it; finally, mistress of itself and also of its body, so that the entire person is readily at the disposal of every call. This is an ideal image of the gestalt of the feminine soul." 

Ahhhh Mary has all of these qualities! And so should all women! For the rest of Lent I am going to contemplate how I can apply this to my dress wearing. How is Mary all of those things? How do I model her and be all of those things? How do I express my inward femininity, particularly as Edith Stein describes it, in my outward appearance?

Spoiler Alert: I am pretty sure that I will find the answer in Christ. JPII says that men and women bring out the true masculinity and femininity in each other through their complementarities of one another. But Christ complements ALL of us! So he can truly aid us in finding authentic femininity (or masculinity if you’re a dude who stumbled upon this blog). He’s already proved that he thinks that I am valuable and have dignity. He has already given his life for me. That in and of itself should help me grow in understanding of my self-worth as a woman!

That’s how much worth God thinks you and I have. So much that the Creator of the Universe, the one who IS Life and Love, who is all powerful and good, gave his life for you. He humbled himself to come to earth and allowed his own creation, whom he loves unconditionally, to take his life, in exchange for our beautiful, worthy, dignified souls.

I’m off to show off his love for me in my dress. Until next time…!

In Christ,

Ashley