TradCatKnight: Notification Concerning MEN'S DRESS WORN BY WOMEN
Notification Concerning MEN'S DRESS WORN BY WOMEN
by Giuseppe Cardinal Siri Genoa, June 12, 1960 To the Reverend Clergy, To all Teaching sisters, To the beloved sons of Catholic Action, To Educators intending truly to follow Christine Doctrine.
A woman shall not be clothed with man' s apparel, neither shall a man use woman' s apparel: for he that doeth these things is abominable before God. Deut. 22:5 I. The first signs of our times of our late arriving spring indicate that there is this year a certain increase in the use of men's dress by girls and women, even family mothers. Up until 1959, in Genoa, such dress usually meant the person was a tourist, but now it seems to be a significant number of girls and women from Genoa itself who are choosing at least on pleasure trips to wear men's dress (men's trousers).
The extension of this behavior obliges us to take serious thought, and we ask those to whom this Notification is addressed to kindly lend to the problem all the attention it deserves from anyone aware of being in any way responsible before God.
We seek above all to give a balanced moral judgment upon the wearing of men's dress by women. In fact Our thoughts can only bear upon the moral question. (2)
Firstly, when it comes to covering of the female body, the wearing of men's trousers by women cannot be said to constitute AS SUCH A GRAVE OFFENSE AGAINST MODESTY, because trousers certainly cover more of a woman's body than do modern women's skirts.
Secondly, however, clothes to be modest need not only to cover the body but also not to cling too closely to the body. (3)Now it is true that much feminine clothing today clings closer than do some trousers, but trousers can be made to cling closer, in fact generally they do, so the tight fit of such clothing gives us no less grounds for concern than does exposure of the body. So the immodesty of men's trousers on women is an aspect of the problem which is not to be left out of an over-all judgment upon them, even if it is not to be artificially exaggerated either.
II. However, it is a different aspect of women's wearing of men's trousers which seems to us the gravest.(4)
