Is it just me, or is there something slightly grotesque about writing a fashion piece on women who have never had any real choice about what they wore?

(Image © AP)

Comments

[Kim Moreland]

Sad picture, but don't they remind you of a horror movie like the *Stepford Wives* run amuck.

I know I'm streching it a bit, but from the picture, I'd say they are all brainwashed or abused.

[Steve]

Reminds me of a recent slur in these postings comparing their attire to homeschoolers, an alleged similarity I personally failed to apprehend. The commentariat tries to keep its hypocrisy under wraps, but it seems to keep bubbling up at the most awkward moments. For decades conservatives been lambasted for judging men by their appearance: the tattoo artists who turn their bodies into a cheap Salvador Dali knock-off, the hip hop crew with striped boxers and waistlines down to their thighs, or the freaks parading in downtown SF.

Now, out of nowhere it seems, it suddenly becomes PC to insult someone's choice of attire. Between this and Jeremiah Wright's rehabilitation of racial stereotyping (see today's press conference), the rules are changing faster than I can keep up.

[LeeQuod]

I'm told by my wife and daughters that after going straight from puberty to childbearing, and having three or four children by the age of twenty, a woman might feel relieved to be able to avoid showing off her figure.

I'd love to know why the various LDS groups are infused with such desperate nostalgia for the 1800s. I understand that they are firmly attached to their history, but why desire to stop the clock?

And I'll note in passing that BYU is sometimes snarkily referred to as "Breed 'em Young University". I.e., even in monogamous Mormon relationships, there's great pressure to get married and start producing children ASAP. This "fundamentalist" sect merely takes that idea to an extreme.

[Susannah]

"femininity -- the kind that is carried as a burden, rather than admired."

I think this reveals the author's biases more than it illuminates FLDS teachings.

Isn't it odd that several of the little girls of friends have commented on the "pretty dresses" they've seen on television and the magazine covers. Maybe they instinctively recognize that modesty *is* pretty and feminine. What's wrong with "LHOP style"?

I thought the piece was snarky and superficial, in just the way jr. high girls sniff at the unfashionably dressed peer.

I was under the impression that Americans didn't, as a rule, judge books by covers. Not anymore in our identity-politics obsessed culture, I guess. You've got your slummy mummies, your yummy mummies and your "amateurishly constructed...prison inmates."

If only she knew how many times I have busted a gut over the ridiculous get-ups that parade down fashion runways.

[Susannah]

I mean, how many of these women are crying themselves to sleep tonight?

And Ms. Givhan is snickering over their clothes?