Catholic Mom Claims She Feels Ashamed for Women in Leggings and Wants to Cover Their Nakedness

Maryann White, a mom of four boys, wrote an open letter appealing to women to stop wearing leggings calling the apparel “naked” and “so exposing”.

White wrote a letter to the editor of The Observer, the student-run paper of Notre Dame in Indiana, intending to share her point of view on the inappropriateness of wearing leggings. She said,

“I’m fretting both because of unsavory guys who are looking at you creepily and nice guys who are doing everything to avoid looking at you. For the Catholic mothers who want to find a blanket to lovingly cover your nakedness and protect you — and to find scarves to tie over the eyes of their sons to protect them from you!”

She narrated a moment that pushed her to write the letter, saying finally,

“The emergence of leggings as pants some years ago baffled me. They’re such an unforgiving garment. Last fall, they obtruded painfully on my landscape. I was at Mass at the Basilica with my family. In front of us was a group of young women, all wearing very snug-fitting leggings and all wearing short-waisted tops (so that the lower body was uncovered except for the leggings). Some of them truly looked as though the leggings had been painted on them.”

And she even involved the fashion industry saying they caused the trend.

“But I wonder why no one thinks it’s strange that the fashion industry has caused women to voluntarily expose their nether regions in this way. I was ashamed for the young women at Mass.”

Reacting to White’s letter, students at Notre Dame began a protest on social media to take a stand on the leggings debate. Led by the nonprofit student group called Irish 4 Reproductive Health, Leggings Pride Day was created to encourage participants of the same point of view, to wear leggings and post photos of themselves on their social media accounts as a show of unity.

Anne Jarrett, one of the organizers of the event said,

“We wanted to remind people that leggings are absolutely OK and you’re allowed to dress your body in whatever way you see fit.”