Women, Fashions, and the Decline of Society

I now fully understand Chesterton when he writes in What’s Wrong with the World about a reason why women did not need the right to vote. It is because they already rule – they rule the home and therefore society. Women are society’s center. They are the moral standard. What women allow, do, and say will set the tone for all of society. This has been interpreted (from Genesis) as the reason that the serpent went after the woman first. If you want to destroy a society, you must start with the women. Everything else will come down with them.

Bl. Jacinta Marto recalls what Our Blessed Mother spoke to her and the other two children in 1917. “Certain fashions will be introduced which will offend our Lord very much. Persons who serve God must not follow fashions. The Church does not have fashions; Our Lord is always the same. The sins of the world are very great. …”

Women have allowed themselves to become corrupted by the ways of the world. Pants as women’s wear have been around for “so long” that many young girls and women do not think twice about what this says for women as a whole. Giuseppe Cardinal Siri tells us that male dress changes the psychology of women. Male dress tends to vitiate relationships between men and women. And male dress harms the dignity of the mother in her child’s eyes.

Pope Pius XII says this in “Allocution to the Girls of Catholic Action” May 22, 1941:

“Some young ladies may remark that a certain form of dress is more convenient, or even more hygienic; but if it becomes a grave and proximate danger for the soul, it is certainly not hygienic for the spirit, and you must reject it. … And if simply for one’s own pleasure, one has not the right to endanger the physical health of others, is it not still less licit to compromise the health, or rather the very life, of their souls?

“If, as some women say, a bold fashion does not leave them with any evil impressions, how can they know anything of the impression made on others? Who can assure them that others do not draw therefrom incentives to evil? …

“Oh, how truly was it said that if some Christian women could only suspect the temptations and falls they cause in others with modes of dress and familiarity in behavior, which they unthinkingly consider as of no importance, they would be shocked by the responsibility which is theirs.”

All women must understand “the responsibility which is theirs”, mainly, the life of their souls and the souls of others. We must remember that the way we dress, act, and speak represents our femininity, which is beautiful and God-given and must be protected. We must not and do not need to dress and act like men in order to be respected and have equal rights. It is only when we are truly feminine is our dress, words, and actions that we will be given the full respect and dignity due us.