The Spandex Battalion
What has the world become that women, in the dozens—or even the hundreds or thousands—(hopefully not millions), have no regard for their dress. They reveal every part of themselves that the women of old once cherished as sacred. The women of today, in an odd social movement for improper dress, have adopted a wardrobe that features one material above all: spandex.
Spandex is certainly no apparel for a dignitary. It is a synthetic fiber, and anything synthetic to wear on the skin is meant for a very solidly middle or lower tier of society. Spandex was once primarily used as a supplement to add elasticity to garments, for example on the waist line of a pant to allow more flexibility. It had no purpose in the center of attention to where it has now moved. At first surreptitiously, but now visibly and brazenly, spandex is seen at every turn of head, at every glance of the eye; it is the featured piece of clothing. And that shift has changed the world as we know it.
No longer is there a semblance of class or status in women’s dress. Women of all ages, shapes, and sizes proudly and boldly throw on a pair of spandex leggings under a baggy T-shirt or a tiny crop top as they enter public spaces. They show more skin than they leave covered. Much to the chagrin of innocent passersby, the women of old have disappeared.
Those women of old wore actual clothes that left their curvature to the imagination. Those women of old wore actual clothes that did not reveal the shape of their buttocks and breasts. Those women, if they wore spandex at all, wore it behind the closed doors of a gym or a yoga class. They would shower and change into their proper clothes before exiting the venue. A hint of gaucherie would prove nocuous to their status as women; it would certainly hinder them from the highest status of men.
However, the women of today have a different view. Some women of today care little for the attention of men, whether high or low status. Other women of today believe the men should hold them in high esteem, no matter how tawdry their appearance. No matter how little effort they have taken to present themselves as respectable women, their status, after all, as queens remains unchanged.
The women of today define their immodesty as their right. Quite absurdly, they champion tomes of doctrines that chastise men for objectifying women in the most lustrous of ways, only to present themselves in those lustrous fashions.
Spandex is not only an unbecoming choice of clothing, it is also a sign of laziness. Of all the selections within a woman’s ever expanding walk-in closet, with dozens of designer handbags and high heels, that she would select spandex as her daily attire might well suggest that she rather not take the time to present herself in a manner of elegance.
The matter of spandex might be comical to observe. But make no mistake, it is no humorous affair. The proliferation of women in spandex is by no uncertain estimation a mark of a society in or in the midst of decline. For a women in spandex has no regard to take care of herself. The same woman can have no concern for properly dressing her children (that is, if she has any at all). She cannot be concerned to care for her family or her society or preserve her culture. She can only have concern for defending her right to act as she pleases, at any time that she chooses. The mass adoption of spandex reflects a movement of women away from all norms and expectations of society. A movement with plenty of skin in the game of building absolutely no community.
As goes Chivalry, Modesty goes. The modern world.
I understand Amara’s point, fully! And so I find it odd that the same group of western women who came to our villages to call (even derided our societies that) our women (walked around) “naked” are invariably themselves stripping naked right before our very own eyes. Of course back then, they wanted to sell us their cheaply made clothing made from the cotton grown by African Slaves in the US, and hewn by Indian artisans working the cotton mills of the British in India in the production of yarns.
Now they want to sell our women another thing: Spandex. Meanwhile the crafty nature of this sales pitch is couched in the first instance as “civilization,” or “progress,” and then in this (second) instance as “feminism or female emancipation” of some sort. I find the whole lack of agency (urgency) on our part to decipher the western cunning for their mercantilism as troubling and unnerving.
That’s truly a remarkable observation…come to think of it the “righteousness” of the west rings bells. Everything they do, has to be called “progress” and everything we did, has by and large been relegated to the doldrums of something else they made up – primitivism. Yet the bells of primitivism ring loud over their own heads as they dance about anytime they want to sell the rest of the word anything and everything. Spandex too has become a sign of progress. Women wear it, and their men are wearing it too! Soon, nakedness too will become a symbol for progress so long as the west can sell us Nakedness!