We are loath to define what constitutes inappropriate yoga pants, but we will go so far as to say that these yoga pants are perfectly appropriate. He would need to wear a shirt and shoes if he were going to school, however.
Just about a month ago, a frequent correspondent wrote to express his surprise that so many people had commented on a Billings Gazette article about yoga pants.
He was writing the day the Gazette ran the first story about a student at Skyview High who was organizing protests against the school’s new dress code.
My correspondent said no fewer than 41 comments had already been left under the story. Meanwhile, he said, “you might get a handful of people to attend a school board meeting to witness the latest resignation of a board member,” and only a few people had commented about the city’s proposed public safety mill level, which by itself would surpass the entire mill levy for Yellowstone County.
That was a month ago.
Ed Kemmick
As of Friday, the story in question had 199 comments under it. The real flood of comments, though, started on Sept. 25, when the Gazette published a guest editorial with the sarcastic headline, “Why yoga pants are incredibly dangerous to today’s youth.”
That piece, written by Skyview graduate Ashley Crtalic, had 805 comments attached to it as of Friday, and nearly a month after it was published the piece was still the most-read story on the Gazette website.
What’s going on here?
All kinds of things. The debate involved high school, for one, an experience that some people look back on with pleasure but most with a mixture of dread, loathing and relief. Good or bad, it is an experience that remains vivid in one’s memory forever. We all talk about high school because in a way we’re all still there.
And it involved sex. The young woman in the first story, in fact, mostly objected to the apparent line of reasoning that girls had to conform to dress codes to keep sex-crazed boys from being distracted to the point of learning nothing.
Above all, I think, it was the kind of debate most people could enter and express honest opinions about without having the debate turn toxic within five minutes. If you’ve followed comment threads on same-sex marriage, abortion and the nondiscrimination ordinance, you know what I’m talking about.
I didn’t read all 805 comments under Ms. Crtalic’s guest editorial—which also appeared on her blog, from which it has been shared on Facebook more 300,000 times!—but I read enough of them to be amazed at the generally civilized tone, at the lack of name-calling and meanness.
What do I think? I think I never imagined that I’d ever weigh in on anything having to do with yoga pants, much less an article of clothing called jeggings. So let me work around the edges of a subject that seems to have been covered more than thoroughly by thousands of other people.
There were still differences. The rich kids and the beautiful girls and the stylish people always looked better than the rest of us, but unless your uniform was seriously decrepit, everything was cool. We all looked enough alike that clothing, at least, could be removed from the very long list of topics regarding which one could be tormented, teased and ostracized.
So if I had my choice, I’d say all schools should just go for the uniform. I wouldn’t go so far as to recommend that all male students wear a bolo tie with a portrait of the Virgin Mary on the clasp, but I was fond even of that.
Here’s something else: If schools are going to have the power to enforce dress codes that deal with tightness, shortness and the display of flesh, why can’t they force children to dress appropriately in regard to the weather?
I never had to deal with my daughters dressing provocatively, but it was a losing battle trying to make them dress with some consideration for the elements. By the time my third daughter was attending Senior High I had given up completely.
If she wanted to go out in a blizzard wearing shorts, a little spring jacket and what appeared to be ballet shoes, so be it. I would be there for her when she came down with pneumonia or frostbite, but I wasn’t going to waste another moment trying to talk reason with her.
She was hardly alone. I’d be driving past Senior with the heater on full blast, shivering under a heavy coat, two shirts and a sweater, and I’d see a trio of kids walking to school, two in T-shirts and no jackets and the other in flip-flops.
If school officials had insisted on coats, gloves, hats and honest-to-God shoes or boots, I would have backed them all the way. I would have testified at the School Board.
But yoga pants? I feel I’ve lived long enough and have paid enough dues that I should never have to give my opinion on yoga pants.
