Not much surprises me anymore with changes in the Church. I’m very pragmatic, and with my engineering mind there has to be a reason to do something a certain way. This mindset got me in trouble at home and school more times than I’d like to remember.
When the Church makes a change, in my mind it’s a “what took you so long” attitude I have. For example
- Get rid of all the redundancy in the Endowment ceremony (we will go down), it was a waste of time to begin with.
- Let Sister Missionaries wear pants? They are much more modest (less revealing) in almost all circumstances., and more comfortable.
- Men and women’s missionary age the same? Why not? What was the big deal to begin with?
- Get rid of home teaching? In our modern connected society it had out lived its usefulness and was a waste of time
- Let missionaries call home every week? I never called once in two years, but why not? What was the reason in the first place except maybe cost (in my case from Chile), which has disappeared completely years ago.
- Two hour Church. Three trips to Church in the 1970’s to one two hour visit was long over due.
- Sleeveless garments. About time. I started with the old one piece on my mission.
There are many more I could list. None surprised me. When tea and coffee are removed from the Word of Wisdom (it was a “temporary commandment” don’t you know?), I won’t be surprised.
But this last week I was surprised with the lessening of a Church related dress code. I spent last week in Laie Hawaii with my elderly parents and my siblings (we are old but not quite “elderly”). We had all lived there a long time ago, and in fact my sister was born there. One morning I was on a walk with my dad and we were in front of the temple when my dad recognized the granddaughter of a close friend of his walking the opposite direction of us towards school (BYU-H). They exchanged greeting with a hug, and talked a little. She said she was on her way to class and needed to hurry, so we said goodbye and off she went.
This was my surprise; she was wearing a crop top showing a clear three inches of her stomach. She was wearing cut off jean shorts that came several inches above her knee, with the normal stings hanging from typical cut offs. She was wearing flipflops (called slippers or “slippahs” in Hawaii). Now I knew BYU-H had a little laxer dress code, but I was not prepared for this. Now, she did not look at all immodest or out out of place with kids on most high school or collage campuses (excepting BYU-I and BYU-P). It seems more practical people are making decisions at BYU-H.
I take this as a positive step of the Church stepping out of the 19th century and moving into the 21st. (they skipped right over the 20th!). I also believe that they need to do this to keep the current generation of youth.
Did any of you know this about BYU-H dress code? If not does it surprise you?
What are your thoughts?
Wheat & Tares 
The outfit you’ve described does not comply with the BYU-H dress code. What has changed (in my experience) is that far fewer people at the various BYUs are interested in enforcing the policy. Whether the lack of emphasis and enforcement qualifies as a change in policy is, I suppose, a point that could be argued.
For what it’s worth, the BYU and BYU-H dress and grooming standards are identical. It states, in part,: “Be modest in fit and style. Dressing in a way that would cover the temple garment is a good guideline, whether or not one has been endowed.”
Dressing for the climate is a great idea. I wonder how much body the garments would cover if Church HQ was located in the tropics and didn’t have air conditioning. Allowing crop tops and sleeveless tops acknowledges that comfort matters. Overheating for the Lord is just not necessary.
The dress codes had a lot to do with modesty. Women have pushed back hard on the teaching that they are responsible for keeping men’s thoughts pure. Perhaps that message is getting through. There is nothing sinful about a crop top, for either men or women. If it’s hot outside and a crop top is comfortable, then wear it.
I welcome any future changes to the official LDS dress code, as written for any BYU. I hope garments get a redesign to allow for scoop necklines and shorts that reach mid-thigh instead of the knee. I wish the changes would come with acknowledgments that past teachings were really over the top in trying to justify policies that had outlived their usefulness. That won’t happen and people get to gripe about that because those teachings really did affect us.
You were on the temple grounds and she was headed in the direction of campus and she said she was on her way to class, but is it possible she was en route to a non-BYU/off-campus class (like some personal interest or a private tutorial or study club)? Or that being in a hurry to get to class was her graceful way of exiting the conversation and moving on with her day? A scenario like this is seems more likely to me than the Church changing BYU dress codes, but as evidenced by your list above, changes (thankfully) do happen. Elder Bednar (of all the apostles!) said in a training session I was at in about 2018, if we have a problem with change then we are in the wrong church.
This is a clear example of the Dua Lipaization of society that is becoming ever more prevalent. This is going to far.
There was a time when people sought to look there best at all times. They sought to make a good impression to everyone. They knew that success in business, society, and life in general is dependent on dressing for success. They would wear their Sunday best to baseball games.
Not everyone can be a professional singer and we have far too many already. Yet, the vast majority of young women are dressing like that on a daily basis. That is, when they bother to get out of their pajamas at all.
In the interest of fairness, it must be mentioned that this is not a problem exclusive to young women. If anything, young men are winning the race of sloppy dress. They appear to be aiming for a cross between a bearded Bon Jovi and crazed circus clown.
Let us expect more than this. Young people are capable of more.
I was just going to say exactly what DaveW just said. The recommended dress has not changed. What is in the process of changing is the common member’s willingness to obey arbitrary rules based on what a bunch of very old men are comfortable with. This is just a case of a young woman ignoring the recommended dress code and dressing for her comfort not the male gaze. It gets hot where she lives, so it is most sensible to dress with fewer layers. Good for her.
On one trip to Hawaii my husband and I got sick, headache, nausea, general just sick. We were at the Polynesian Cultural Center, and really did not feel good enough to enjoy the day after paying our arm and leg to get in. It was hot and humid and we were trying to be good Mormons and the heat and humidity were killing us. We left after only half a day. Back at our hotel we ran into fellow Mormons we knew—-obviously not in “appropriate” good Mormon clothing. Yup, we ditched our TGs. Then we bought a few bottles of Gator Aid and some potato chips because after thinking of the symptoms, plain water just doesn’t replenish what you sweat out. Enjoyed the rest of the trip so much more by dressing SENSIBLY for the climate.
I have seen the same with the Word of Wisdom. People are just quietly ignoring the parts of it that are stupid, I said as I am sipping my second cup of coffee. I drink coffee because it helps my ADHD and my daughter is currently in the process of having all her teeth pulled because the ADHD medicine her doctors gave her destroyed all her tooth enamel. Coffee is nasty as sin and I start by buying the mildest kind, then make it half strength, then add a good dose of cinnamon and other spices, sweetener, and cream until it is unrecognizable as coffee. See, coffee is the sensible way to stop bouncing off the walls, and not suffer nasty side effects. Caffeine in the stimulant with the fewest nasty side effects for long term use. And for stupid old men to forbid it because “God said so” while other plants are used as medicine all the time is kind of silly. Do they want me to ruin my teeth? No thanks. My son was told by his doctor to start drinking green tea. He looked at his very (self)righteous mother in law who drinks green tea and how he thought she was stretching things and decided to do better than MIL. So he takes green tea capsules ??? Talk about straining at a gnat. Logically he should just follow his doctor’s advice and follow the actual WoW as given to us as advice, not commandment. But the brethren in their zeal turned general advice about not scalding your throat by drinking scalding hot drinks into a commandment to avoid things that may have side effects and need to be used with WISDOM into a commandment it was never intended to be.
The church changed it stance on birth control because people were just ignoring the church leaders advice. It changed the nagging about caffeinated soda after even GAs were blatantly ignoring the prohibition as silly. I could name other things the church has changed because the members ignored them, but our church is led by public opinion more than it is led by God. I know, Jack will be horrified that I feel this way, but that is my observation after 70+ years of hanging around. So, more power to those who do what makes sense rather than blindly following church leaders.
Walking around BYU Provo these days sounds like that (well, not in winter, but in the spring). Girls have lots of ear piercings, a few nose rings, most girls in crop tops, short shorts. I am very grateful times are changing. Man (literally) looketh on the outward appearance, the Lord looketh at the heart. Girls in crop tops mean nothing more than that’s the style. They are not “unfaithful.” (It is weird though with the other retrenchment going on at BYU.)
Shhhhh… keep it down Bishop Bill! Can you imagine the reaction if general authorities are reading this blog. You could single handedly cause retrenchment and a stricter enforcement of the dress code at BYU-H. Be cool man.
When I started at BYU-H, we were able to wear board shorts and hats to class. Then we got a new president and he banned those things, which led to my “Got hates hats” t-shirts.
My daughter is currently there, I’ll forward your article to her and see what she says.
My daughter says that there has been a softening of the dress code, sort of like they did with the for strength of youth pamphlet. There’s no specific rule about crop tops, but it does say to use garments as your guide.
She says teachers will call it out and remind students that they signed the honor code, but for class they generally leave it up to the student’s interpretation of the dress code. At other places like the cafeteria, library, and testing center, there’s less room for individual interpretation and they are more strict about what older people imagine the dress code would look like, in order to get your meals and check out books.
My daughter is attending BYU Provo. I live in the Mormon Corridor, so I’m actually on campus fairly frequently to meet up with her for lunch or dinner, attend concerts and sporting events, etc.
When my daughter was a freshman several years ago, I was pretty surprised at what students were wearing. It’s been a while, so I don’t recall whether there were crop tops, but there were definitely quite short shorts and skirts and lots of exposed shoulders. I ate with her in the dorm cafeteria a number of times, and there didn’t seem to be any effort to police what students were wearing.
The most annoying thing my daughter encountered was dress code enforcers in the BYU athletic facilities (Richards Building, etc.). She likes to run, so she’d sometimes go for a run in very normal running shorts. After running, she’d go lift weights at BYU, and BYU had staff specifically hired to check for dress code violations. My daughter was frequently forced to leave because of this. She noted that BYU athletes—who were often in the same building but had dedicated (and much nicer) workout rooms—were excluded from enforcement. The athletes wore much more revealing workout clothes (sports bras and short spandex shorts), but the dress code enforcers left them alone. It was a really strange double standard.
As others have mentioned, the BYU schools seem to have made changes that corresponded closely with the For the Strength of Youth revisions. After returning from her mission, my daughter found that the dress code enforcers in the athletic facilities have disappeared, so all students can now wear what they want to work out.
It feels to me like BYU Provo is slowly drifting toward students wearing the same kinds of clothes you’d find at any other college campus. It will likely get there without more active enforcement—though it does feel like a situation where some high-level Church leader will visit (it seems like something like this would keep someone like Clark Gilbert up at night!), be shocked at what students are wearing, and decide to lay down the hammer with more rules and enforcement. Only time will tell.
Follow the Prophet! And the Prophet will follow the culture…20. years later.
Cosmo, banning hats in a hot sunny environment has to border on the criminal! There are a number of health consequences that can result, (speaking as someone who is especially susceptible to sunstroke, even in the UK climate).
Anna, I do like isotonic drinks in the sticky humid summers in the UK, and especially in the very hot sticky summers in Japan. They’re essential. My favourite has to be the aptly named Pocari Sweat.
What separates the Holy from the Profane if each individual choose their own standard?
Personally, I just hope the dress code in heaven is not a white robe. I much prefer khakis and a t-shirt or polo. As for what the women wear, it seems women are most judgmental about that. Gals, your team can be really funny some times.
CosmoTheCat, thanks for the report from an on campus reporter! That make sense, and is more in tune with “teach them correct principles and let them guild themselves” philosophy than the “do what I say” rules that have guided the Church for so long.
Disciple, your ignorance of power dynamics is showing. Men put women in the position of policing other women. The best way to gain power in a man’s world is to please the men, not by fighting against them. So, women enforce the rules that keep the men happy. Otherwise, the women lose what little power they have. It is like as Relief Society President, it was my job to make sure RS was run the way the bishopric wanted it run. At welfare meeting, they passed out my assignments. If I helped someone without letting the bishopric discuss it first, they would have released me. It was not my job to make the women happy, but it was my job to make the men who had power over me happy. So, of course it is young women’s leaders making sure the YW are dressed “properly” and “properly” means not wearing clothing that the *men* see as sexy. Read Handmaids Tale and pay particular attention to the “aunts”. Even the slaves had black supervisors who enforced rules of the master. So, yes, OF COURSE it is women enforcing the men’s rules for how women dress. But it is not the women causing the problem to start with. It is the a**hat men saying the young women are walking porn. That guy has been lusting after girls and feels guilty so he blames the girls. Then the women jump in and shame the girls for being attractive enough to make some old guy wish he could still get it up. But who do you think those women are trying to curry favor with? So, yes women are human enough to try to get what little power they can by being toadies for the people with more power. But the buck still stops at those with the most power, which in our society is almost always men.
Anna, will you marry me? I need your analysis and wisdom every damn day. Well, maybe not marry, because I don’t want to move or make room for another person in my maximalist house, but maybe if you would post every day? ( Is “maximalist” the new word for “hoarder”?)
Anna,
The wife of a church leader complains to her husband about her disapproval of the conduct of the sisterhood. She initiates the complaint! The husband feels compelled to honor his wife’s wishes so he acts accordingly.
You say this is the “masculine power dynamic”. I say this is women policing their kind.
You seem to be arguing that women are always the victim of the masculine culture. I don’t buy that. I see women as very adept at their own power games. But I can see the benefit of women deflecting their responsibility for these games by blaming men.
She made me do it…
Disciple, bullshit.
First of all, that is not likely to happen about things like how women dress. Those complaints come from men.
If a woman complains to her husband about other women’s dress, it is because she is having trouble doing her job as an enforcer of male standards. Women simply are not bothered by seeing other women half dressed. So, you claiming what you are claiming is kinda stupid.
I have been in the position of being told by the bishop that it was my job to tell the women that the men were objecting to their dress as immodest. I was supposed to lecture the women on how they were dressing for the heat in Florida and not to properly cover the garments they may or may not have been supposed to wear. Yeah, I didn’t and was released shortly after.
So, you are telling me that my experience never happened. Excuse me while I write you off as a sexist a**.
Anna,
You write “Women simply are not bothered by seeing other women half dressed.”
I know this is an incorrect statement. For I am married to a woman and I have two married daughters. All three complain about what they perceive to be immodest female dress. I’ve heard them complain!!!!!
Why do you assume that your feelings are what all women feel? Can you not see how stunningly egotistical your argument is? Why can you not accept that women have different opinions? There are women who disagree with you and their disagreement is of their free will and not because some man made them do it!
If the women in your life are complaining about how other women dress, they are either bored, creepy or trying to placate you. In any case, so sorry…
Well, when I was a teenager. my mother complained about how I dressed. Fifty years later, I still dress the same. I also do not make my bed. I am clearly a heathen.
Upon reflection, why my fashionable mother thought her plebeian daughter should dress better, I shan’t venture a guess.
Women who complain about how other women dress are generally doing this because they are inculturated by patriarchal norms to do so, but what Disciple seems to be describing is the way women tear each other down to prove that they are the “right” kind of woman, the “good” girl, the desirable partners to men, not like those sluts and whores and attention seekers or the fatties and slobs or the ones who “lack self-esteem” and show off their bodies or the ones who “can’t go without having a boyfriend” or all the other tropes you hear. These are all things women are taught to say about other women in a patriarchal society for self-preservation. It’s not about the women they are criticizing. It’s because in criticizing other women, they prove they are better than those “bad” women.
My mother also used to criticize the way I dressed, often on the basis that it’s related to which men will want you. I dressed for my own comfort, a notion that is very threatening to women whose discomfort is a honey trap for patriarchal men.
Disciple, yes, women have been taught that scantily dress is an invitation to be raped. Yes, women have been taught that only hookers dress scantily. Yes, women have been taught for CENTURIES by men that how they dress is important and determines their value. Yes, women judge other women. What I am saying is this modesty stuff STARTS with men. Yes, it is enforced by women. Yes, I made sure my own daughters dressed in “acceptable modest clothing.” Yes, I have looked at a woman and thought she looked like a cheap ho. Nothing you have said changes that this STARTS with men. Yes, I grew up in this culture and was taught that women are responsible for men’s thoughts if they look at me and think about sex. Yes, your wife and daughters grew up in this culture and got the same lectures at church about modesty, the same lessons in YWs, all taught by women. That does not change that women are taught to do it FOR the men so the babies won’t be tempted by our bodies. We are taught to police other women and judge other women. That does not make the problem start with women. It just makes women part of a male dominated culture. The whole thing would disappear if men disappeared. And sometimes men like you make me wish men would just disappear. Because you seen incapable of learning from anyone and unwilling to see the world from a different perspective.
You know, you don’t help me respect men any. You just make me grateful that my husband and son are not like you.
I know this starts with men because I have experienced being instructed to police other women. And like I said, when I didn’t obey, they tried to punish me by taking away what little power they gave me.
And to you maybe I sound arrogant because I am sticking up for my experience and things I have learned by earning three degrees in human behavior. So, I’ll be arrogant while you are just stupid. See, I can throw insults right back. If you want, we could even have a food fight.🤪 I can act just as immature as you can. Yes, you pissed me off. Nothing to be proud of as tRump does it daily.
Men need to learn how to look at a woman even if she is naked and see a human being, not just a sex object. And you need it more than most.
Anna,
In the “Little Mermaid” it was the sea witch “Ursula” who told Ariel that she didn’t need a voice because she had “body language”. A man didn’t tell Ariel this. A woman did.
I marvel at your sophistry. You blame men for everything and in the process you demean women! You reject women who do not think as you and say their opinions do not matter. Your brand of Feminism is so rotten and morally flawed.
Can you not accept that women disagree with you because they disagree with you, and not because they have sold out to men? It is so convenient to you to argue that anyone who disagrees with you has sold out to “men”. But that is a shortcut that simply reveals how shallow and lame your Feminism is.
A Disciple, you do know that the Little Mermaid isn’t real right. It’s a fairy tale, written by a man; that the Disney animation was written and directed by men.
You might benefit by watching some short YouTube videos discussing the difference in portrayal of characters in Disney, compared with Ghibli animations. In the latter the characters get to be rounded people instead of sexist tropes.
Just saying but ‘sleeveless’ garments don’t exist in my world as a skinny woman with narrow shoulders. I now have capped sleeves that slip down my arms rather than a small sleeve I can secure with a bra strap in either heavy or sweaty fabric. I do appreciate them being more cut away under the arm pit for the sake of hygeine. The only advantage.
All my clothes now look like they have padded shoulders which then ride over my chest with movement disincentivising normal activities.
Wow. I did not expect to read that Ursula the Sea Witch is now being held up as a bastion of feminist freedom and womanly wisdom and that criticizing her (fictional) advice is tantamount to selling out the sisterhood. That’s quite a take.
You know, something that always makes me squint at a comment and think, “that’s not really the strong argument you think it is.” It’s when a conservative man points to his wife and daughters and says that he knows what they think about a topic. Conservative men arguing that women completely agree with him is … well, what happens if they disagree with him? I know from my own experience in being in close family relationships with conservative men that, if you express a liberal opinion, the man lets you know that you’re wrong. And he keeps talking just two minutes longer than you (the woman) keep talking. Because once you’ve stopped verbally disagreeing with him, he figures that you (the woman) agree with him and that gets him to shut up. Finally.
And in fact! A woman may say what she knows her husband wants to hear just to avoid getting lectured. But he doesn’t see it as a lecture, of course. He’s teaching. He’s explaining. He’s giving her a chance to reconsider her viewpoint. It’s a chore to disagree with a man.
Back in my most faithful days, I also sorta kinda sneered at women who dressed immodestly. Because I had been taught from a young age that I was supposed to disapprove of immodest clothing. Once I got out of the church and re-thought all my opinions, I realized that I don’t need to judge women by what they wear. I don’t have to approve or disapprove. I just co-exist with women regardless of what they’re wearing.
Poor unfortunate souls
Not sure I should mention it, especially in these political times. but Ursula was based on Divine.
And Howard Ashman, another Baltimore denizen, was the lyricist.
Why did I just know that Disciple could not let the argument go? He just has to have the last word. Oh, because as Janey said, conservative men just keep talking until the women shut up because they are exhausted and know he would never change his mind if he got hit by a freight train.
And I guess he proved my point by saying that Ursula said whatever. When those words were literally put in her mouth by the men who wrote and directed Little Mermaid. Too funny. Just too funny.
I had a neighbor, may he RIP, who, when his family was growing, refused to allow his children to watch “The Little Mermaid.” I had all girls, so when his daughters wanted to watch it, they came over to our house. His rationale was that Mirium didn’t listen to and rebelled against her father. Me, I wanted my girls to be strong and to stand up for who they were and what they believed.
Thinking about all that’s been said about this post, I can’t fathom how someone would want their daughters to be second to anyone. I’m proud of my girls. They have changed me and opened up my eyes to new ways of looking at things. As my oldest said to me once, and the other girls seconded, “Dad, you’ve raised some powerful women.” I don’t know what I did, but they have good jobs, are changing the world, and don’t back down when they are challenged and right. I’m proud of them.
Anna,
Reasons for why men act the way they do and why women act the way they do are much more nuanced than your simplistic argument of “The Patriarchy”. My main complaint about your argument is how dismissive it is of women who do not agree with your opinions. I simply marvel that you cannot allow women to think for themselves if what they think does not agree with your ideology.
You assert “all women think this way” and then when I point out that not all women think that way your response is the women who do not think your way are manipulated by men. That is incredibly lame. It really is.
I enjoy this forum because it provides a diversity of ideas and opinions. But your rejection of women as intelligent, independent minded persons is stunning. You are expressing contempt of women that would make the worst misogynists proud.
A Disciple,
Feminism is really just believing women. Period. Even when what they say is not what we expect. I know you are thinking right now that is exactly your point, but did you really listen to Anna? She gave an alternate explanation for the reasons for the actions of the women in your family, and you did not even engage at all. You were threatened by what she said, otherwise what cause did you have to fear her answer? I do believe your answer was based in fear – because there was no curiosty on your part to gain any further understanding of what she was saying. She was explaining her and many other women’s experience when dealing with men who do not listen because they think they already have the answer. To whit; you never addressed the point several women brought up that Ursula was not a legitimate example, because it was a man who wrote the lines….a man literally put the words in her mouth. If you asked your wife and daughters to explain why they were complaining about the immodestly dressed woman, and really listened to them, I am willing to bet that as they explained what bothered them it would come down to fear; fear for that woman, fear for other women, and especially fear for women who might follow her example. What are they afraid of?
The paradigm Anna illustrated is the reality for many women I know. To men it looks like some women “police” other women for prestige, or power, but really most of the time it is for safety. They know (subconsciously at the very least) that the “scantily” clad woman is in danger, and they cannot protect her or other women/girls they care about by confronting, appealing to, or just trusting in the better nature of men who have been socialized to believe that they are not/do not have to be responsible for their own thoughts and subsequent actions, so they attempt to influence the woman to change/conform so she is not in danger.
The Savior said “whosever looketh on a (person) to lust after (them), hath committed adultery with (them) already in (their) heart”. There is no caveat to that in the scripture, but our society adds multiple descriptions of “unless…”; and that list of incredibly subjective caveats goes on for miles. As men, we do not have to keep track of the caveats, because they do not impact us directly, but they do impact all the women in our lives, and if you listen and watch the women in your life, you will gradually realize that they have to know all of the caveats, otherwise if a man lusts after her and acts on that lust in any way, she is held responsible for it. Since there is also no possible way for any woman to follow all of the caveats, a man can always find a way to escape accountability. It would be better if the men were held accountable, as the Savior does/will and as taught in the scriptures, because then women would not have anything to worry about.
Anything you come up with to give exception to my statement, such as saying that this is just the world we live in, proves Anna’s point, and also leads me to believe that you do not hold men accountable, and feel that controlling women is easier. If we men hold other men accountable, and call each other out when the “exceptions” are given, that is how our society will change.