Relationships July 17, 2017
One trouser at a time.
It was just announced on June 28 that women in the LDS Church (the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints) will offer paid maternity leave for full-time, benefited employees in the U.S. as well as allowing women to wear dress slacks or pantsuits in the church.
You know what that means:
But in all seriousness, it’s a very big step forward for gender equality and progressive thinking. It’s symbolic of women actually being able to acquire power, and wear the pants, so to speak.
This new movement, along with another relatively recent change, which lowered the age for women to be able to go on mission from 21 to 19, is slowly closing the gap of the intense gender hierarchy.
The LDS Church has also recently updated their stances on same-sex attraction and abortion. The Church’s views are still mostly conservative, as both topics are still frowned upon. However, they are more empathized with and no longer call for excommunication, unless openly, defiantly disregarding the original values of the Church.
Along with the dress code change and the paid maternity leave movements, employees of the LDS Church, both at the Salt Lake City headquarters and church-owned colleges, will now provide partially-paid sick days. If the church employee is ill, injured or disabled for seven days, they can receive two-thirds of their salary from the next eight days to 45 days. This is not specific to either gender, but healthcare considerations are definitely appreciated.
But honestly, I’m still stuck on the pants rule.
I am so jazzed for these women who can finally be comfortable at work and in church, but stunned that it took this long. It is 2017. We’ve had a woman run for president and win the popular vote. We made a movie about three amazing African-American women working for NASA. Beyoncé has existed for 35 years so far. And Mormon women are just now allowed to wear pants in church?
Pants don’t hurt anyone! And these are dress pants, slacks or pantsuits, nothing offensive or provocative, still business-casual. It should have been a no-brainer. It shouldn’t have been up for debate this whole time. The LDS Church is right to allow it, but like so many institutions, shouldn’t have prevented the freedom in the first place.
Let’s hope this dress code reform inspires a similarly empowering dress code everywhere (which, in my opinion, should be no dress code enforced for any reason, period).
