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Friday, March 29
The Indiana Daily Student

Leggings are pants

Last week I got dressed to go to class and threw on a pair of leggings, to which my boyfriend said, “Leggings are not pants.”

I started to wonder why this opinion is prevalent in a society where women are free to wear whatever they want. Leggings cover my whole lower half, so why do people insist that they are not pants and should not be worn as such?

The answer I got back was that leggings are too tight and show off too much of a woman’s body. Leggings show no more skin or curves than tight skinny jeans, tight cotton skirts or daisy duke shorts. Yet these are “acceptable” for women to wear.

We need to take a step back and realize that by shaming women for wearing leggings, we are regulating how she can present herself in public. Are people really offended by a woman showing off her curves? In the words of YouTube star Laci Green, “everyone has a butt.”

We don’t go around shaming people for wearing tight shirts, so we shouldn’t  go around shaming them for tight pants.

But, the most important argument for leggings is that Audrey Hepburn wore them. No one would dare call her a slut, so stop judging the girl sitting next to you in class for her fashion choices.

Jessica Albright

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