Some pants are stretchier than others. Image by Getty Images

Dress codes: Not just for the Knesset, it appears.

Girls traveling yesterday on a United Airlines flight were asked to change into something a little less comfortable. The story — which broke following a tweetstorm by Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America founder Shannon Watts — involves some young girls, exact age unclear, getting turned away while trying to board a domestic flight while wearing… leggings. As it turns out, the girls were traveling on a free pass intended for employees and dependents, which involves a dress code. A dress code without, evidently, much relationship to what girls in 2017 wear while traveling, or even necessarily have in their wardrobes. Leggings are what many — most? — women and girls wear these days, especially when traveling. And as anyone who’s shopped for women’s jeans in the last decade or so can attest, finding pants that aren’t leggings-like is if anything the greater challenge.

There are, I think it’s fair to say, plenty of contexts where the existence of a dress code isn’t inherently sexist. Regardless of gender, corporate lawyers — and Hasidic Jews — aren’t heading to work in yoga pants. Life is not a leggings free-for-all for all of us, at all times, and if United wants infants of all genders in business casual, so be it.

Forwarding the News

Thoughtful, balanced reporting from the Forward and around the web, bringing you updated news and analysis each day.

Terms(Required)

I agree to the Forward's Terms of Service and Privacy Policy

Email(Required)

But definitions of appropriate dress for women (and, more upsettingly, young girls) tend to have a built-in shame component. A man dressed wrong for a particular setting — or whose clothing is more snug than ideal — isn’t generally presumed to have seductive intent. Whereas if a woman’s skirt is short or top low-cut, this gets read as a message, even if (as is so often the case) the item in question was purchased several dress sizes ago ago, or shrunk in the wash. Not infrequently, the very same outfit gets to count as appropriate on one girl or woman, but not on another, simply because of a difference in build. For these reasons — and especially because children are involved — I’d urge United to give leggings-wearers a pass, even if they’re kids traveling on a pass.

Phoebe Maltz Bovy edits the Sisterhood, and can be reached at [email protected]. She is the author of “The Perils Of ‘Privilege’”, from St. Martin’s Press. Follow her on Twitter, @tweetertation

The Forward is free to read, but it isn’t free to produce

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward.

Now more than ever, American Jews need independent news they can trust, with reporting driven by truth, not ideology. We serve you, not any ideological agenda.

At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.

Readers like you make it all possible. We’re near the end of our Passover Fundraising Drive, and we have a very ambitious goal of $127,000 by April 21.

This is a great time to support independent Jewish journalism you rely on. Make a Passover gift today!

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

Make a Passover Gift Today!

$90 $180

$360

Other amount