There are many things I do not like about Roger Williams University. For starters, I don't like that most RWU students appear to not place value on education. I don't like that many professors reward under-researched, inarticulate, and thoughtless work with passing grades, rather than calling students on their bunk junk. I don't like that some University administrators make policy decisions based on how perceived outcomes would make the University look rather than how the student population and the quality of their education will benefit. I don't like that I am in the same senior class with a girl who asked a friend in the library the other day, "Wait, where is the Supreme Court? Like, is there more than one?"
Yet, I understand that RWU's flaws are not unique to the school; the world is full of people who have views and behaviors that I don't personally agree with. I have made peace with the good, the bad, and the ugly at RWU, and I will be proudly walking across the stage in May and getting my diploma with the University's name on it.
However, there is one school trend that I can no longer remain silent about, one article of clothing that most female students wear that makes me ashamed to be a fellow classmate of theirs.
I hate yoga pants.
I've heard that what I refer to as yoga pants, some consider to be "leggings." I'll eliminate confusion by offering a Jeff Foxworthy-esque definition: you might be wearing yoga pants if you are wearing form-fitting spandex tights and it is rainy out, or you need a self-esteem boost, or you are fulfilling exhibitionist desires, or you don't know how else to express your sexuality, or if you are wearing attire that is so skin-tight and so form-fitting that I can see your vagina.
There, I said it.
Yes, ladies of RWU, when you wear yoga pants and your shirt stops at your waist, I can see your lady parts.
Yoga pants do not count as real pants; they, unlike actual pants, reveal the intimate curvature of women's bodies with unabashed honesty.
Yoga pants are opaque nudity.
Now, I refuse to be called a pervert for noticing that sex organ of yours that is separated from me by only a thin layer of spandex. I am not asking for you to show me; you are showing me and asking me not to look. There is a difference.
And also, I understand that yoga pants are soooo frickin' comfy and that because other women wear them, you get secret female style points for publicly demonstrating your ability to be a part of a trend. I respect your right to be comfortable and to earn these points.
But I still don't like them, and I don't like how many women on this campus wear them.
I wonder, women, when you wear yoga pants, why you don't just wear a shirt, or a sweater, or a vest, or a jacket, or some article of clothing that is long enough to reach below your waist. Why is the trend to wear spandex-based, highly form-fitting pants, and not to cover your privates?
Don't you remember that scene from Little Miss Sunshine? About a specific part of a camel's foot? About the embarrassment? The awkwardness?
That's how I feel when I see you.
And it is an embarrassment and awkwardness fraught with mixed emotions. There are an abundance of very attractive women on campus and, I must admit, I don't think yoga pants are all bad. Yoga pants make butts look good, and I can't truly blame you yoga-pant wearers for wanting to flaunt. Part of me is, at heart, a yoga pants fan.
But the rest of me stubbornly objects. I can't help but feel that women who wear yoga pants have a false modesty that says, "I want to show off my body, but I am too embarrassed to be overtly sexual, so I will just wear skin-tight, curve-revealing clothing to satisfy my exhibitionist desires in socially acceptable means."
There's nothing wrong with personal empowerment, but there is something phony about the way women seem to do it by wearing yoga pants.
I get the sense that women wear yoga pants to feel sexy without getting judged as a slut, yet I see something demeaning in women wearing yoga pants and parading around their half-silhouetted vaginas all day.
I sincerely encourage you, ladies of RWU, to feel sexy and be comfortable in your own skin. But please realize this: when you are immodestly flaunting your body by wearing next-to-nothing clothes and thinking that you're still keeping it classy, the joke is on you.
Hawk's Herald staff writer, Ben Whitmore, comes screaming out of the closet.