walks in the midst of your camp, to save you, and to give your enemies before you; therefore shall your camp be holy; that he should see no unclean thing in you, and turn away from you.’ Thus miniskirts are forbidden.
Trousers are worse. This is not at first obvious from the sources, for many have permitted trousers. The reasons vary:(1) they are only forbidden when they look like men’s trousers;(2) they are allowed when necessary because of heat or cold;(3) the custom of the place is the custom;(4) Sefer Hassidim permits women to disguise themselves as men and young men as women in order to save themselves at a time of persecution;(5) women’s pants differ from men’s in cut parallels;(6) the history of the acceptance of pants parallels that of the use of the mirror by men.
Opposed to this is the tendency of the Aharonim to be stringent and also the increasing transformation Maimonides ’ avoidance idolatry to avoidance of the way of non-Jews . Rabbi Jossef sees himself in this tradition. He forbids both miniskirts and trousers. Women should wear garments that fall below the
knees. He closes by saying that trousers may be preferred over miniskirts but only until the daughters of Israel are convinced to
wear modest garments.
There are a number of other responsa forbidding the wearing of trousers by women. Trousers are almost always characterized as“arrogant” and“filth.” It is hard to miss the rabbis disdain. Rabbi Eliezer Waldenberg quotes a tradition going back to the Hatam Sofer that says that our time is different from all other ages because never before have we been challenged by the licentiousness of women. He reports that“one like me who has sat for more than thirty years in the seat of a judge and knows the result of the bitterness of the destruction of many families as a result of the breaking of the yoke and the stripping away of modest clothing.””* This global statement, as well as the connection of trousers with both sexuality and feces connects the whole process with control. We seek to control others. It begins with toilet training and continues through sexual discipline. If we look back at such classic works as the Rokeah, it becomes clear that the control of the body and its fluids creates social control. It is also important to note how an article of clothing can be given an independent existence. It has a life of its own. Perhaps to put it