Calm down dear - they're only a pair of tights

Ms Ruth Butler on mlive.com is getting her pants in a pile about pantyhose.

Although she does not say so explicitly, Ms Butler is trying to set up a connection in the reader's mind between pantyhose and the oppressive female clothing of yesteryear:

"Layers, corsets, bustles. No wonder women got the vapors back in more regal times. Who could breathe?

My mother’s generation had girdles: iron mistresses that defied gravity: Just try to wiggle your derriere! No match for the 18-hour girdle. My grandmother talked about garments with “stays” and “bones”: spiny materials inserted for support, not comfort.

Such things never really disappear. Undies that are the equivalent of being wrapped in an oversized Ace bandage are popular now. And uncomfortable bras have always been with us."

Are tights from a bygone age?

  Now tights are nothing like this.  They are outer wear.  They are a fashion statement or maybe even a work of leg art.  Tights don't attempt to re-shape our bodies (well the odd pair of control tops apart).  They allow us to display our legs without them being perfect.  Bare legs are fine, but who wants the pain of a waxing?  Better shaving every now and then and using tights to hide the little hairs, or the larger hairs in the case of opaques.

What is most uncomfortable?  Waxing or opaque tights?

Now I agree there are draw backs of tights.  I laddered a new pair only yesterday.  (Boots the Chemist 10 denier tan "tall and fuller figure"  from 5 pack if you must know.  I am both tall and "fuller figure").  Even ladders may not be a draw back, I watched my (male) companion for the afternoon eying up our waitresses' legs.  As far a know he's not "into" tights, but they made her legs look good despite the ladder down the back.

Twists, sags and runs and her legs still look great

"The twists, the turns, the snags and holes. The ill fit".

But its just not tights that are uncomfortable.  I have a really scratchy pair of suit pants (trousers).  Tights and a skirt or loose shorts can be less restrictive that tight pants.

Tights with a comfortable informal dress

A telling paragraph in the article is:

"And now, pantyhose are back. What a lady will wear. Once, they were the symbol of what made women strong, resolute and able to face life with a sense of humor. Deal with them, you can deal with anything." (My emphasis)

They can deal with it

  They can still be a symbol of our strength.  I was watching a couple of sales girls today - one in tan tights, one in patterned tights - outselling their male colleagues hands down.  And not just to men who might have come to look at their legs.

Selling in tights

The media get the blame as if we girls can't think for ourselves

"Blame “Mad Men.” While some fans get all woozy over its style and characters, the successful ’60s-era AMC series has resurrected an interest in women in cone-cupped bras, in dresses made for posing, not moving."

 Tights technology has come on since the 1960s.  Lycra for a start.  Tights are just as much a part of modern as retro styles.

Tights but not as they knew them in the 1950s and 60s

Finally I must mention that Ms Butler has a bash at the real love of my life.

"You know how those damsel-in-distress movies have a scene of a woman, fleeing from an attacker/zombie/slasher, down the street, through the woods, across the field?  And what does she do every time? Trips and falls. And why? Usually because she’s wearing high heels."

Shoes off ready for slasher attack?

 Of course she could take them off and run in her stocking feet.  And those heels are lethal weapons for taking out a slashers eye.

Killer's heels?