indignation

Hell Hath No Fury Like a Woman Told She Can’t Wear Yoga Pants

Photo: Kris Craig/AP

Throughout history, humanity has spent countless hours tackling the philosophical questions that shake us to our core and force us to examine the very nature of our existence. For instance: Does god exist? What is love? And, of course, should you wear leggings as pants or nah?

The latter is perhaps the most contentious, as proven most recently by an ill-advised letter to the editor penned by a Mr. Alan Sorrentino that was printed in the Barrington Times last Wednesday. Sorrentino pleads with women over the age of 20 to refrain from wearing yoga pants, writing:

Like the mini-skirt, yoga pants can be adorable on children and young women who have the benefit of nature’s blessing of youth. However, on mature, adult women there is something bizarre and disturbing about the appearance they make in public. Maybe it’s the unforgiving perspective they provide, inappropriate for general consumption, TMI, or the spector [sic] of someone coping poorly with their weight or advancing age that makes yoga pants so weird in public.

He also astutely noted, “Yoga pants belong in the yoga studio. What’s next? Wearing a ‘Speedo’ to the supermarket? Imagine if men did that. Yuck!”

Unsurprisingly, Sorrentino’s overt body-shaming and ageism hit a nerve with many women who just want to wear their dang comfy pants in peace — he told the Associated Press that he’s been receiving death threats since the letter was printed. And on Sunday afternoon, around 400 people marched through Barrington and past Sorrentino’s house, most of them women in yoga pants, to protest his letter. (Per the Barrington Times, also in attendance were “a group of young boys … chanting ‘Yoga pants are cool.’”) In addition to the march, the organizers collected personal hygiene items to donate to a local domestic violence organization.

With these most recent events, we can finally declare this debate over once and for all and agree on one central truth: Pants are whatever you want them to be.

Hell Hath No Fury Like a Woman Told to Not Wear Yoga Pants