Two friends and I had a blog called Don’t Do That where we ranted about things we liked and didn’t like. We didn’t like white tights or pantyhose with open-toed shoes. This did not go over well with a certain group, who expressed their displeasure through dozens of comments that boiled down to “you are ugly, hose are great, allow me to say this in the creepiest way possible.” Three years after we abandoned the blog, we still get one or two comments a month. That’s dedication. Which is why I decided to pay, um, tribute?–sure, let’s go with tribute–to them by remaking their insults into a poem.
womens who wear skirts with no hose look funny
leather shoes should really be worn with some sort of textile insulation
and they look great with shorts
fabrics today make them easier
you would never wear pantyhose for your boyfriend husband?
you clearly know nothing about sexuality or the opposite sex ladies
guys want girls to be girls not this
politicly lesbian correct
society that we live in
I think it’s fairly representative of men as a whole population
it is not a question of yes or no
they are making a come back
most look awful, especially their knees
cute in a “pure” kind of way but nothing wrong with that
I’ve personally seen
the women
have you ever seen a woman
that is wearing some type of hose
what a dillusional hose-hater
trying to make women less sexy and appealing by trying to brainwash them
(I wear pantyhose everyday even in the summer with sandals)
its somewhat a part of the
feminist
movement
to get women not to wear hose as little as possible
(I wear shorts with hose as well)
pantyhose are the most sexiest piece of clothing a woman can wear
wearing pantyhose with sandals also tends to keep your feet clean
maybe it’s a weird fetish thing?
llustrator: Esther C. Werdiger writes, draws, and podcasts in New York. She’s not quitting her day job, because that’s how she has her visa.
Tags: esther werdiger, humor, lyette mercier, pantyhose, poetry, there will be a more serious post about pantyhose later today
They look good with shorts ha ha ha
I wonder how many hose defenderes actually just don’t know the difference between hose and tights? Or office lady pantyhose and sexxxy thigh highs? (not that I would go so far as to say shorts with tights looks good, but it is a thing)
Dillusional hose-hating lesbians of the world unite!
I am pro pantyhose in Fall/Winter, and am team bare legs in Spring/Summer. My faves are the ones with the black seam up the back!
Fucking TIGHTS. I can’t think of a worse garment. They itch and tickle and the crotch ends up down by your knees. My mum said in a weird way old-fashioned stockings were more practical because the garterbelt held them in place and your bits didn’t get all hot and itchy.
But I have a large leg tattoo so in summer for work it’s either stick in trousers or skirt with tights.
I’ll take tights over pantyhose any day. I think they’re softer, sturdier, and stay in place better. Besides, I don’t think I’ve EVER had a pair of pantyhose survive a whole day without getting an enormous run/ladder in them–usually I can’t even get them on without starting one.
K, so I’m confuzzled. Aren’t tights and pantyhose the same thing, but americans use pantyhose?
Tights are any long ‘hose’ (Nylon, cotton, wool, bamboo, doesn’t matter) with a ‘pants’ bit sown in. Is that not pantyhose?
Aren’t stockings (No ‘pants’ bit) just regular ‘hose’?
tights:
Stockings:
Hold-ups:
THey can be any thickness
Sidebar: WHAT is happening with those shoes in the last picture??
They are very very pointy and awful
No, not in American. In American, tights are opaque and usually made out of a stronger and more comfortable material, pantyhose are nylon and sheer.
They’re the same thing here. They’re just ‘tights’ and are then further trickled down according to design, main material and opacity.
So, for early winter I may wear opague wool or even fleece-lined tights but for late spring I might wear sheer nylon tights.
Nooooooo. Tights are sturdier and meant to be used multiple times. Pantyhose is much more sheer and often gets a run within two seconds.
APPARENTLY WE SPEAK THE SAME LANGUAGE
But nooooo
This is annoying me far more than it should
My mind right now: ‘They’re FUCKING TIGHTS NO MATTER HOW THICK THEY ARE GDI AMERICA’
Hopefully, you were spared the confusion then of the Hairpin discussion a while ago about whether tights or leggings require “pants”**.
**YES ALWAYS!!
Zooey Deschanel wears tights. Kate Middleton wears pantyhose.
I am very very proud that it was my posts about my hatred of pantyhose (especially worn with sandals at ANY TIME) that inspired these many many many trolls.
No but seriously whyyyyy would you wear sandals with pantyhose?!?
I don’t knoooooowwwwww
If you’re worried about thigh-chafinf, wear leggings. If leg blotchiness is your issue (a good reason to wear tights at night for the paler woman) then wear a longer skirt
I’ve spent a lot of time lately in hot climates where the majority of the population don’t feel the need to simulate the effects of sun exposure on their legs. When I moved to a more northerly clime, I was shocked to see women wearing “flesh-colored” hose come the springtime. Shocked and slightly nauseated.
Oh man I clicked over to the blog and read some of the comments. You didn’t mention the men explaining about their preferences and how pantyhose make you look more appealing to men because their eyes are upon you always so make your legs look nice baby girl just do it.
I enjoy their assumption that it is a simple lack of knowledge on women’s part that leads them into error. If only we knew that some men found pantyhose attractive, we would obviously wear them, all the time, right, guys?
Well, and also the assumption that all men find the same things sexually appealing. I know plenty of men who want to see my bare feet, and plenty more who don’t give a fuck. Not that I have a responsibility to dress in such a manner as to please/excite random passers-by, but even if I did, they don’t all want the same thing.
Here is a gem: “Of course you should wear nylons with open toed shoes. Boney toes are not as hot as you think.”
oh god oh god here I was thinking that I was doing men a favor showing of my boney toes but in fact I am disgusting! I can’t believe my mother never told me that men don’t like boney toes!
Every time we leave the house without considering men and their sovereign right to see all woman dressed in a way they find attractive, a little more of society crumbles.
WE’RE MONSTERS
I love the idea that hose are some sort of magical eraser for your leg-related ailments. You can see through them. The bony toes are still there.
Perhaps there is some woman, somewhere, whose toes are not “boney”, nor are they plump–some woman has perfectly shaped toes, and only she may leave the house without hose in the summertime! She is the standard to which we all must aspire, or hide our boney toes under veils of fabric forever!
I have plump toes, yes, but according to the comments since they have hair on them they’re completely invalidated.
So chubby stubby toes are OK then, right? FINALLY MY FATTY FEET ARE VALIDATED
The first draft was two solid pages of strange nylon mansplaining. It was a little overwhelming.
The final comment really was perfect: “Ladies, from a man’s point of view, when in any doubt whatsoever, go with wearing pantyhose, tights, or thigh-high nylons…Feel free to contact me if I can help you more – [email protected]”
He even shared his e-mail, ladies!
If at least ten of you haven’t emailed him by the end of the day, I will shut down this site.
Only if I can email him from “barelegsRawesome4eva@gmail etc.
I’m baffled. Who are these men? I guess this is what keeps Hooters in business.
Also, as a man, I hereby decree that all ladies should definitely put whatever the fuck they feel like on their legs.
Also, as a man, I am contractually obligated to use the phrase “as a man” at least once per day in the Toast comments. e.g. “As a man, I enjoyed reading this story about your grandfather. However if you really want to please me you should consider wearing garments that make your legs look like shiny orange sausages.”
As a man, I agree with your man opinions even more after you use the phrase “as a man” because then I know you are a man, we are men, and we do not hesitate to share our preferences for how women display their legs.
Ohhh, thank you for your permission Mr. Male-Bodied Person!!!
(jokiiiiiiiiing you guys I am not a monster)
I’m pretty sure Hooters is secretly a Chrissy Snow cosplay haven.
Man, they would NOT be fuckin’ saying that if they had to wear them all day. A CHALLENGE STUPID MEN: WEAR THE HOSE. WEAR THEM FOR A FULL DAY. THEN GET BACK TO ME.
Preach.
Given the way pantyhose fetishism works, they probably already are.
As a person whose waist circumference is not demonstrably different from that of her hips, I have a hate-on for pantyhose and tights that stems purely from the feeling of tight elastic rolling itself down the slope of my belly to form a constrictor-like band just above my crotch. Attractive AND comfortable! In conclusion: fuck these guys.
THIS. My waist is smaller than my hips (mostly because I have an ample derrière), but it is far from narrow, and I get the rolling all the time. Except on me it digs in right at the top of my pelvis. Honestly, who does not have problems with pantyhose? NO ONE PROBABLY EXCEPT MEN UGH
I have a friend who works in HR who said that in a formal workplace women are required to wear pany hose unless they’re wearing slacks. I’m so glad that I don’t work anywhere like that; in fact, the school doesn’t care that I have a visible tattoo on my ankle, which I used to have to cover with bandaids when I worked at Blockbuster. Where are you now, Blockbuster tyrants?!?
I am so terrified that this will be the case at my new job. I am looking forward to the SERIOUS PANYTHOSE POST promised above so that people can assure me that pantyhose are not normal. I never, ever see them.
The trick is to go to Target and get the suntan color thigh-highs with the rubbery stuff to hold them up. NO TUMMY ROLLING!
I have a giant wrist tattoo that I have to cover with bandaids at work. I’m lucky -around the time I started at this job they relaxed the “pantyhose with skirts at all times” rule. Ugh.
A friend of mine used to work at one of the Big [Number] accounting firms and had very strict rules from HR about having to wear panty hose, skirt lengths, and got ragged on constantly by her coworkers for not wearing makeup.
Meanwhile I have pink and purple hair right now and nobody gives a good goddamn about my leg coverings.
Yeah, I’ve heard law offices are the worst about that, but it makes sense that an accounting firm would have similar rules. I don’t get it – why are legs unprofessional?
This must be a different Big Number accounting firm than the one I used to work for, because my firm didn’t have a PHP (panty hose policy). It did, however, have a summer dress code that prohibited tube tops/mini-skirts/etc. Those memos were epic. Wish I still had one.
Definitely want a t-shirt that says Hose-Hater.
also, y’all have known each other for ages!!!
We have! thebestjasmine and I can’t even quite remember how we met, but it definitely involves the internet. Blogging together from three separate time zones was a delight.
We have known each other for several generations in Internet Time, it’s true.
Then everyone will think you’re a lesbian.
I love these illustrations SO MUCH. I think I want “Maybe it’s a weird fetish thing” for my office. Thanks for being so awesome, Esther!
SERIOUSLY. The fact that this got ILLUSTRATIONS is just the best best thing.
Thanks guys!
Yayyyyyy, Esther! I always love seeing Esther drawings. (Also yayyyyy Lyette, because this is good.) Yayyyyy, everybody.
I feel so deeply for my mother, who still wears hose to church regardless of season (hint, hose trolls [hosebeasts?]: they don’t keep you cool OR warm). Tear off the laddered, “flesh”-toned nylons of the oppressor, Mom!
PANTS. That is my solution to everything. Thanks to PANTS, I no longer have to:
• wear pantyhose
• shave my legs
• wear cute (read: uncomfortable) shoes
• sit “like a lady”
• subject poor, unsuspecting men to my cankles
Pants forever, pants for always, til death do us part, Amen.
If you want to meet women, you should try wearing PANTS (sorry for the poor quality)
My FAVORITE sketch!
It might be mine, too (so hard to decide)! I was so disappointed that they had to substitute a generic song for “Cannonball” on the DVD.
Sometimes I just randomly throw my arms open wide and yell, “I LOVE PANTS!”
I know, because “Cannonball” is the perfect song.
I enjoy the dressing room part. Pants are hard to figure out!
Me too! And then the cute little march he does when he finally gets it.
I hate, hate the look of sandals with hose. Now, I like tights in the cool weather, but even liking then does not equal my wearing open toe sandals with them!
I have worn sandals with pantyhose to weddings. It seems more wrong to go hoseless than it does to wear hose with sandals. As long as they’re not reinforced toe, of course.
Oh, the dreaded reinforced toe with sandals! EEeeek! (Seriously, those things are lifesavers for closed-toe shoes, but whenever I see sandals and reinforced toe hose? *twitch*)
What about those “hose without toes” things? I like the idea (no dreaded reinforced toe shadow or that weird toe-line stitching, but still provides that textile insulation … which I actually kind of appreciate, on a blister/chafe front), but it is kind of a fake look. I have done it, but I’m not emotionally committed to it 🙂
Acceptable tights: BLACK opaque for wear with miniskirts/dresses in winter
Fishnets for sexy times (or sexy-looking times, because your legs look like strung ham when you take them off)
DISCUSS
This is correct.
I love my rainbow of tights, okay. No finer feeling than wearing a purple skirt with green tights and telling everyone you’re secretly She-Hulk.
OK those sound cute!
Yeah, I have hot pink tights for when I really need some color in the middle of the winter.
Those are all good but I must admit a love for tights with RIDICULOUS patterns (wear them with an all-black ouytfit!) or lace tights. Because I have no taste. And I can’t dress myself well.
No, these are good points. I was too restrictive in my initial assessment!
I think patterned tights are fine, if you can look good in them, and with all-black sounds perfect. I WISH I could wear lace tights without feeling like I look like I have creeping leg fungus, but such is life. Go on ahead & rock those babies 🙂
Yes to patterns! I have a black pair with a turquoise abstract feather/scale pattern that I love wearing with an otherwise boring outfit.
“politicly lesbian correct” is obviously my favourite part. I think that girl who wears them in summer might be Zooey Deschanel?
“Have you ever seen a woman?” NOPE.
There’s a spam comment on my blog right now that I don’t have the heart to delete because it contains the sentence, “Moreover, it’s not the existing, stale and hard lobsters that you will be getting.”
Pretty sure Esther needs to illustrate that sentence.
I pretty much only wear fishnets (I like them brightly colored and a little silly-looking) and I have a few open-tied shoes I wear them with. It looks sort of old ladyish and funny. Sometimes, I love it and its definitely, totally not sexy.
I saw a girl in shorts and pantyhose on the subway in Toronto’s recent 40 degree heat wave. It was incomprehensible.
My work is so awesome that I’ve worn (on separate occasions) denim cutoffs, gym tank top, and another pair of even shorter denim cutoffs with Doc Martens and no one blinked an eye. Love you, university job. <3
Pantyhose aren’t my favorite thing in the world, but I have to say I don’t get all the hose hatred? I’ve lived in warm climates most of my life and never wore pantyhose, but two years ago I moved to northern Europe and have since come around to their usefulness. Last summer, for example, the temperature hovered around 58 F most of the time (yes, last SUMMER), meaning that the best option for cute summer dresses was nude pantyhose. It’s sheer but not shiny, the same color as my skin, and worn with closed-toed shoes, and to me at least, looks quite fine. It’s what most women do here.
I have a couple of American friends also from southern climes now living on the East Coast, and they insist that pantyhose is unfashionable even in winter, so they go out in the snow and ice with bare legs. Everyone should do whatever suits them, I guess, but I personally wouldn’t go out with bare legs when it’s below freezing for any amount of fashion cred.
As to people who say that it doesn’t make you any warmer — all I can conclude is that we have very different experiences of temperature or comfort, because it makes a world of difference to me when there’s a chill wind.
Tl;dr Agree about pantyhose with open-toed shoes and don’t care about white pantyhose. But I think it’s silly to declare all pantyhose passé and will continue to wear them when it makes me more comfortable, but everyone else should do whatever they want (though I’ll look at you askance if you have bare legs in a snowstorm).
But… in a snowstorm, wear pants? If it’s just a BIT too cold for bare legs, black opaque panty hose can be helpful, but if it’s 100 degrees outside, why do women have to not-really-cover up their legs with a layer of nasty man-made fibers with bonus midriff-squishing pain? I guess it’s like any clothing, if you like it wear it, but it shouldn’t be “expected” or “required” unless for safety reasons (like when I wore open toed shoes to my retail job and promptly ran over my foot with the vacuum cleaner)
I have fleece-lined black tights (and also some fleece-lined leggings) for wintertime – for when I am not wearing PANTS because SNOW – and they are sent from the heavens.
Ok I live in a place that has the most wintry of winters. Please tell me where I can obtain these fleece-lined leg coverings you speak of.
Well, let’s see…the Plush ones are supposed to be the best, but they are pricier than I was willing to get. I went with the Royal Cult ones on Amazon. I have no idea what “Skinny Fit” means, so ignore that. Here are the same ones, but footless/leggings. They are DIRT CHEAP on Amazon right now, so stock up!
I prefer leggings to tights most of the time, because I’ve got long legs and shit falls down. But when I’m wearing tights, I’ll usually put some boy-shorts over them, to kind of help hold them up. It works! Usually.
Thanks so much, I can’t believe I didn’t know about this! I also like the bonus tip about the boy shorts 🙂
The bonus tip about boy shorts is GREAT. I read it in some magazine somewhere and loved it. I own boy shorts – I generally can’t resist a cute pair of underwear – but don’t usually wear them because they bug me under pants, and it turns out I’m not the kind of girl that lounges around in boy shorts, a t-shirt, and cozy socks (as much as I WANT to be). I was thrilled to find another use for them.
You are BRILLIANT. I had not thought to stock up on fleece tights during the summer, but am doing so right now.
omg I have never even really considered this. I’ve been double-tighting during the winter and these have got to be a more comfortable option.
I live in Finland, and there can be snow on the ground from September until May. I love jeans, but pants can get reeeeeeeeally old after a while. Pantyhose and tights (especially comfy cashmere/cotton blend tights, those are wonderful) are perfectly fine to me, but I wouldn’t wear them in the heat either! But I certainly don’t care either way if people wear pantyhose in the summer, or in the winter either, I just feel bad for anyone who tries to go barelegged. I actually saw an American woman (from Seattle) come to visit here in November wearing a thin, above-the-knee dress, no pantyhose, and high heels. She looked super cute and verrrrry cold.
What good are hose going to do you in a snowstorm! Put on some snowpants! What were raised, in a barn? (This message courtesy of moms)
To be fair, if I learned nothing else from Tamora Pierce’s Alanna books, I did learn that you should always pair hose WITH snowpants when you go out in a blizzard to fight elementals on the Roof of the World.
And while you’re at it, shut the door! I’m not paying to heat the outside!
Finland’s winter lasts like 8 months. Well, six months, with a month on either end of disgusting slush. I’m not such a girly girl but if I avoided wearing dresses anytime it was cold, I would pretty much have two weeks per year of wearing dresses, and I have some very cute dresses!
It’s July and people are already dreading the winter, no joke. People have been delighted this year because it’s gotten as warm as 75!
I totally understand it in cooler weather… but honestly, then I feel compelled to wear closed-toe shoes.
I live on the US east coast, and I see those women who insist on going barelegged no matter the weather. I tip my hat in their general direction, but I don’t think they notice because they’re all chattering too much from cold. 😉
Yeah aren’t those girls freezing? How do they do it? Hidden generators in their skirts?
I’m not a pantyhose with sandals or open-toed shoes apologist — I have to say it’s not the best look and I wouldn’t do it either. But on the other hand, I just don’t care all that much what other people wear — I’m of the fashion school of “if you like it and you think it looks nice, who cares” so more power to the pantyhose + open-toed-shoes, socks + sandals people of the world for doing their own thing.
I live in northern Canada and in the winter it’s all tights, all the time for me, since pantyhose don’t really keep you warm. I have a pair of black wool ones that are great. I agree that bare legs in winter is questionable. I don’t think it looks fashionable, it just look like you maybe have trouble dressing yourself.
tights are necessary on most days. that is all.
The woman I’m dating does not shave her legs and wears a lot of dresses and skirts without hose or tights. I mean she’s not that hairy, but still, give me a goddamned medal.
No.
I’m all for the move towards the acceptability of bare legs in the workplace – it makes me see the point of wearing dresses in the summertime. But I think in practice it can parallel the “internal corset” argument I’ve heard – that the shift away from structured undergarments didn’t do anything to get rid of societally-imposed ideas about “acceptable” shapes for women, it just created an expectation that women figure out how to get their actual bodies to be the right shape rather than relying on their clothes & undergarments. It’s a bit less intense but I think the bare legs thing is like that – we get to not wear pantyhose, but there’s that much more pressure to have our actual legs be hairless and blemish-free and veinless and basically mimic the look of hose.
I was thinking about this recently when I was looking at some Hollywood photos from the 1950s. Is it better to strap yourself into a veritable armor of girdles and be able to eat a big stack of pancakes like your grandmother did or is it better to subsist entirely off of water and crackers and feel the breeze on your bare legs?
TRICK QUESTION: It is better to walk down the street with both your middle fingers extended to the patriarchy, feeling the breeze whip around your untrammeled thighs and well-toned sense of not giving a flying fuck.
This is actually a good point – it took me a lot more internal gumption (and, uh, laziness) to decide to stop shaving my legs and giving a fuck how they looked than it did to decide pantyhose was a tool of the devil.
[eta: “actually a good” by which I mean it is a REALLY GOOD point and valuable to the discussion, not as… minimizing as I think it sounded. It’s been a long day.]
Growing up I was forced to wear dresses to school twice per week. And I was expected to generally wear pantyhose with those dresses. Fortunately, that part of the rule was dying out before I graduated high school, though I’d get the occasional reminder. I’m not sure if the implication was that I was too pale or too immodest or what there. I’m pretty sure that I can count on one, maybe two, hands the number of times that I have worn them since. The few times that I have worn them, they were cute, with seams up the back or with tiny polkadots. They were never the hideous ones that were supposed to give my legs the appearance of a tan with that awful seam across the toes that just gets scrunched up in your shoe and crooked throughout the day so that your toes are in a continuous state of discomfort.
I have worn tights quite a few times though. I can deal with tights. But I tend to wear nothing, particularly during weeks last week where the heat index is over 100. I declared it “pants free week” in my life too.
I'm pretty sure Hooters is secretly a Chrissy Snow cosplay haven. <img src="http://img41.imageshack.us/img41/9963/eg7g.jpg">
This is the year I finally accepted that I hate pants because pants are the worst. Skirts always! Skirts with bare, blotchy legs! Skirts with cute tights! Skirts with fleece-lined or wool tights! They always fit, they don't sag, and they never get caught on the tops of your shoes and give you a weird cuff.
(Also, they don't cause you to catch your heel in your trouser cuff and fall down your stairs, giving yourself a concussion while you're on your way to teach Hegel. It was a great class, though.)
You are BRILLIANT. I had not thought to stock up on fleece tights during the summer, but am doing so right now.
I sound like I’m 99 years old, but being able to wear pantyhose with dresses instead of ankle socks (spring/summer), knee socks (fall) or white tights (winter) was a milestone – a right of passage that I had to wait until I was 13 to be able to do, So I’ll never *not* feel like a little girl when I’m barelegged. I do it…but it’s very strange and I still feel unprofessional at work.
(tinfoil hat time!) Which makes me imagine that it’s the patriarchy that’s floating the “no pantyhose anymore in the office” trend so women “of a certain age” are subconsciously feeling at a disadvantage. (shifty eyes)
I sound like I'm 99 years old, but being able to wear pantyhose with dresses instead of ankle socks (spring/summer), knee socks (fall) or white tights (winter) was a milestone – a right of passage that I had to wait until I was 13 to be able to do, So I'll never *not* feel like a little girl when I'm barelegged. I do it…but it's very strange and I still feel unprofessional at work.
(tinfoil hat time!) Which makes me imagine that it's the patriarchy that's floating the "no pantyhose anymore in the office" trend so women "of a certain age" are subconsciously feeling at a disadvantage. (shifty eyes)
No.