Christian blogger Veronica Partridge faces backlash over leggings blog post

WHEN Veronica Partridge decided to explain why she’d stopped wearing leggings, she had no idea about the backlash she was about to endure.

WHO knew a pair of leggings could cause this much fuss?

Earlier this month, a 25-year-old woman from Oregon in the US wrote a blog post about how she had decided to stop wearing leggings because they “may cause [men] to think lustful thoughts”.

After deliberating for weeks over whether to hit publish on her post, titled ‘Why I chose to no longer wear leggings’, Veronica Partridge wrote this:

“Was it possible my wearing leggings could cause a man, other than my husband, to think lustfully about my body? I asked my husband his thoughts on the matter when he got home.

“I appreciated his honesty when he told me, ‘Yeah, when I walk into a place and there are women wearing yoga pants everywhere, it’s hard to not look. I try not to, but it’s not easy...’

“And at that moment, I made a personal vow to myself and to my husband. I will no longer wear thin, form-fitting yoga pants or leggings in public.”

Mrs Partridge thought that “maybe ten” of her friends would read the post. But then her husband Dale Partride, a CEO and motivational speaker with more than 140,000 Twitter followers, shared her thoughts on his social media networks.

As of Thursday afternoon, the post had more than 43,000 Facebook shares, hundreds of comments and has provided morning talk shows with hours of material. And the backlash against the Christian mother came thick and fast.

“Do you also blame women when they are raped [because] of what they wear? And men go shirtless all the time and that causes women to look, should they be forced to swim in shirts? Slut shaming at its finest!” commented one reader.

Veronica with her husband Dale and their 1-year-old daughter.

“I think it silly to make women responsible for men’s lustful glares. Leggings or not men will look. It is up to those...men to control themselves. I think this kind of thinking is a bit backwards. It is like blaming a woman’s outfit for her being violated. Men are responsible for their own behaviour,” another woman commented on Mrs Partridge’s Facebook page.

“I’m uncomfortable with any type of confrontation and negativity so if I had known it would cause such a stir, I wouldn’t have posted it,” Mrs Partridge told news.com.au.

“Some people said that I was promoting rape culture, some were saying that it’s not my problem to cover up my body because a man is always going to look.

“I completely understand that if a man wants to look at a woman, he’s going to look no matter what. I have no control over that, but I don’t want to make it easier to them or to draw more attention to myself,” she said.

What does Veronica say to critics who, in the words of one commenter, believe she “needs to address the real issue, which is her husband having a hard time lusting over women in leggings?”

“This is just a personal decision that I made. I’m in no way trying to tell anyone what they can or cannot wear,” she said.

“I feel like the very first paragraph in my blog post, which was a disclaimer saying these are just my opinions, was completely ignored.

“My intention was not to come off as though I was judging anyone. I really don’t care if you wear them or not. It’s just my personal story.”

And she says she isn’t going to stop wearing leggings altogether - “I still wear them, but I’ll wear a long shirt or tunic over them”.