A Catholic radio station in Poland has launched a campaign challenging women to “abandon men’s clothes”, such as trousers, and to instead wear more “beautiful, feminine and dignified” dresses and skirts during the month of May in honour of the Virgin Mary.
“Take the challenge: 31 days without trousers,” reads the appeal by Radio Niepokalanów, a station run by Franciscan monks.
“Dear Ladies, May is an extraordinary month in which we can honour the Mother of God, including through our clothing,” they continued. “We encourage you to take up the challenge and wear only dresses and skirts for the Immaculate [Mary].”
Radio Niepokalanów – which was founded in 1938 by Maksymilian Kolbe, a Catholic priest and Franciscan friar who later died in Auschwitz concentration camp after volunteering to take the place of a man condemned to death by starvation – describes itself as Poland’s oldest private radio station.
Its new campaign is being run in collaboration with Only4women, a Catholic women’s organisation, and Marian Skirts and Dresses (Marianne spódnice & sukienki), an online community.
While the challenge begins on 1 May, the organisers advise women to check their wardrobe before then to make sure they have prepared the clothes they plan to wear.
“Let’s also prepare appropriate shoes, tights and blouses so that no small thing will prevent us from putting on a skirt,” they write. “Let’s make sure that in the month dedicated to the Immaculate [Mary], our outfit is also a form of worship of the Mother of God, that it is beautiful, feminine and dignified.”
Footage has emerged showing high school pupils at a religious retreat in a church watching a performance in which a woman was stripped to her underwear, called a "slut" and locked in a cage
Following anger from parents, the priest in charge has apologised https://t.co/rh1pkFi6TR
— Notes from Poland 🇵🇱 (@notesfrompoland) March 28, 2023
The campaign has been met with a mixed reaction on social media, with some welcoming the idea but others criticising it. “Do you really reduce feminine piety to dresses? Do you think God cares about clothes?” wrote one commenter.
“The church is shooting itself in the foot with such actions,” she continued. “Fewer and fewer people go to church, young people are withdrawing from religion classes in schools, more and more people commit apostasy, and all this is not without reason.”
“As far as I know, St Joseph and Jesus didn’t wear jeans either, so why don’t we [men] all put on ankle-length robes?” asked one male commenter. “Pathetic, embarrassing. I hope that women, out of retaliation, will stubbornly walk around only in trousers for the whole month of May.”
“The dress embodies the fullness of femininity,” added a more supportive comment. “As a mature woman, I often wear dresses, especially to church. This is about the depth of discerning our faith.”
A growing number of Poles are turning away from the Catholic church, but not from religious belief itself.
This creates challenges for the church, but also for Polish identity, which has historically been linked to Catholicism, writes Katarzyna Skiba https://t.co/udWGzd0X7F
— Notes from Poland 🇵🇱 (@notesfrompoland) April 18, 2023
Poland is one of Europe’s most religious countries, with over 90% of the population officially classified as Catholics, 87% declaring themselves to be believers in God (a figure higher among women than men), and 43% saying that they practice their faith regularly.
However, recent years have seen a decline in the proportion of Catholics attending mass, and a particular fall in the attachment of young Poles to the church.
That has come amid a series of crises for the church, in particular revelations of historical child sex abuse by clergy as well as anger over its support for an unpopular near-total ban on abortion. But some figures, including within the church, also argue that a major factor has been the institution’s failure to modernise.
The proportion of Catholics in Poland attending mass has fallen from 37% to 28% in two years, show official data.
The church notes that the latest figures, from 2021, were affected by the pandemic. But it also admits "socio-cultural factors" played a part https://t.co/0n5JF0FmKi
— Notes from Poland 🇵🇱 (@notesfrompoland) January 14, 2023
Main image credit: Radio Niepokalanów/Facebook
Daniel Tilles is editor-in-chief of Notes from Poland. He has written on Polish affairs for a wide range of publications, including Foreign Policy, POLITICO Europe, EUobserver and Dziennik Gazeta Prawna.
