I just came from my mom's house, where my sister was in from out of town. My sister tells my mom that at her meeting this morning, they announced that while JWs are out and about in their DC cities, they are not to wear jeans, shorts, or t-shirts, so as to "stand out as different." (Guess the full-body placard reading, "WE ARE JEHOVAH'S WITNESSES" would've been a little over-the-top, eh?)
My mom responded that she hadn't heard that yet. My sister just says, "This is the first time they've said this." I really, really, really wanted to comment about it, but although I'm DF, my family doesn't know that I'm what they define as apostate, and I'm afriad they might be forced into shunning me "properly" if they ever found out. (They don't shun me now).
I couldn't tell what my sister thought about this, because of course she wasn't going to voice it if she had any contentions about it. It just amazes me that two otherwise independent women would put up with this kind of nonesense. Neither my mom nor my sister would stand for it if their own husbands tried to tell them how to dress. I have suspicions that many in my family just go through the motions so as not to rock the boat, so that could be one explanation.
It's one thing to set a dress code for your convention, but to tell people how to dress while they are going about their daily lives, doing nothing related to the organization, is just too audacious. They even go so far as to outlaw specific items of clothing, instead of just saying something broad like "dress modestly." (although IMO it's going too far to ever tell grown people how to dress). It's a total usurpation of personal judgment and free-thinking, and it just disgusts me!
magoo