Unisex

Excerpts from a sermon given by
By Dr. Jack Hyles
Sunday Evening Sermon December 2, 1973

We are facing a concentrated effort in this nation to try to de-emphasize the difference between the sexes.  … I am opposed to anything in the world that de-emphasizes the line of difference between the sexes.  I believe that ladies ought to be feminine and sweet and lovely and charming.  I believe men ought to be strong and masculine and decisive.  I'm opposed to anything that makes a man and a woman act alike, look alike, dress alike, or talk alike.

What is the Devil's strategy?  What is the Devil's plan of action for bringing about the unisex movement?

The Devil is using clothes to break down the barrier between the sexes.

Now, fasten your safety belts; you're in for a rocky ride for the next few minutes!  If you want to vote me out of this church when I get through, you just go right ahead, but I'm going to tell you the truth.  Some of you pants-wearing ladies, I hope God will get you so under conviction tonight that you'll hit the mourner's bench before you go home!  Let me tell you something.  You ladies who wear your “britches,” don't you laugh at me while I'm preaching the Bible to you.  The Bible says a woman should not wear that pertains to a man.  In this heathen generation, you ladies who wear pants have fallen prey to the unisex philosophy.  You are a part of the unisex movement!  I'm going to prove it to you.  You won't believe it because you want to go ahead and be a part of it.  You don't want to be different.  You're not willing to buck the trend, but you're hearing one preacher tonight who is happy to buck the trends even if he loses his job because of it.  I started 27 or 28 years ago what I believe, and I am preaching the same thing tonight.  If you get my sermons and listen to them, I preach the same things tonight I preached 28 years ago.  I preached against ladies wearing britches 28 years ago, and I'm not going to stop it just because you can't find a skirt in a department store any more.

It's time for some of you deacon's wives to look like ladies instead of men.  It's time for some of you deacons to yank them up and say, “Put a skirt on and take those ‘britches' off!” It's time for some of you who teach Sunday school classes in our church, to look like ladies and not like men.  The Devil is trying to break down the barrier between the sexes.  When you do anything to aid it, you're a part of his work.

The Devil is using clothing.  Whether you believe it or not, the book of Deuteronomy is in the Bible and Deuteronomy 22:5 says it is wrong for a woman to wear that which pertaineth to a man.  “Well,” you say, “in those days, the men wore long, flowing garments.” I don't care what they wore, there was a difference between men and women. 

Tell me why it is that the unisex movement and the pants-on-women movement have been growing at the same rate in our country?  I'll tell you exactly why.  It's because the pantsuit movement and the pants-wearing movement in this nation is a part, as sure as I'm an inch high, of the Devil's desire and Devil's efforts to make one sex in this nation.

Faubion Bowers, in Saturday Review, January 9, 1971, said this, “In Manhattan is a shop called ‘His or Hers' or ‘Two of a Kind' boasting a stock of clothing wearable by either sex, including panty hose.”  Did you know you can buy panty hose for men in shopping centers in the city of Hammond?  I'm sorry; for males- I'm sorry, for “its”?  Hold it!  Tell me a Scripture that says it's wrong for a man to wear panty hose.  How many of you think it's wrong?  I do.  Tell me why.  It's wrong then because panty hose are ladies' clothing; is that right?  Then the same philosophy will change your pants to skirts!  If it's all right for a woman to wear britches, then it's all right for a man to wear panty hose is because it's women's clothing and a man's not supposed to wear women's clothing.  I say again if you teenage girls and ladies can wear your slacks, then it's okay for men to wear panty hose.  It's the same philosophy.  It's the same logic.  You cannot be logical and refute that statement.

Let's go a step farther.  In Manhattan, a boutique named “A Man and a Woman” offered multi-sexual clothes.  Designer Bill Blass is trying to get away from the unisex connotation by referring to his fashions as “dress alikes.”  Cerutti euphemistically ascribes “the couple look” to his and hers cowboy hats.  Betsy Bliss wrote in the Chicago Daily News, February 3, 1968, “Perhaps those look-alike fashions simply show that we're all puppets of designers…”  (That's what most of you ladies are tonight!)  “…who want us to look like their roommates.  But it may be that, in fact, the sexes are switching roles, the women getting too aggressive and the men becoming milque-toast weaklings.”

Montgomery Ward in Munster is selling panties for men!  Oh, you're shocked! Show me a Scriptural reason why it's wrong.  There's not one Scriptural reason why that's wrong unless that's a woman's clothing!  Then, using the same logic, your slacks are wrong!

There are people in this room tonight who love me.  You're glad I'm here, you pray for me, you love me, and you thank God for me, but you take lightly the fact that you let your daughters wear pants.  Your daughters come to see me and in practically every case where you've taught your daughters not to agree with me on this subject, your daughter has gotten rebellious and won't agree with me on other subjects too; that's because you've taught your daughter not to obey the preaching of this preacher.

I have an advertisement for a unisex clothing store.  It has a picture of a male and female- I guess- and it says, “Hey baby, the big news is happening Tuesday!  Experiment One sets up shop on Lex and 57th.  The same clothing for male and female!”

There's an article in today's paper in the Parade magazine called “Rock Cosmetics.”  “Rock stars exercise a great influence on their followers.”  For example, once the Beatles grew long hair….”  (By the way, that's where the long hair fad started- with the Beatles.) “In September, when the Rolling Stones appeared on American TV, Mick Jagger introduced a new cosmetic look for young males.  He wore heavy blue eye shadow, bright red fingernail polish, and purple lipstick.”

Hold it now!  If it's okay for ladies to wear slacks, then it's okay for men to wear lipstick.  You say, “Don't you get off on that?”  I don't intend to get off that for about ten more minutes!  Show me a Scripture that says it's wrong for a man to wear lipstick.  There's not one.  Show me a Scripture that says it's wrong for a man to wear eye shadow.  There's not one, unless it is a woman's regalia.

Now, if it is all right for ladies to wear men's clothing, then it is all right for men to wear ladies' clothing.  (I came awfully close to putting skirts on every one of these men on the platform tonight.  If I could have found dresses big enough, I would have done it!  I just couldn't find a size 63 waist for Brother Sully!)  You hear me!  A man has as much right to wear a skirt down the street as a woman does to wear pants.  Sit still!  When I see you ladies on the street and you're wearing pants, you know I treat you courteously.

I am never purposely unkind to anybody who dresses contrary to the way I preach.  But I'll say this much:  You're going to face God for being a part of the unisex movement just as much as a man who wears makeup.  Let's read a little further.  “How many Rolling Stone fans will use makeup in the months to come is difficult to tell.  Jagger and his wife, Bianca, believe in unisex makeup.  Several months ago she prevailed upon Gucci, the Italian leather maker to come up with a walking cane for both males and females.  She carries it wherever she goes.  In Europe, it's catching on with girls who say it offers a measure of protection.”  Here's a picture of a male and a female, and you can't even tell which is which.  Now hold it!  A man wears makeup and lipstick and eye shadow and from the shoulders up you can't even tell if it's a man or a woman.  Now let me ask you a question.  Is it any worse not to be able to tell which is from waist down?  I mean, after all, who has a right to say which end has to be different?  Who has a right to say, “From the shoulders up you can't be alike, but from the waist down you can be alike.”  You know it's true that if you're walking down the sidewalk behind some couples, it's hard to tell which is the male and which is the female.

In Calumet City, on Burnham Avenue, there is a unisex store called “Adam and Eve.”  That is in our area!  It's a place where male and female both buy the same type of garments.

Fashion designers admit they are using ladies wearing men's clothing and men wearing ladies' clothing as a part of the trend to make America one sex.  You haven't got enough sense to know it! “Now,” you say, “Preacher, what are you saying?”  I'm saying that God wants there to be a difference between the sexes.  I'm saying, in our generation, ladies ought not to wear whatever men have worn, and men ought not to wear whatever ladies have worn.

This country is in dire need of men!

In most of the cases here where your wives wear these slacks, it's very appropriate because she wears the other pants in the family, too.  Men!  That's the need of this nation.

Did you know that false religion is usually built on the breakdown of the sexes?  The Greek Hermaphroditus was divided at the waist; the top half was female, the lower half was male, and both were worshiped.  Heathen religions often worship a god that is half male and half female, split vertically down the middle; one side has a woman's breast and the other side has a man's body. 

If you're against the unisex and homosexual trend in our country, why don't you quit participating in the things the Devil is using to further it?  You high school girls ought to go home tonight, take every pair of slacks you own, and destroy them.  You grown women ought to go home tonight and do the same.  There's not a man in this room tonight who wonders why it's wrong for a woman to wear slacks, unless he thinks it's okay to examine a woman like you would a pig at a county fair.  You know it's true!

It's time you ladies decided to look like ladies when you go to the bank or the grocery store.  “There are people in this room who were shocked the first time you saw a female in slacks.  I haven't changed; you have!  You don't want me to change, do you?  You don't want me to compromise.  You want me to preach my convictions, right?  All right, then why do you want to change?

I love you, and God knows I do.  I'm not trying to make you mad, even though I know I do make you mad.  In fact, I'm preaching on this because I love you.  I want these girls in our church to be as soft as lace and as sweet and precious and feminine as they can be.  Do you know what?  We ought to have more girls at this meeting on Thursday night to learn how to be gracious and feminine than we have at any other activity in this church, apart from soul winning.  You mothers ought to insist that your daughters get up here and let someone teach them how to walk and sit.  I go to Hammond Baptist High School sometimes an, even though the skirts are long enough, you can see as much when the girl sits down as you can see when a girl is wearing a miniskirt.  Why? They have not been taught how to sit.

Let me tell you one reason why I'm against a female wearing slacks.  A female in slacks can sit like a man with one leg up on the other knee, and they do it.  No female ought to sit like that!  This pants-wearing crowd is sapping the femininity of our girls.  That's why they show their thighs when they put on a skirt; they don't know how to sit because they wear pants most of the time. I'm saying, “Go home and burn your britches!” It's time we had an old-fashioned altar call about women wearing britches, just like we do about drinking and smoking and gambling and everything else.

You say, “Brother Hyles, I don't agree with you on this.  What should I do?”  Trust me. Let me ask you a question.  Is it a sin not to wear britches?  No.  Then you can't go wrong, can you?  The safest route is not to it because you'll never be sorry if you'll try to rear your daughters to be little ladies.

In this class, on Thursday nights, they have the girls bring an encyclopedia.  Do you think they study that encyclopedia?  No.  They put it on their heads and the girls learn to walk like girls.  (Any boy who can take three steps without dropping is not right with God!)  A girl ought to know how to walk like a girl.  Girls are not “one of the guys.”  Don't walk like one!

While I'm at it, let me just pay my respects to the women's liberation movement.  I think everyone in it is right.  They're not women; they ought to be liberated!  I think they're right; they're not Miss or Mister or Mrs.  They're just Ms.!  I'll be honest with you.  I've seen that gal in charge of it on television and she is a Ms.!  She's not a Mrs. or a Miss or a Mister; she's somewhere in between!  You girls ought not to use language like boys.  You ought not to say to other girls, “Come on, you guys.”  You're playing right into the hands of the unisex crowd.

Then you fellows, for Pete's sake, or Harry's sake, or anybody's sake, don't walk like a girl- swinging your hips and being prissy as you walk!  If I walked like that, I would go down to some Texas ranch and ride the wildest Brahma bull they had.  You say, “I might get thrown off!”  That's exactly what I had in mind! You say, “He might stick his horns right through my gizzard!”  You've got my second idea too, but at least I would come back a man!  I would rather my boy have a bull's horn through his gizzard and bury him tomorrow than for him to priss across the platform like Miss America.

We have some young men coming into my study now, and I thank God for them.  I'm teaching grown men how to walk.  I'm teaching them that a man doesn't lean back when he walks; a man bounces when he walks and walks like he's going somewhere.  I wouldn't have to teach them if you moms and dads would teach them when they were kids.  Cut their hair!  Take the makeup off of their faces!  Take your dresses off their bodies!  Put some blue jeans on them!  Let them get in a fight every once in a while!  Make boys out of them, and I won't have to try to correct them when they grow up!  God bless these poor fellows who have been victims of circumstance. Even if that happened to you, that's still no reason for you to be a sissy.  Learn how to be a man!  Our nation is crying out for men!

Dear people, I beg you not to be fooled by the Devil into helping further the unisex movement.  Ladies, dress like ladies.  Men, look like men.  Do what you know would please God in this matter.

Let us pray.

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