Now we're getting to the heart of this issue... it's not so much the pants, as the attitude that women are to be served and men are to just suck it up and deal with it...
And, I agree with you, it is a prevelent attitude that is definately out in the world and is most certainly creeping ever inward into the church.
What to do?
Well, as I said earlier somewhere in my many postings today, Satan doesn't care how we err... just as long as we remain in error. If Satan can lead me astray by feminism... he will... just as if he can lead you, Joe, astray by misogny, he will.
The key is for me to not get sucked into the feminist ideas that are being pushed and for you to not be all bitter and hating on women for wearing pants, but for each of us to bring it all back to the Scriptures and align our thoughts with them.
Scripturally speaking, there is nothing wrong with a woman wearing feminie clothing, even if those clothes are in the form of pants. There is a company that makes male looking clothes for butch lesbians and women transvetites and it would be very sinful for a woman to wear them...because their very purpose is to make her look as much as a man as is possible. It would be just as sinful for a man to wear exactly what I'm wearing at this moment, a light blue blouse with embroidered flowers, women's jeans and women's sandals... any man wearing what I'm wearing at this moment would be violating Exodus 22.
And, there is nothing wrong with a woman working outside the home, even the Proverbs 31 woman purchased a field and planted a vineyard... but the goal must be to do this as a helpmeet to her husband, increasing the resources of the household, not for selfish reasons and especially not so that she can increase her assets so that she can kick him to the curb when she can take care of herself.
There is a lot wrong with the attitude that women should, by default and for no more reason than because they're women, be believed in a he said/she said situation, be given the house, the kids, the furniture and the guy booted out to the street, just because she's the woman and he's the guy... Oh yes, our modern western world is getting a little overboard on the woman thing... and in some churches (and I'm sitting in the office of one of them as I type this) feminism has most certainly overshadowed biblical truth.
Joe, you have an important insight to share here... an important and valuable caution, even rebuke against encroaching feminism in the church....
The best way to get that message across though is to focus on the actual sins of feminism.. .that it violates God given roles, it violates the principle of male headship, it violates the principle of wifely submission... it violates the general principle that all Christians, male and female alike, are to live by and that is humility, each thinking of the other's needs first.
But, don't get caught up in unimportant things such as a woman wearing pants. When you make a stand on that, it's shaky ground scripturally, because there is nothing in the Scriptures that women can't wear pants, just that no person of either sex is to wear the opposite sex's clothes. And because it's not scriptural, even your brothers and sisters in the Lord get the impression that you're little more than a troll just trying to flame the board, rather than a guy who has an important point to make.