Ali Jackson | Still playing dress-up as adults

It doesn't matter who you are - you've seen them.

I'm sure nearly half of you actually own them (I'll admit I do).

They're out there, walking among us. Everyone has an opinion on them, ranging from "gotta have 'em" to "burn them at the stake."

They're leggings - and they're taking over.

If you have eyes and you've been alive over the past two years, you've seen what I'm talking about. Suddenly, where jeans and khakis once ruled, spandex is popping up on legs everywhere. Black, white, patterned . it knows no bounds.

For the past couple of years, I've seen the leggings, worn the leggings, despised the leggings - but it's only recently that I've started thinking about where they came from and why, dear god why, they've turned into the pants substitute they are today.

Girls, think back to elementary school. I'm talking side ponytails, Scrunchies, L.A. Lights sneakers, homemade T-shirts, and - that's right - leggings. They were everywhere. I remember feeling snazzy in my hot-pink and electric-blue unicorn leggings.

I'm sure all the boys wanted me.

But the thing is, kids can pull that sort of thing off. We didn't need to wear shirts long enough to cover our butts because, let's face it, we didn't have butts.

Sociology professor David Grazian, who teaches the ever-popular class "Sociology of Media and Popular Culture," agreed.

"Kids are free to wear all kinds of clothing because we don't regard them as sexual beings," he said.

Now, however, it's a different story. Suddenly my second-grade outfit is looking pretty enticing - at least if we're basing our tastes off fashion magazines.

"They're convincing women that they have to look childlike in order to be feminine," Grazian said. "It's disturbing, not to mention disempowering."

College sophomore Ilana Sinkin is a big fan of the leggings trend. In fact, she lists them as an interest on Facebook.com.

"They're in the magazines a lot more lately," she said. "That's what caught my eye, so I started wearing them."

When I asked her if she would ever wear leggings without a sweater or dress long enough to cover her butt, her reaction was vehement.

"Oh, no, no, no," she exclaimed. "I prefer not seeing so much, leaving a little to the imagination."

Unfortunately, fashion executives have made their decision - kid is in.

"In 2006, the fashion industry heavily marketed an almost-childlike femininity to women of all ages," Grazian said. "Leggings, flats, miniskirts, bangs - these are all things popular among young girls. It makes it seem more fashionable for women to regress and at the same time it sexualizes clothing meant for small children."

I'm sure many of you can think of an ad campaign you've seen recently where the models are dressed in baby doll dresses or leggings and posed innocently, like little girls.

The fact that intelligent, adult women are dressing like children in order to look sexy is just plain wrong. No one would want their baby sister looked at sexually, so why are we dressing like her?

I tried to speak to girls around campus wearing leggings as pants in the dead of winter, but for some reason they declined to comment. Go figure.

At the heart of the issue, going to class with paper-thin spandex as the only barrier between you and the world is just inappropriate. I mean, really. No one needs to see that.

"The thing I have against it is if you don't look good in them," Sinkin said. "Some girls can pull it off - but most can't."

I know I can't, nor do I want to. I don't care how toned your butt or thighs are - no one should be walking around like that. Especially not in the arctic tundra that our campus has become recently.

However comfortable these leggings might be (and believe me, I'm as big a fan of spandex as the next girl), by using them as pants we're turning Locust Walk into a meat market where anyone and everyone can see the junk you're storing in your trunk.

Didn't your mother ever warn you that no one will buy the cow when they can get the milk for free?

Come on, say it with me. Leggings are not pants. Again. Leggings are not pants.

So here's the deal. From now on, we're going to institute a law. It's called Illegal Legging Use, and you all have the jurisdiction to stop it and prosecute any offenders.

I hereby declare this campus a butt-cheek-free zone.

Ali Jackson is a Wharton and College sophomore from Cardiff, Calif. Her e-mail address is jackson@dailypennsylvanian.com. A Little Person-Ali-ty appears on Mondays.

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