“I think the women back then wore really long robes, so no part of their bare legs were showing.”
How is this different than many of today’s frum women, who wear floor-length skirts which also don’t show any part of their bare legs?
One of my friends graduated from Bais Yaakov. She told me once that the school appointed a small group of girls to be the “tznius police”. This duty entailed the girls walking around the room during davening and actually lifting up their fellow students’ skirts to check that they were wearing knee-high socks!! I was shocked when I heard this; there are just too many things wrong with that scenario.
1. Bais Yaakov uniform skirts are so long that they render short socks unnecessary, much less knee-highs.
2. Lifting up girls’ skirts in the name of modesty is blatantly inappropriate and counterproductive.
3. Bais Yaakov is a girls’ school, so they shouldn’t need to worry about being seen by men. I don’t actually know if their teachers are female or male or a mixture- but let’s just say that 98% or so of the people in the building are female, so I don’t think there should be such a ridiculously large emphasis on tznius beyond reasonable standards.
4. This should not occur during davening. Ever.
I know I’m getting myself into trouble here, but I just felt compelled to respond.