Skirts Are A Target

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A middle-aged mom/lawyer describes how they treat you at the airport if you wear a dress.
Because I wear skirts and dresses, over the last few years I have been routinely subjected to a "secondary search" after passing through the primary airport security. This means that I pass through the detectors without setting off any alarm but am nevertheless detained for a body search.I travel a great deal and accepted this secondary search procedure as a consequence of that travel. As uncomfortable as I was being "wanded" from head to toe, I was still able to limit the intrusion and, more than once, warned a security agent that she had placed the wand as far up my inner thigh as I would permit.
Her husband and kids can't believe how often she gets the secondary search. And now, with the pat-downs, it's worse:
Recently, however, the secondary procedure has changed and is now being conducted by hand and with direct contact on the inner thigh, the genital area, and across the breasts, including running a finger under the bra. If you attempt to limit the physical intrusion, you will be warned and then told to leave the airport.
Subjected to this procedure once, I determined to avoid it again. Flying on Wednesday before Thanksgiving this year, I wore a lightweight travel skirt with pantyhose underneath. As I feared, I was waved into the Plexiglas holding cell for a "secondary search" because "you are wearing a skirt." When the agent came for me, I confirmed that my skirt was the issue, removed it, and handed it to her saying, "There. Now you can see I have nothing under my skirt."
The agent refused to proceed, confining me again to the holding cell while she summoned her manager. I handed my skirt to the supervisor and asked that I not be subjected to the secondary search. "No," he replied, "you are required to put your skirt back on and proceed for a hand search, or you will not be permitted past the security area of the airport."
My husband and my teenage sons, who have been amazed at the frequency with which I am searched, then gawked in embarrassment, horror, and helplessness, unable to protect me from the long, detailed, public poking I then received. I closed my eyes because I could not bear to look at them. I determined then and there that I would redouble my efforts to avoid this public humiliation.
 Her response is a "Security SuitTM": black leggings, black camisole, black shell. The last time she flew, she wore that under her dress, then removed the dress entirely to go through security. It worked.

 I say we all wear burkas and be done.