How a woman dresses.

I know these days that women should be able to dress how they want without fear of being judged or being sexually assaulted.  And I am not a prude by any stretch of the imagination, but when I was at Comic Con, artist Luciano Vecchio was there.  He is known for doing some LGBT art but he had drawn a piece that had all the LGBT characters from the Legion of Superheroes in it.  I stopped by his table and purchased this: 

Pretty much, it has all the current X-Ladies in their current costumes.  The one thing I notice about these characters though, is that they are covered up.  Only Storm and Psylocke have lower necklines and Husk and Emma are the only ones that show any type of midriff.  The costumes here are not redesigns, this is basically what they are wearing in the current comics.  So why is it that the X-Ladies, in our "enlightened day and age" are more covered up than ever before? 

One of my criticisms of the Legion has been that the females are often there for eye-candy for horny boys.  They are there to be "girlfriend of" a strong male character.  They don't often do anything because most of them have defensive or sensory powers. Yet characters like Dawnstar and Projectra must spend a fortune on intimate waxing.  Meanwhile, most males are covered except for their head and hands.  When people say that in 1000 years, we will be even more enlightened, I say BS.  The fact that the Legion has transuits wouldn't mean that women would dress with more exposed skin.  Why doesn't that also apply to the males?  And yes, Cosmic Boy, Star Boy and Tyroc have all had costumes that look like they come from an International Male Catalog but that was an exception, not the norm.  In last volumes of the Legion, they were all covered up fully but Sensor Girl is now sexy Sensor Girl.  *sigh*

It's a shame when even artists like Jiminez support these types of costumes instead of favoring more practical designs.  Dream Girl literally wears a silver one-piece bathing suit with boots and gloves/gauntlets.  Some have tried to clothe her more but we always end up back to her same basic uniform.

I believe that comics have the ability to subconciously influence readers. Granted, I think there should always be a spectrum of characters, but showing female characters as capable, smart, even powerful at times, but equal to male characters, then comics does it part to help women.