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On Modesty Today

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Modesty and Girl Power, By Jodi Anna 

I’ll tell you what I want, what I really really want: for beauty to regain its former glory and for women to not feel the pressure to rate themselves and each other based on sexual desirability.  I know, it’s a goal which is highly idealistic, but I believe women can snap out of it and start to see themselves as valuable individuals, who do not need the type of validation that comes from drawing the admiring eye of another.

It seems to be hard-wired into us women to make ourselves attractive to men.  In the past, however, social convention tempered the behaviour (at least, that which was overt) of men and women when it came to sexual relationships.  In the more desperate times of human history, these types of social conventions, along  with many others, kept life safer and more peaceful.  In some cultures it was even a matter of life and death to avoid offending your neighbours by breaking societal rules or taboos.

In Western culture, up to World War I, women of any sort of social respectability wore extremely modest clothing that left relatively little skin showing.  After the war, hemlines got higher and dress style became less restrictive (although by today’s standards the “flapper” look seems more frumpy than flirtatious).  Women were gaining more rights and independence and this meant they had more freedom in their choice of clothing.
As times changed and our society moved from Modernism to Post-Modernism, women’s fashion became more and more sexually provocative.  For some reason the move toward sexier clothing was attributed to women’s liberation and the sexual revolution.  But this kind of “liberation” only ended up perpetuating the oppression of women.  Although we were no longer tightly laced into corsets, or even required to wear a bra, we became constrained by something worse: the pressure to always look young and sexy.

Today there is hardly any limit to how revealingly a woman may dress.  Just the other day I saw a teenage girl walking down the street wearing lycra shorts that were essentially the dimensions of underwear, paired with a midriff-showing tank top.  It was one step up from simply walking down the street in her undies.  Most of the shorts worn by teenage girls in recent years only just cover their bottoms and the skirts are only slightly longer. Jeans are skin tight, as are shirts.  Very little is left to the imagination.

Basically, the movie “Pretty Woman” does not have the impact it once had, as the prostitute get-up worn by Julia Roberts in the beginning of the film is what one might nowadays see on the playground.  The concept of her being shunned for wearing slutty clothes and then being transformed into a respectfully dressed, classy-looking woman no longer resonates with our anything-goes culture.
Now, when I was a teenager, and really it wasn’t that long ago, I dressed like so:

And since I lived in Canada rather than Beverly Hills, I also wore an oversized sweater with that ensemble for most months of the year.

We didn’t want to dress in a way that was too revealing because a) adults would not stand
for it and b) even teenagers at the time had a sense of what was classy and what was just plain slutty.  But these days there are few  restrictions when it comes to fashion.  Heck, you don’t even need to wear pants.  And according to most magazine covers, it is considered a major achievement for a woman to look great in a bikini.  Is this evidence of our liberation?  Are we more in control, more powerful when we are more sexy?  Is having a great body to show off a real accomplishment?
I would love to suggest a better way of presenting oneself as a woman.  In my particular religious culture we have certain standards of dress, which are followed by many pious women.  Skirts are below the knee, or only slightly above it, tops are not low-cut unless a camisole is also worn and shoulders are covered.  Clothing is not overly tight, so as to flaunt the woman’s figure. Sometimes a head covering is worn as a further sign of modesty. We dress respectfully in church, not wanting to draw attention to ourselves or distract others from worshipping God.  I believe this is how dignified women should dress, women who have self-respect and also respect their husbands (if they have them) and all those around them enough to dress modestly.
It’s a constant challenge, especially with the kinds of clothes that are available at stores these days, to dress mindfully and not seductively.  But there are so many temptations in this world; why should we add to them?  God gifted women with beauty.  Of the two sexes, let’s face it, we are the pretty ones.  But God didn’t give us beauty so that we could seduce all the men around us; he gave us beauty to glorify Him.  What I really want is for women to reclaim their beauty in all its wholeness and goodness, to respect it and be wary of the deceitfulness of vanity.

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