This is a bit of a follow-up to my last post, and a bit not. In this article, I am going to speak about modesty of dress and not any other kinds. And yes, there are other kinds. I am going to reference #YesAllWomen again, but there are two main points I want to make here: 1. Modesty is important, and should be utilized by men and women. 2. Modesty should not be used as a flimsy excuse to oppress and attack women, and people who get angry about this sort of thing should not be surprised when women react so vehemently to the word.
1. Modesty is important.
Clothes are the first ways we communicate with the world. For good or bad, we constantly read into a person's personality by what they are wearing. Polo shirts and khaki's? Prep. All black and heavy eye makeup? Goth. Fitted jacket and pencil skirt? Professional. Daisy Dukes and a bikini top? Like she's not interested in protecting her reputation.
Of course, this doesn't tell the whole story of a person's life story and those assumptions could be wildly off-base. That's why Halloween is so fun - we get to tell a story with our clothes that is crazy. No matter how many times I wear my rainbow fairy wings, I will never be a fairy. It's something I've had to come to terms with, unfortunately. I won't go into the entire saga here, but I've had several personal struggles with the whole concept of our clothes saying everything about a person. That would be why every day in college I wore jeans and t-shirts and lamented the loss of my Catholic school uniform. (Uniforms are the best. The BEST.) Then I worked at Ann Taylor and obsessively watched What Not To Wear.
We DO live in a visual world and for the most part, clothes are designed to bring attention to ourselves. Why not? I don't want to wear shapeless brown clothing all the time - I love color and jewelry and I like to draw attention to the parts of me I think look the best. Is that vanity? Maybe. I try to balance that desire with no-make-up days and sweatpants days and cultivating-the-other-parts-of-myself-that-have-nothing-to-do-with-how-I-look days. Back to clothes, though, they do say something about you, and people will look if you are visually telling them to. Ask any advertiser - changes in shape or texture cause the eye to travel there. People cannot help but look where an arrow points, and a v-neck is basically an arrow to your cleavage, or muscular pecs if you're a guy. (not that I have anything against v-necks, but there is a point of no return) If you have words on your butt I'm going to read them and if you're wearing a speedo I'm going to try my best but no guarantees. Gentlemen, I don't know if you heard that you are more visual than women - I did, and I have no idea how that's measured, but I will tell you I'm a very visual person. If you run around without a shirt, I will look.
Yes, modesty is important for both men and women. It is important insofar as clothes are important. They are the first way we communicate with the world, and dressing modestly communicates that you have more to offer the world than your body. I'm not talking about shapeless brown sackcloth, but wearing shirts when you run and skirts that cover more than crack. In the perfect world it would not matter what you wore, because we would not judge people on how they look and if we lived in perfect innocence and love, we would not need to wear anything! (Thanks a lot, Tree of Knowledge)
2. Modesty should not be used as a flimsy excuse to oppress and attack women.
I mentioned men and women in my discussion above of modesty, but how often does that happen? Usually if someone is encouraging modesty, they are talking to women. Why? Because we put so much stock in the myth that men are visually and sexually driven animals with no self-control and women's bodies cause that carnal lust to overpower them. I hope men are as offended by that myth as women are. It's degrading to everybody. Remember that definition of feminism from my last post? “both a coordinated set of ideas and a practical plan of action, rooted in women’s critical awareness of how a culture controlled in meaning and action by men, for their own advantage, oppresses women and dehumanizes men.”
Here I want to reference this great article Women Swiftly Running Out of Things that Aren't Sexy. Her main point is that even when we talk about modesty and being more than your sexuality, we sexualize it. Phrases like "modest is hottest" still sexualizes modesty. Why can't we say "modest is prudent?" I know it doesn't rhyme, but if you're going to go around telling women they can be smart, you can just let them be smart. They don't have to be sexy-smart.
To go a step farther, I'm going to quote a very good friend of mine who is a priest. He once told me, "I will never tell a woman how to dress." It was a bit shocking, because I've always heard rules on dressing from my Christian leadership. He was acknowledging and respecting the history that dress regulations have had in respect to women. Dress has always been restricted for women. It was a way to oppress them - there are certain actions you just can't do in skirts that touch the floor. It was a symbol of dainty weakness. Women who dared to wear the garb of men were burned, stoned, shunned. I say once again, clothes are important.
When women say that dressing scantily or going to a nude beach was "liberating," they are not being purposefully difficult or lying. I have no doubt it was liberating. Women live in a world where they will be sexualized and objectified no matter what they are wearing. By virtue of being female, a woman knows she is in constant danger of lewd comments, looks, and violence. Wearing something revealing makes her feel in control of this. If it's going to happen no matter what, she might as well give it a direction, one she has control over. I'm not saying that's true for every woman, but it's probably true for several.
The cops who asked me "Well, what were you wearing?" when I reported an attack and attempted rape. #YesAllWomen
— Aimee Mann (@aimeemann) May 25, 2014
This is the most horrifying stage of ill-used and misunderstood modesty - that a woman's dress caused a man's violence. Stories like this one popped up all over the #YesAllWomen tweets, and victim shaming is more common than anyone would like to believe. While as I discussed before, certain dress might garner looks it can never invite violence. I'm thinking of the Still Not Asking For It campaign, where protesting women dress... however they want. Full hijab, a pair of panties and pasties, the clothes they were wearing when they were sexually assaulted and asserting that no matter what they could possibly be wearing, that in no way means attacks are their fault. Would you blame a mugging victim because they had money? An arson victim because they owned flammable things? Of course not. But female victims are blamed for assaults because of their clothes. Clothes are important, but not that important.So please, dress modestly. I'm talking to you ladies - get shorts long enough to actually cover part of your leg. Gentlemen, pull up your pants. You look dumb. Invest in a belt. Encourage others to do the same, but when you do remember what people could hear when you speak.
Because this got heavy and I like to end on a high note, here's a little something I treat myself to every Halloween.
