Thoughts of a Doubting Christian ✓

The Problem with Modesty Culture

There are many problems with modesty culture, but the biggest problem is that modesty culture puts responsibility on the woman for how men perceive and treat her instead of holding men responsible for their actions.

Modesty is defined as "propriety in dress, speech or conduct" by Merriam-Webster and as "behaviour, manner, or appearance intended to avoid impropriety or indecency" by the Oxford English Dictionary. Obviously, these definitions depend on one's definition of impropriety or indecency, which in turn depend on one's definition of improper, indecorous, not in good taste, inappropriate, and so on. But in evangelical Christian culture — and other devout religious sects, including Orthodox Judaism, traditional Islam, Mormonism, and the Amish — modesty focuses primarily on a woman's behavior, especially how she dresses and holds herself. What I'm going to focus on today is how religious modesty culture defines a woman's dress and actions in terms of how men will see her, and ultimately shackles her to the whims, desires, and control of a patriarchal God, religion, and culture.

Before I begin, I want to say this: women should be able to wear whatever they want. So if a woman genuinely feels best wearing "modest" clothing, like long skirts, a hijab or other hair coverings, high-necked and long-sleeve tops, etc. then she should be allowed to do so. I am in full support of that. The problem arises when 1) "modesty" is expected, so women who don't fulfill the norm are shamed, 2) modesty culture is forced onto women without their consent, and 3) "modesty" is defined in terms of how a woman is viewed by the male gaze.

Notice that unless I'm talking about modesty culture specifically, I put the word "modesty" in quotes. Some people think covering up to the knees and elbows is enough; in extreme cases, "modesty" is covering everything of a woman's body except for her eyes. Considering the wide range of subjectivity, "modesty" is more of a catch-all phrase than a solid definition. In contrast, modesty culture encompasses this wide variety of views in one term, describing how, why, and when "modesty" is expected.

So, modesty culture: what is it, and how is it defined?

Modesty culture is the expectation on girls and women to dress in a way that is "not distracting" to boys and men and that doesn't call attention to themselves (namely, attention of the male sexual variety). This is supposed to "protect" women from men and their lusty habits, prevent them from being objectified, and keep them "pure" for marriage.

There are so many things wrong with this idea that I almost don't know where to begin. Modesty culture parades around in a disguise of protecting women, but it does far more harm than good. It reduces a woman's worth to what she is wearing, as if a "modestly" dressed woman deserves better treatment than an "immodestly" dressed woman. As if men don't have to treat an "immodest" woman with respect because "well, she was asking for it, dressing/acting like that." As if a woman should be treated a certain way just because of the clothing she wears! This, in turn, feeds into rape culture that blames the victim for the actions of the oppressor ("just look at what she was wearing, he couldn't help himself"), slut-shames women for their behavior or the way they dress, and reduces a woman to the way she looks.

Modesty culture claims to help women walk away from societal expectations and the male gaze, but it bases its worldview around how women are perceived by men. It feeds into the very system it claims to reject: it objectifies women, frames their self-worth around what men think of them, and associates their personhood with their outer appearance. Not only that, it blames them for the feelings or actions they might "stir up" in the men around them, putting the responsibility for men's actions and feelings on women's shoulders. It turns women into "diamonds," "jewels," or "pearls" to be protected by their owners (i.e. their husbands) from prying eyes, "lollipops" that need to be covered so as not to become "tainted," or, in the words of a religious leader in Sydney discussing "immodestly" dressed women, "uncovered meat." That's what women are under modesty culture — objects for the male gaze and desires, not their own autonomous beings.

Not only is modesty culture harmful to women, but it is insulting and harmful to men, too. Men deserve so much better than to be characterized as lusty, sex-hungry perverts who cannot control themselves around the sight of a female body! To be reduced to the level of a horny slobbering beast, unable to think coherently unless the women around you are completely covered up...that is insulting. Young boys who grow up immersed in modesty culture are taught that they lack self-control and are too weak to resist sexual urges without women changing their behavior to accommodate them. This implies that men can't help but harass and rape women who dare not cover every inch of themselves up. Men shouldn't lust, but if a woman is dressed a certain way, well...now that blame is placed on the woman. After all, men just can't help themselves. Men, you should be rightfully angry about such a stereotype. You deserve better! When women suffer at the hands of modesty culture, so do you.

Unfortunately, when people have their views challenged on modesty culture, especially religious modesty culture, they often try to bring science into it. It's the ultimate "don't attack my religion — the science backs it up!" play (nevermind the fact that as soon as science debunks their religious beliefs, science gets thrown out the window). "Men are just more lusty!" they say. "They're naturally visual creatures, and they have higher sex drives and less impulse control than women. It's just science."

But science has shown just the opposite — that men and women have similar sex drives, even if men have slightly higher drives than women on average. Men tend to think about sex more often, while women tend to be more affected by health issues that negatively impact their libido. Just as some men have trouble "getting it up," women also have problems getting going, and it isn't an issue of not wanting sex, but an issue of health. But even this is a generalization, because one in five males have a low sex drive that can be linked to health issues. To further complicate things, women's sex drives are often influenced by societal and cultural norms, as well as emotional ties. And in countries that are inching closer and closer to gender equality, there is (surprise, surprise) much less difference between men and women's sexual drives and preferences than in unequal countries. Of course, there's the very important point that even if men are shown to have a consistently higher sex drive than women, that doesn't say how much higher, and it definitely doesn't imply that women have low to nonexistent sex drives. Nor does it give men an excuse to lose control of themselves just because they're horny.

To make matters even worse, modesty culture doesn't do what it claims to do — it doesn't "protect women from the male gaze." From Islam to Christianity to Judaism, widespread claims are made that "modesty" protects a woman from sexual harassment, assault, and rape. This couldn't be farther from the truth. Modesty culture cannot and does not prevent women from being catcalled, leered at, demeaned, harassed, assaulted, raped, or even murdered. Just look at the high numbers of violence against women across the globe, regardless of culture or religious beliefs. As one woman wrote,

"Perverts are perverts. They will sexually harass and commit sexual violence against women who wear the hijab or a miniskirt because they are perverts—not because women have exercised their right to wear what they want."

In fact, as I said before, it is highly plausible that modesty culture and rape culture feed into each other. When you think that men don't have control over their actions towards women just because women exist and have bodies, it isn't much of a stretch to jump from that to sexual harassment and victim blaming.

All in all, modesty culture doesn't work, and ends up giving the burden of men's actions and desires on women's shoulders. Instead of spending so much time policing what women wear and how they act, why not just teach men how to respect women and treat them like human beings, instead?