False modesty

I have been getting very irritated with talk of "modesty" lately. Let me start with a little story:

http://www.screendaily.com/festivals/cannes/women-denied-palais-entry-for-wearing-flats/5088395.article?referrer=RSS

This may seem like it has nothing to do with modesty, but the element of inspection reminded me of another story I had recently heard of women back in the day having to kneel to demonstrate that their skirts were long enough, based on whether their hems touched the floor or not.

Allow me to suggest that if that is necessary to tell if the skirt is long enough, it's long enough.

The common factor is that the female body is subject to inspection. Once that is expected, the criteria can become increasingly arbitrary and ridiculous. A heel does not automatically make a shoe beautiful - some heels are really tacky. Many shoes are hidden by the gown length anyway. (I believe I read something about some women being asked to raise their skirts slightly so the heels could be checked.)

Therefore you can decide that even if a girl's collarbone is currently covered, the possibility of the sweater that is covering the collarbone being removed is reason enough to decide that the shirt is still inappropriate enough to send her home.

This teaches our young women two things: their bodies are shameful things and they are not capable of making their own decisions on what is appropriate. Because the reasons their bodies must be hidden are so frequently centered around distractions for the boys, girls are also taught that it is not about them. Even something as basic as what she puts on in the morning is not about her. Finally, though clearly the problem is how easily distracted and low-minded boys are, it is the responsibility of the girls to fix it.

Sadly, she is still required to be attractive, but not attractive in a way that violates the prevailing ill-conceived rules about what is and is not acceptable. Yoga pants cover the legs up, but too closely. Tight sweaters are okay if the bra doesn't show through. And seriously, when did collarbones become sexualized?

This is not about modesty, or respect, or any of the things they say it is. This is about controlling women. This is about patriarchy. No matter how many women help uphold the crooked system, it remains crooked.

This is the kind of mindset that leads to modesty-shaming, where a young woman at girls camp might be shamed for wearing capris and a sleeved t-shirt because the sleeve ends above her elbow and the shorts don't go far enough past her knee. I saw the picture, she was fine. She was also in a place where there are no boys, but still, how dare she have any skin other than her neck and face showing! Now we just need to decide that the neck and face are also evil so that we can require burqas and be done with it.

I was reading the Pauline Epistles lately, and if anyone is going to say something that sounds stupid and sexist it will be Paul. You know what he says about modesty and women? Don't spend too much time on your hair.

Fixating on clothes would be immodest. The path that we are on is one that will require young women to spend far too much time worrying about clothes, and they won't have any fun with it, but it will at least provide plenty of opportunities for judgment and alienation.

If we can't do better than that on modesty we should quite talking about it. We should at least understand it before we try and teach the young poeple how to do it.