Fashion & Beauty

In Defense of Modesty

In defense of modesty
There has been a lot of talk about how women should be able to dress however they want. And I agree that no dress-code should ever be the law and it'd be great if we could all always wear what we wanted without any judgment whatsoever. I just don't think that's very realistic.

Society has always given us guidelines on how to dress. Clothes matter because first impressions matter. We are judgmental as a species because those split second decisions help keep us safe.

And I find that while there is less pressure for women to cover up these days, it has shifted towards the opposite, there is a lot of pressure to dress revealing.

Apparently a lot of girls want to wear clothes that are scandalously short. And that's fine, but I don't. And never did. And that's fine too, right? I can choose to wear longer clothes. Well expect I can't. Not really anyway.

First of all, there's now a lot of social stigma with wearing clothes that don't show your figure or don't show any skin. A lot of those outfits look odd to us, out of place. You're a prude, conservative or just not cool, not popular with boys (which is very important when you're young, say what you want). There's a very strong message that to get boys to like you, you have to show a lot of skin. The more the better. And you guys (a lot of you anyway) confirm this by going for those outfits over more "modest" one

And second of all there aren't a lot of clothes like that around. Buying shorts for example that are longer than the picture below (which I would guess is a 1 -1.5 inch inseam) is impossible in a lot of stores

In Defense of Modesty

And personally, for me, that's too short to be comfortable. It's not practical for once. Try sitting a hot metal bench and if you don't have a thigh gap, prepare to have some serious chafing after a day of walking. But also I'm not okay with everyone seeing my butt when I bend over. It's too much, too private, too intimate for public (in my opinion)

Now I will say this has gotten a lot better since I graduated and can afford to shop in more high end places. You can find longer clothes there, but to be honest they are for a different demographic and it shows. As for stores that aim at teenagers and 20 somethings, finding shorts longer than that is difficult, if not impossible.

A while ago I read this semi viral blog post by a mother complaining that she can't find shorts for her daughter that aren't overly sexualised and I thought it was very relatable. When I try to buy clothes for myself I have the same problem,which is very frustrating. Why does it have to be like this?

Of course shorts are just one example. I live in the UK now and this country definitively has a love for short, tight skirts. Going out on an average Friday night you'll see at least a few girls whose dresses are so short you can see their panties (or lack thereof)

In Defense of Modesty

I get women shouldn't be forced to cover up head to toe, but what do we really have to gain from wearing clothes that barley cover anything?

Some people say that societal norms might have shifted from one extreme to another recently. Well I disagree. I think in the west's the unofficial dress codes have by no means been extreme within in the past century. I'm not sure why people felt there was a strong need to reform this. That we all should be showing more skin because it somehow makes us strong? Independent? Confident?

By the end of the day it's frustrating because there's no winning. I don't want anyone to feel they have to dress a certain way, when they might not want to, just because there is pressure or even a law to cover certain parts of your body. Such as in a lot of muslim countries. But at the same time I don't want to feel pressured myself to show certain parts of my body when I don't want to and I do feel like that a lot of times.

I wish we could have more of a middle ground between having to wear a burka and having your genitals show

In Defense of Modesty

To be clear, because I'm sure it will come up in the comments, I strongly disagree that women who dress in a certain way are asking to raped or assaulted. It most certainly should not be a valid defense in court. But on the other hand I often hear people say we should change men attitudes towards women who dress that way, rather than telling girls to dress differently. To a certain extend I agree with that but I think often people lose track of what is realistic and what is not .

There has been study over study finding that men's brains respond differently to women who are half naked than to women who are dressed. They see them more as objects rather than people. Whereas if they see women are wearing clothes they see them as people. That's of course an oversimplification of what the study found, but the point here is that no societal norm is ever gonna change neurological responses in men's brains to seeing women, so we have to deal with that in some way.

On the opposite side of that then, you often have people saying something along the lines "since we know men can't help it, they shouldn't even try to hide it". Which I also strongly disagree with. Because how men deal with it is something we CAN change. And throughout most of history, if you were feeling that way about a woman, you kept it to yourself. Somehow that changed recently, it has somehow become acceptable to talk about women as sex objects and that's not ok.

In Defense of Modesty

In Defense of Modesty
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