Speaker 1: Hey, this is Annie and Samantha, and welcome to Stephane.
Speaker 1: Ever told you, but actually I heart radio. Would you
Speaker 1: describe yourself as modest, Samantha, I will say that I'm
Speaker 1: very self conscious, so it's not necessarily about modesty but insecurity.
Speaker 1: But I think overall, yes, my dress is typically modest. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I probably am. I went to your period where I
Speaker 1: was really trying to push out of my comfort zone
Speaker 1: and I was gonna like crop tops, short shorts, and
Speaker 1: I look back on that period fondly, But the whole time,
Speaker 1: I was like so tense. When I did, I felt
Speaker 1: so nervous and uncomfortable, and I was like constantly straightening
Speaker 1: things out, wondering what I looks like. So I I did.
Speaker 1: I did struggle with that, and when I was growing up,
Speaker 1: it was very difficult for me to go outside of
Speaker 1: that boundary. Will Like my grandmother used to say, you
Speaker 1: have an excellent figure, and it would like bring me
Speaker 1: to tears since I was embarrassed. Yes, yes, but because
Speaker 1: we were recently talking about the editing of yearbooks to
Speaker 1: get rid of any sign of cleavage or shoulder, it's
Speaker 1: just something I've been thinking about about that kind of
Speaker 1: line where you can't win of either yeah, you're to
Speaker 1: modest and prude or the opposite of that, and and
Speaker 1: how there is this morality attached to modesty. But it
Speaker 1: also made me think about forever ago, and we did
Speaker 1: that many where we read the sex words how to
Speaker 1: write sexy. Modesty is a word that is often used
Speaker 1: for like nudity, like you cover your modesty or you
Speaker 1: hide your modesty, which always kind of cracked me up.
Speaker 1: It does seem really official. Yeah, it's just to me,
Speaker 1: it feels like another example of how we're so uncomfortable
Speaker 1: talking about sex. Yes, you gotta keep your modesty covered,
Speaker 1: and it's usually typically always referred to for women. Yes, yes, Well,
Speaker 1: we wanted to bring back this plastic episode looking into
Speaker 1: the history of of modesty, So please enjoy. Welcome to
Speaker 1: Stuff Mom Never Told You from how stup works dot com. Hello,
Speaker 1: and welcome to the podcast. I'm Kristen and I'm Caroline,
Speaker 1: and today on the show, we're talking about modesty. And
Speaker 1: before we get into the research that we found, we
Speaker 1: first wanted to share what some of you think about
Speaker 1: this issue of modesty. Um As we were researching, we
Speaker 1: took to the Stuff Mom Never Told you Facebook page
Speaker 1: and said, hey, what what are your thoughts on this
Speaker 1: issue about telling girls to cover up? Um, about this
Speaker 1: so called modesty movement taking place, and here are just
Speaker 1: some samples of what some of you had to say. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I have a note here from Elise, who brings up
Speaker 1: weather and body image all in one fell swoop. She
Speaker 1: says modesty is just a social construct. There's nothing inherently
Speaker 1: wrong with bare skin. It is simply too hot where
Speaker 1: I live to be fully covered all the time, and
Speaker 1: I hate the double standard that allows men to go
Speaker 1: shirtless while women cannot. That said, I personally tend to
Speaker 1: wear a bit more clothing because society has successfully made
Speaker 1: me ashamed of my five pounds overweight body. Caitlin brought
Speaker 1: up something that a number of women also mentioned, which
Speaker 1: is the issue of boobs. Especially if you have ample boobs,
Speaker 1: it can be harder to adhere to certain modesty standards,
Speaker 1: So Caitlin writes, I personally choose to dress more modestly.
Speaker 1: I'm a bigger girl with a quote ample bosom, so
Speaker 1: even the less revealing outfits can make me look a
Speaker 1: him endowed. I have zero problem with women my size
Speaker 1: or any size, wearing whatever they feel comfortable in. Though,
Speaker 1: one of my dear friends, who is a little smaller
Speaker 1: than me but still curvy, wears things that are so
Speaker 1: low cut they would make me blush, but they look
Speaker 1: amazing on her and she has the confidence to that
Speaker 1: is the key. Yeah, and Jamie adds to this, talking
Speaker 1: about how difficult it is to wear a skirt when
Speaker 1: you are above average height. She says, even when I
Speaker 1: stick with a knee length skirt, I've been accused of
Speaker 1: showing too much. This is in the professional setting where
Speaker 1: others are wearing much shorter skirts. Plus I'm on the
Speaker 1: busty side, so I can't win either way. Yeah, as
Speaker 1: a five nine almost five tin woman, I can definitely
Speaker 1: empathize with the leg length issue. Jennifer McPherson, though, made
Speaker 1: me laugh with her comment. Maybe this is why in
Speaker 1: all of the quote future movies everyone pretty much just
Speaker 1: wears the same jumpsuit problem solved. I used to have
Speaker 1: a jumpsuit. I would totally wear a jumpsuit if a
Speaker 1: it wasn't challenging to find one that fit because I
Speaker 1: have a super long torso, and b if I could
Speaker 1: actually pull off a jumpsuit, well yeah, no, mine was
Speaker 1: definitely not like a fashion jumpsuit. Mine was part of
Speaker 1: my April O'Neil Halloween costume. It was bright yellow. So
Speaker 1: if that's if that's in in the post apocalyptic future,
Speaker 1: then I'm all set and yeah, you're ready, You're ahead
Speaker 1: of the curve. Well. I do think one thing that
Speaker 1: was interesting about all of the comments, because there were
Speaker 1: a lot of them in response to that question about modesty,
Speaker 1: was how varied everyone's opinions were. We had a lot
Speaker 1: of women firmly in the camp of modest as hottests,
Speaker 1: and other women saying, you know, modesty is basically a
Speaker 1: social construct, and other women saying, you know what, let's
Speaker 1: just take all of our clothes off because this is ridiculous.
Speaker 1: What's what's your opinion? Do you feel like people should
Speaker 1: sew a certain line or just dress however makes them happy,
Speaker 1: even if that's just like a big bikini top. What
Speaker 1: do you think do you think? I think that there
Speaker 1: are certain situations that call for certain types of outfits. Obviously,
Speaker 1: if you want to wear a bikini top to a
Speaker 1: job interview, you're probably not going to get that job,
Speaker 1: unless you're interviewing for a lifeguard position or something like that.
Speaker 1: And I'm all for women dressing in a way that
Speaker 1: makes them feel comfortable and confident, whether that is a
Speaker 1: turtleneck and a floor link skirt or a crop top
Speaker 1: and short shorts. Um. I think what's maybe more important,
Speaker 1: and what we'll get into more in the podcast, is
Speaker 1: just checking ourselves on the way that we talk about modesty,
Speaker 1: specifically to girls, Because even though there might be a
Speaker 1: lot of good intentions with talking to girls about the
Speaker 1: importance of covering them up, covering themselves up, and you know,
Speaker 1: leaving things to the imagination, a lot of it is
Speaker 1: often just framed as ultimately making sure that they are
Speaker 1: appealing sexually. Two men. Right, what do you think, Caroline?
Speaker 1: I mean, I I share, I share your opinion. I
Speaker 1: think there's a time and a place for everything. I'm
Speaker 1: not going to wear my pajama shirt to a job interview,
Speaker 1: you know, or a tank top because I do have uh,
Speaker 1: I am blessed in the bubular area, and so a
Speaker 1: shirt that I might wear and find comfortable could actually
Speaker 1: look to some people inappropriate in the workplace. Yeah, that's
Speaker 1: the thing. Once we get into the lines of like
Speaker 1: what is professional, that's when it does get hard because
Speaker 1: you can say I should be able to wear whatever
Speaker 1: I want. But then but also yes, like I I
Speaker 1: hear that statement, and then I also think, well, there's
Speaker 1: the whole argument and modesty, which will we will obviously
Speaker 1: get into in this podcast talking about like, uh, covering
Speaker 1: up for men or around men um, but also with
Speaker 1: my clear leavage, I also want you looking at my face,
Speaker 1: you know. So it's not even so much that I'm like,
Speaker 1: I better protect myself by covering up. It's more like
Speaker 1: I just don't want my boobs to be an issue
Speaker 1: in every conversation I have. But is that then a
Speaker 1: double standard if for someone like me who cleavage is
Speaker 1: rarely an issue because it's mostly invisible, in which case
Speaker 1: I could wear the lower cut top to the office
Speaker 1: and people would probably still be looking me in the eye,
Speaker 1: even though as a tall woman, if I'm wearing he
Speaker 1: might be face to face with my boobs. But you
Speaker 1: know what I mean, does that ever feel like a
Speaker 1: frustrating double standard that if you are a more curvacious woman,
Speaker 1: whether it is in the boobular region which is the
Speaker 1: scientific term for it, or a little lower down in
Speaker 1: the butler region, that issue becomes a lot more challenging
Speaker 1: because it's like, well, then, what what am I supposed
Speaker 1: to wear? Do I have to just cover up my
Speaker 1: entire figure in order to be d A appropriate? I know,
Speaker 1: I I I hate it. Yeah, I mean I will
Speaker 1: it being all of it, the conversation about it, the
Speaker 1: fact that we have to work so hard every morning
Speaker 1: to pick out something from our closet to go to
Speaker 1: work that's not in a pro And I don't mean
Speaker 1: like Kristen and I going to work, I just mean
Speaker 1: work in general. Yeah, you know, like it's it's such
Speaker 1: a challenge, and women are told from the time they're
Speaker 1: itty biddy little kids that they have to watch what
Speaker 1: they wear and and watch how they dress around people,
Speaker 1: especially boys and men. Yeah, and this entire head scratching
Speaker 1: issue of how do we even talk about it? How
Speaker 1: do we hash all this out? Is why we wanted
Speaker 1: to do this episode in the first place, because clearly,
Speaker 1: like I said, judging by the outpouring of Facebook commentary,
Speaker 1: this is something that a lot of other women have
Speaker 1: dealt with as well. So let's go way, way way
Speaker 1: back in time. And first of all, I'll say that
Speaker 1: when it comes to this very brief historical snapshot of modesty.
Speaker 1: We're not really going to get very much into religion. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that could be a whole other topic unto itself. There
Speaker 1: were a lot of women on Facebook who brought up
Speaker 1: things like, you know, veiling, traditional veiling in Islam, also
Speaker 1: head covering in Judaism and even in some Christian denominations.
Speaker 1: But that's not really what we want to get at. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we're we're kind of gonna be focusing more in this
Speaker 1: episode on the sniping that goes on between and among women,
Speaker 1: more more so in a secular kind of viewpoint. Yeah,
Speaker 1: not not to say that there aren't certainly religious undertones
Speaker 1: to a lot of aspects of what is referred to
Speaker 1: as the modesty movement. In my personal upbringing in an
Speaker 1: Evangelical Christian home, modesty was a huge thing that was
Speaker 1: always talked about. Um. But yeah, we're going to stick
Speaker 1: to the more secular And we found this paper called
Speaker 1: let Modesty Be Her Reignment by Tamina Tariq from two
Speaker 1: thousand and She talks about the tradition of veiling in
Speaker 1: the pre Christian Classical era, so focusing on like fourth
Speaker 1: and third centuries BC, And it turns out that for
Speaker 1: well to do women. In ancient Greece and Rome, veiling
Speaker 1: or covering their hair was a way of a transporting
Speaker 1: the private domestic space or the proper place for women
Speaker 1: into the public, and doing so in a way that
Speaker 1: protected the honor of her male guardians or father's husband's brothers,
Speaker 1: and finally outwardly symbolizing the value of her virginity. I
Speaker 1: think it's interesting that from the get go you have
Speaker 1: something that a woman wears being tied into the honor
Speaker 1: of a man that she is with um. But at
Speaker 1: also this this isn't necessarily all women in these cultures.
Speaker 1: People who were in the lower classes, including slaves and
Speaker 1: peasants and others deemed inferior, would not have veiled their
Speaker 1: hair because nobody cared whether they were of honor or
Speaker 1: whether they were virgins. But if he were a woman
Speaker 1: of means, you would certainly cover your hair with different
Speaker 1: kinds of head coverings at the time that were called
Speaker 1: faros him and nations and pep loose, and all of
Speaker 1: this was really to prevent the possibility of men looking
Speaker 1: at the sensualized parts of her body, because in addition
Speaker 1: to veiling, she would also wear what we would think
Speaker 1: of is very modest clothing, but it was important that
Speaker 1: the hair also be covered because that was also a
Speaker 1: highly sensualized part and still is of the female body.
Speaker 1: And by essentially blocking those off from view, the thought was, well,
Speaker 1: then that would lower the chances of him fantasizing about her,
Speaker 1: which even just in the fantasy realm, would demean her. Well, now, Kristen,
Speaker 1: you wrote about this whole hair issue on stuff I
Speaker 1: Never told you dot com, and I think it's interesting
Speaker 1: to bring up why hair was so sexualized during this time. Yeah,
Speaker 1: if you go back to ancient Greece, Hippocrates, for instance,
Speaker 1: had this theory that when men and women had sexual
Speaker 1: intercourse that his semen would actually be directed into a
Speaker 1: woman's hair. So our long flowing hair is just a
Speaker 1: mass of semen magnets and that, and so in that way,
Speaker 1: women's hair was seen as a symbolic extension of our genitalia.
Speaker 1: That is just so weird and like the opposite of
Speaker 1: Okham's razor, Like why is semen filling up your hair?
Speaker 1: Like the simplest explanation for I don't know, because where
Speaker 1: else would it go? I guess I needed us that
Speaker 1: need at someplace, Yes, where else would it else couldn't
Speaker 1: go But this is also side note, and I feel
Speaker 1: like we need to do a whole podcast on this
Speaker 1: because I want to learn more. This also was very
Speaker 1: much linked to the tradition of a bride wearing a
Speaker 1: veil because she, you know, has her face covered by
Speaker 1: the veil. She's walking down the aisle, and in that way,
Speaker 1: her sexuality is still intact and preserved, but then broken
Speaker 1: when the husband lifts it up just to gaze on her.
Speaker 1: It was the power of the male gaze. They got
Speaker 1: the power of the mail gaze all the way back
Speaker 1: in ancient Greece and Rome. Yeah. Well, I mean, you know,
Speaker 1: we already talked about how women would wear headcoverings to
Speaker 1: go out to protect their honor and everything when they
Speaker 1: went out of the house, to extend that private sphere
Speaker 1: into public. And so why wearing that veil. The bride
Speaker 1: is being protected if she's handed off from the one
Speaker 1: man in her life to the other man in her life. Well,
Speaker 1: in addition to us walking around with these uh all
Speaker 1: these seamen magnets on our head a k air hair,
Speaker 1: this was also a time when women were people were
Speaker 1: very concerned about protecting women's honor and sort of covering
Speaker 1: up all signs of our sexuality, because this was also
Speaker 1: an era when women were presumed to be sexually aggressive
Speaker 1: and prone to hysteria, and we would essentially go wild
Speaker 1: if we weren't being physically attend to do well enough. Well, so,
Speaker 1: in that argument, it only makes sense that women should
Speaker 1: dress modestly. If we're so aggressively sexual and we're always
Speaker 1: trying to trap a man into having sex with us
Speaker 1: and like doing things to our hair and whatever, well,
Speaker 1: obviously we should veil ourselves and cover ourselves up, right. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: there are There are all sorts of conflicting messages. That's
Speaker 1: still though, echo today in a lot of the modesty
Speaker 1: messages that girls and women are being taught. And there
Speaker 1: was a quote from to Minatrig's paper that jumped out
Speaker 1: to me. Uh. She said, neither the veil nor its
Speaker 1: usage has ever been monolithic. The discourse of modesty, shame,
Speaker 1: and protection, however, has always been present. Uh. And and
Speaker 1: those three things, modesty, shame, and protection are very much interwoven.
Speaker 1: In that relationship between those three factors, I think is
Speaker 1: a big reason why we have all of these sort
Speaker 1: of questions about modesty today. Well, yeah, and speaking of
Speaker 1: the modesty movement today, when you move into the late
Speaker 1: nineties and early two thousands, you start to see a
Speaker 1: lot of literature being published on women remaining modest, dressing
Speaker 1: modestly and how that will benefit them both out in
Speaker 1: society and in their relationships with men. Yeah, there's Wendy Shallotte,
Speaker 1: whose name comes up all the time. She's actually been
Speaker 1: referred to as the mother of the modesty movement, and
Speaker 1: in her first book, A Return to Modesty, she wrote
Speaker 1: many of the problem ONMS we hear about today, sexual harassment,
Speaker 1: date rape are connected to cultures attack on modesty. And
Speaker 1: I believe that came out in And I remember this
Speaker 1: clearly because I was in high school and this was
Speaker 1: the era of low rise jeans and Britney Spears at
Speaker 1: her peak before she shaved her head, and specifically Britney
Speaker 1: Spears at the MTV Video Music Awards wearing those low
Speaker 1: slung pants, sparkly pants with the thong visible pulled out
Speaker 1: from it, and how horrified everyone was by this. And
Speaker 1: I remember also having like a conversation after conversation with
Speaker 1: my mother about why it should be okay for me
Speaker 1: to wear thongs and how horrified my mother was at
Speaker 1: low rise jeans. There was a lot of modesty panic
Speaker 1: at the turn of the millennium. Interesting. Yeah, I had to,
Speaker 1: I definitely had to start buying thongs and buy I
Speaker 1: I mean my mother bought them for because the jeans
Speaker 1: I was wearing were so tight. See, my mother never
Speaker 1: would have because I gave her, of course, the argument
Speaker 1: of but visible panty line, and she said, no, no, no, no,
Speaker 1: thongs are for sexual activity and you will not be
Speaker 1: wearing them. But she finally broke down. I think, like
Speaker 1: my junior year and I just bought one. Huh. And
Speaker 1: it's funny now that that as a thirty year old woman,
Speaker 1: I'm like, I would never wear a thong anymore. I
Speaker 1: wear I wear the laser cut like really super thin
Speaker 1: boy boy shorts instead. Listeners are learning a lot about us.
Speaker 1: They are I do not like a thong. Um. But yeah,
Speaker 1: so Shallotte's book, I return to Modesty, and then her
Speaker 1: two thousand seven follow up, Girls Gone Mild. We're accompanied
Speaker 1: by Don Eden's two thousand six book The Thrill of
Speaker 1: the Chased. A lot of wordplay going on here, finding
Speaker 1: fulfillment while keeping your clothes on and Laura's Session Steps
Speaker 1: two thousand eight unhooked how young women pursue sex to
Speaker 1: lay love and lose it oath. And that's sort of
Speaker 1: a huge part of this modesty discussion among a lot
Speaker 1: of these authors, basically saying, like, part of the problem
Speaker 1: is that when young women are dressing really provocatively and slowly,
Speaker 1: and they're feeling forced into dressing that way and engaging
Speaker 1: in sexual activity, and we should empower our young women
Speaker 1: to wear a turtleneck. Yeah, And there were a lot
Speaker 1: of common culprits repeated over and over again in these
Speaker 1: kinds of books. So, for instance, Britney Spears comes up
Speaker 1: over and over again. Uh. There's also the so called
Speaker 1: mom's gone wild who are you know, moms who we
Speaker 1: hear about who dress even wilder than their daughters. And
Speaker 1: along with that permissive parenting, sex educators, feminists, I mean,
Speaker 1: apparently feminists are very much to blame. Uh, and of
Speaker 1: course hook up culture as well. And and the big
Speaker 1: argument with these modesty books is that it's not just uh,
Speaker 1: girls sexual purity at steak, it's also self esteem. That
Speaker 1: by dressing this way we are degrading ourselves and thus
Speaker 1: um just eroding our collective female self esteem. And then
Speaker 1: on top of this, we have a very male Harvard
Speaker 1: professor Harvey Mansfield who wrote Manliness, which urged women to
Speaker 1: cover up. He said that women play the men's game,
Speaker 1: which they are bound to lose. Without modesty, there is
Speaker 1: no romance. It isn't so attractive or so erotic to men. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and that kind of leads to the whole modest as
Speaker 1: hottest sort of thing of, Well, if you really want
Speaker 1: to be as sexually attractive as you can possibly be,
Speaker 1: then cover up so that you leave something to the imagination,
Speaker 1: make him wait for it, make him win it, I
Speaker 1: guess by marrying you, and then everything will be fine.
Speaker 1: Which that that's not a perfect message to deliver either,
Speaker 1: because ultimately it's like, wait, wait, I thought the point
Speaker 1: of this was to build self esteems outside of their
Speaker 1: sexual desirability. Oh wait no, you're telling them to cover
Speaker 1: up as a way to amplify their sexual desirability. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I know it. It gets it gets super sticky because
Speaker 1: I mean, they're accusing feminists of ruining young women's lives,
Speaker 1: but they're people like Shallot are making the assertion that
Speaker 1: feminists as a whole as this monel Lithic group are
Speaker 1: telling young women, you've got to go out there and
Speaker 1: have lots of sex with lots of people, or else
Speaker 1: you're not a real woman or a real feminist. And
Speaker 1: it's like whoa, whoa, pump the brakes. That's not what
Speaker 1: feminism is about. Feminism is about choices, right, and about
Speaker 1: supporting women and doing what they choose to do. And
Speaker 1: so while I feel that you should absolutely have the
Speaker 1: choice and the option to dress as modestly as you want,
Speaker 1: I think that we forget that women are sexual creatures too,
Speaker 1: and this whole discussion about modesty often circles around women
Speaker 1: covering up to protect themselves from men, because feminists have
Speaker 1: been telling us that we should go out and have
Speaker 1: all the sex and no, no, but that's bad for society.
Speaker 1: It's more like, well, no, I mean, I think that
Speaker 1: just means that for once, people are remembering that women
Speaker 1: are sexual creatures to just like men are, and that
Speaker 1: we should have the choice if we so desire, to
Speaker 1: dress however we want and have sex if we want
Speaker 1: or not exactly well, and I think that's the big
Speaker 1: thing that or not is what's often left out of
Speaker 1: these conversations. There's never the assumption that it's also or not. UM.
Speaker 1: And on top of these books, they're also around this time,
Speaker 1: in the early two thousand's and still today, lots of
Speaker 1: pro modesty websites popping up clothing lines. There's even fashion
Speaker 1: magazine called Eliza that is all about modest fashions, how
Speaker 1: to look pretty and fashionable while still covering up. Um.
Speaker 1: There's even something called the Pure Fashion Training Program, which
Speaker 1: we started in two thousand and five to essentially teach
Speaker 1: girls how to dress modestly. I mean, it's it's all
Speaker 1: kind of different versions of the same thing. A lot
Speaker 1: of it does have a Christian, very Christian undertones. Um.
Speaker 1: And as we have I'm sure very clearly hinted, not
Speaker 1: everyone is a huge fan of this modesty movement. Particularly
Speaker 1: when uh Girls Gone Mild by Wendy Shallotte came out
Speaker 1: in two thousand and seven, there was a lot of
Speaker 1: conversation about it and a lot of critique. Yeah, around
Speaker 1: this time, the critiques that were coming out were were
Speaker 1: so I thought they put things pretty darn well, especially
Speaker 1: when from Shia Tarrant over at Bitch Magazine, where she
Speaker 1: talks about how girls and women this is a quote.
Speaker 1: Girls and women are charged with being the gatekeepers of
Speaker 1: what's sexually appropriate, but what's judged inappropriate is measured by
Speaker 1: the effect it has on men. And I think this
Speaker 1: is the key to understanding the art human against this
Speaker 1: particular modesty movement, because it's a catch twenty two because
Speaker 1: we are the gate keepers of our own sexuality, but
Speaker 1: we are also responsible for men's reaction to us. Y
Speaker 1: um well and something that Joshua Zeitz, who is the
Speaker 1: author of Flapper, A mad Cap Story of Sex, Style,
Speaker 1: Celebrity and the Women who made America Modern, was also
Speaker 1: talking to Newsweek about this whole modesty movement, and he said,
Speaker 1: the thing is, this is really nothing new. They have
Speaker 1: always been culturally conservative reactions to spikes in outward expressions
Speaker 1: of women's sexualities. As during the era of the New
Speaker 1: Woman and the Flapper, people were horrified by it. And
Speaker 1: he says that quote the concern at the time was
Speaker 1: that the culture was sexualizing young girls, and we're talking
Speaker 1: about back in the twenties. And he says that the
Speaker 1: backlash then came during the Great Depression, when you see
Speaker 1: a movement to get women back into the home in
Speaker 1: part to correct this culture of licentiousness. So, I mean,
Speaker 1: and you can. I feel like any time you have
Speaker 1: a progressive cultural movement, especially one that trends more liberal,
Speaker 1: there's always the flip side to it. There's always the backlash.
Speaker 1: There's always the fear and the panic that that the
Speaker 1: status quo is being challenged a bit too much, and
Speaker 1: it will all lead to us going to you know,
Speaker 1: just hell in a handbasket. Yeah, So what do we
Speaker 1: have now? We have more women in the workplace, more
Speaker 1: women as bosses, we have the gay rights movement, more
Speaker 1: and more states okay in gay marriage. There's a lot
Speaker 1: of one would say cultural change going on. Well, and
Speaker 1: more women having sex more openly, and by that I
Speaker 1: mean not like out in parks, but being more open
Speaker 1: about their sexuality, about choosing yes, about choosing to participate.
Speaker 1: And going back to that quote from Share Tarrant at
Speaker 1: Bitch Magazine talking about how we're the gate keepers of
Speaker 1: what's sexually appropriate, but we're also um being judged for
Speaker 1: it um and Kareem at The l A Times wrote
Speaker 1: something similar. She said, it's not a lack of female modesty,
Speaker 1: but a sense of male entitlement that leads to sexual violence.
Speaker 1: So if we're looking at the modesty movement as a
Speaker 1: way for women to protect themselves and to remain pure
Speaker 1: and all of this stuff to remain safe, I don't
Speaker 1: think the modesty movement, And obviously and Kareem does not
Speaker 1: either think that this is the way to do it. People.
Speaker 1: It's not that wearing a turtleneck and a long skirt
Speaker 1: it's going to prevent rape from happening. Yeah. And that
Speaker 1: quote from and Kareem was in direct response to Shallots
Speaker 1: quote in a Return to Modesty saying that many of
Speaker 1: the problems we hear about today sexual harassment and date
Speaker 1: rape are connected to our cultures. Attack on modesty and
Speaker 1: saying that how you dress will determine whether or not
Speaker 1: you will be raped is completely victim blaming and is
Speaker 1: disproven by statistics and also disproven by just taking a
Speaker 1: walk down the sidewalk in some sweatpants you'll still get
Speaker 1: cat called. It just happens. Um. So obviously there are
Speaker 1: lots of problematic messages that are tied up with this
Speaker 1: when when ultimately the message should be. There are certain
Speaker 1: times and places when certain uniforms are called for as
Speaker 1: in the workplace, sometimes in in schools, et cetera. But
Speaker 1: beyond that, you know, women should be taught to value
Speaker 1: themselves and have self esteem outside of their bodies as
Speaker 1: sexual commodities. Um. Absolutely, But when women are being told
Speaker 1: address a specific way, specifically so that they will not
Speaker 1: you know, attract sexual assault, then that just doesn't even
Speaker 1: it doesn't even make logical sense. And just for one
Speaker 1: side note on all this, one thing that's often tied
Speaker 1: up with the modesty movement is virginity pledges, and studies
Speaker 1: have found that kids who do take virginity pledges are
Speaker 1: just as likely to have pre marital sex and have
Speaker 1: higher rates of STD transmissions, probably because, uh, they might
Speaker 1: not have received as comprehensive of sex education and they're
Speaker 1: doing things in secret. So something's not necessarily working by
Speaker 1: just saying nope, let's just just didn't just shut off
Speaker 1: your sexuality and everything will be fine. Well, Kristen, you
Speaker 1: mentioned dress codes and schools a second ago, and we
Speaker 1: are going to talk more about that whole issue when
Speaker 1: we come right back from a quick break. Now, I've
Speaker 1: talked about dress codes before or on the podcast. We
Speaker 1: dedicated an entire episode to this, So this is a
Speaker 1: little bit of rehashing, but it's important to talk about because,
Speaker 1: especially when we're looking at modesty in more secular settings,
Speaker 1: school dress codes are the prime place where this happens.
Speaker 1: Where these messages of girls, you your bodies are just distractions.
Speaker 1: Then this isn't this is where it's happening. It's happening
Speaker 1: mostly in the classroom, and there are plenty of reasons
Speaker 1: why kids should be expected to dress certain ways in school.
Speaker 1: I do think that there's a lot to the idea
Speaker 1: of dressing for success, and when you are, you know,
Speaker 1: dressed in a certain way, it kind of helps you
Speaker 1: feel better, it helps you pay more attention. However, a
Speaker 1: lot of dress codes take it too far and end
Speaker 1: up penalizing certain types of body types. Yeah yeah, well,
Speaker 1: I mean it's the same thing that we talked about
Speaker 1: at the beginning of the podcast. With any girl who
Speaker 1: is slightly curvyer, or bigger in any way than what
Speaker 1: is considered like a safe body almost is penalized, like
Speaker 1: something will look too low cut or too short or
Speaker 1: to this or to that. God forbid, You're tall and slim,
Speaker 1: and your shorts are the exact same shorts that your
Speaker 1: friend is wearing, but they just look longer on her
Speaker 1: and shorter on you. You know, it's like it's a
Speaker 1: lose lose proposition when it comes to getting girls in
Speaker 1: trouble for what they're wearing. And and I totally agree
Speaker 1: with you that, yes, there obviously should be guidelines. I
Speaker 1: went to school with a strict dress code. Um. But
Speaker 1: when you get into the argument that girls have to
Speaker 1: dress a certain way so as not to distract the
Speaker 1: other half of the population at school, I think that's problematic. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I mean because tossing that too the fact that girls
Speaker 1: bodies are developing at different times, and when you are
Speaker 1: stay an eleven, twelve, thirteen year old girl, and you
Speaker 1: got boobs out of nowhere, you got a butt or
Speaker 1: both out of nowhere, and you're kind of dealing with
Speaker 1: how you know the world around you is now responding
Speaker 1: to this more womanly body while you're still dealing with
Speaker 1: the fact that you have an adolescent brain. Is confusing
Speaker 1: and confounding enough to begin with, But to then have
Speaker 1: adults tell you that your body is a dangerous distraction
Speaker 1: for yourself and for other people is certainly harmful. Um.
Speaker 1: And there are all sorts of examples of modesty and
Speaker 1: dress codes kind of gone wild. Uh. There was one
Speaker 1: incident that went viral that a lot of listeners have
Speaker 1: probably heard about during prom season earlier in when a
Speaker 1: girl went to a homeschool prom and she wore a dress.
Speaker 1: It was short, but she double checked that it was
Speaker 1: going to be fingertip length even with her super high
Speaker 1: high heels on, and she was eventually kicked out of
Speaker 1: the prom because she was told by a female chaperone
Speaker 1: that she was distracting male chaperones who were watching her
Speaker 1: and watching her dance, to which she wrote a blog
Speaker 1: post about it and was enraged by understandably, and it
Speaker 1: went completely viral, right, yeah, And she was basically arguing
Speaker 1: that she was within the stated dress code, that it
Speaker 1: was fingertip length, and more so, what are these male
Speaker 1: chaperins doing looking down at all of us and judging
Speaker 1: what we're wearing and determining whether it's inappropriate. Well, not
Speaker 1: not even just judging, but actually saying that they were
Speaker 1: becoming too aroused by the sight of this like fifteen
Speaker 1: sixteen year old girl, so she needed to be removed.
Speaker 1: They didn't need to do anything with checking their own
Speaker 1: thoughts and fantasies. It was her as the gatekeeper of
Speaker 1: her own sexuality and apparently the reactions of everyone else
Speaker 1: around her, she's the one who needs to be punished
Speaker 1: for that. And um, even I mean I feel like
Speaker 1: things like that when when people are like, oh, well
Speaker 1: it's a homeschool prom, of course that's going to happen,
Speaker 1: because it's just a bunch of evangelical Christian nuts. That's
Speaker 1: where the only place that happens. No. No, As a
Speaker 1: past former evangelical homeschool, I feel okay saying that. And
Speaker 1: also there have been issues in public schools at proms
Speaker 1: with girls who have dresses that meet the dress code,
Speaker 1: but their bodies are simply deemed like too busty. Nope,
Speaker 1: we can see too much of your boobs, we can
Speaker 1: see too much of your butts. Go cover up. Mm hmm.
Speaker 1: But I mean talking about school, it's not just happening
Speaker 1: at high schools or elementary schools or whatever. It's also
Speaker 1: happening at nursing school. If we look at U T. Austin,
Speaker 1: they had a modesty promoting sign hung up in an
Speaker 1: elevator I think it will us or somewhere in the
Speaker 1: hall that basically was like, hey guys and gals, you're
Speaker 1: at nursing school now, so don't dress in appropriately. And
Speaker 1: it's like if they had just left it at that, well,
Speaker 1: it specifically said no cleavage, yeah, but they didn't just
Speaker 1: leave it at that. They listed like no cleavage, no
Speaker 1: short skirts, no short shorts, no this and that, and
Speaker 1: so it was obviously targeting women and women's bodies, but
Speaker 1: the sign was removed thanks to social media. The sign
Speaker 1: was removed within twenty four hours. Yeah. And the thing is,
Speaker 1: this is where we get into the difference between intent
Speaker 1: and impact, because you could say that the intent of
Speaker 1: all of these messages is perfectly fine, well and good,
Speaker 1: because the intent is for girls to have a healthy
Speaker 1: self esteem, for them to you know, not experience sexual
Speaker 1: harassment or sexual assault, uh, to create more positive and
Speaker 1: effective learning environments, all perfectly good intentions. But the problem
Speaker 1: is the impact is not that because a lot of
Speaker 1: times the messages the girls are being delivered is that,
Speaker 1: you know what, the fact of the matter is, you're
Speaker 1: living in a rape culture, so you better cover up
Speaker 1: because if you don't, you will be considered as someone
Speaker 1: who is fine to sexually assault. And that sounds extreme,
Speaker 1: but when you break down those kinds of messages because
Speaker 1: it's well, I mean, boys will be boys, so you'd
Speaker 1: better cover your boobs or else are gonna want to
Speaker 1: honk them like it just doesn't. It's insulting to girls,
Speaker 1: But it's also insulting to boys, yeah, because yeah, you're
Speaker 1: telling girls that your body is dangerous. You're going to
Speaker 1: distract everyone, and it will be your fault if you
Speaker 1: get assaulted. But you're delivering the message to boys that well,
Speaker 1: it's fine, boys will be boys. You obviously can't control
Speaker 1: your animal sexuality, so if you do assault that girl,
Speaker 1: you know, it's just of course. Yeah, And there was
Speaker 1: one thing that I wanted to look into, which is
Speaker 1: kind of debunking this whole boys will be boys nonsense,
Speaker 1: because I do think that that a lot of it
Speaker 1: just strips everyone of agency because essentially we're all powerless
Speaker 1: over our own bodies. Girls are powerless over, you know,
Speaker 1: the messages that their cleavage might deliver, and boys apparently
Speaker 1: are powerless over the messages that their penises deliver to
Speaker 1: their brains because a lot of times the comments that
Speaker 1: you hear is that, well, boys and men are just
Speaker 1: visual creatures and you can't you know, we we really
Speaker 1: do need to just protect what they then see. But
Speaker 1: when you look into studies on the sex specific responses
Speaker 1: to visual stimuli, yes, men are completely visually stimulated, absolutely, um,
Speaker 1: but a so are women. And also the specific response
Speaker 1: to the sexual messages that men infer from said stimuli
Speaker 1: do have beyond biological influencers. And what we're talking about
Speaker 1: is coming from a two thousand seven meta analysis called
Speaker 1: sex specific content Preferences for Visual sexual Stimuli, a review
Speaker 1: by Kim Wallen and Heather Rupp, and in looking at
Speaker 1: how men sort of uh respond when they are viewing
Speaker 1: a woman or women interacting with women, they found that
Speaker 1: that sort of almost rape cultural response that we expect
Speaker 1: that we think, oh, well, if a woman's exposed, that's
Speaker 1: her fault and she's just arousing all of the men folk,
Speaker 1: that that response is actually minimized in men who have
Speaker 1: more exposure to women, have been in experience coeducational experiences
Speaker 1: with them. Um, basically, as I would interpret it, men
Speaker 1: who respect women as people more. Yeah, there is clearly
Speaker 1: a strong correlation between the interactions that men had with women, essentially,
Speaker 1: like the more they were simply seen as people rather
Speaker 1: than sex objects, and the the inference from seeing a
Speaker 1: sexual stimuli as an invitation and open invitation for them
Speaker 1: to approach and interact at will. Because the thing about
Speaker 1: it is, I don't see anything wrong whatsoever with men
Speaker 1: or women. That's another thing in all of this. Women
Speaker 1: are also visually stimulated. But anyway, I see nothing wrong
Speaker 1: with men or women seeing another body and being sexually
Speaker 1: aroused by that. That is simply going to happen. I
Speaker 1: don't think the the ultimate purpose of watch what You
Speaker 1: dress is to try to like shut down our complete
Speaker 1: and total sexual responses. It's more when we get into
Speaker 1: the rape culture territory, it's more that visual stimuli and
Speaker 1: that thought of huh, wow, that's a very attractive person,
Speaker 1: and even to the point of that's a very attractive person,
Speaker 1: and I wouldn't mind being naked with them. That line
Speaker 1: then going into and you know what, I'm just gonna go,
Speaker 1: you know, get naked with that person, whether he or
Speaker 1: she likes it or not. Right, So, then the researchers
Speaker 1: were also talking about how this whole stereotype of men
Speaker 1: being so visually stimulated and women not apparently being visually
Speaker 1: stimulated at all according to just stereotype. They were talking
Speaker 1: about how because there's that expectation and that stereotype that
Speaker 1: exists that women are less likely to say that they
Speaker 1: are sexually stimulated because of visual cues. Yeah, I mean
Speaker 1: a lot of times we're not supposed to obviously, Like
Speaker 1: women have for so long been the gatekeepers over and
Speaker 1: over again of sexual propriety. You know, women don't. That's
Speaker 1: why you know, the popularity of fifty Shades of Gray
Speaker 1: so mind blowing to people because it's women openly saying like,
Speaker 1: oh wow, I'm really into this, and because it's sexually arousing.
Speaker 1: Apparently women talk like this too. And when it comes
Speaker 1: to sexual objectification, which obviously is a big piece of
Speaker 1: this of seeing women not as people but as sex
Speaker 1: objects therefore their gratification, one two thousand eight study found
Speaker 1: that there is a learned part of that that's not
Speaker 1: just some natural, as we often call it, instinct of
Speaker 1: a visual creature. No. It found that men are often
Speaker 1: taught from an early age to emphasize physical appearance, and
Speaker 1: that they tend to be more aroused in context in
Speaker 1: which they can objectify another person, and that that tendency
Speaker 1: is often learned because we're societally we cater to that interesting.
Speaker 1: And while that might like we have a hopeless situation,
Speaker 1: that's actually good news is the fact that, oh no,
Speaker 1: there's actually a lot of learning and socialization involved with this.
Speaker 1: I think it's highly possible. In the same way that
Speaker 1: we want to teach girls to refocus their self esteem
Speaker 1: away from just the value of their bodies, we can
Speaker 1: also teach boys to refocus the value that they see
Speaker 1: in women beyond just being potential sex objects. Right, it's
Speaker 1: unlearning that entitlement we talked about earlier that actually is
Speaker 1: what leads to the danger of rape and sexual assault,
Speaker 1: not what a woman is wearing exactly. And I want
Speaker 1: to underscore again that this isn't an argument for just
Speaker 1: let people always, in every single context, dress however they want. Um.
Speaker 1: I think that it would be foolish to say that
Speaker 1: that that the way you dress will you know, shouldn't
Speaker 1: have to shouldn't make any kind of impact on what
Speaker 1: other people think about you. There are issues when it's
Speaker 1: good to dress professionally, or where it's good to dress
Speaker 1: in clean, neat clothes, where you know, there's definitely an
Speaker 1: interaction between how we dress and how we feel. Because
Speaker 1: I do think there comes a time for a lot
Speaker 1: of girls, especially when we hit puberty. At least I
Speaker 1: can just speak for myself, when you start getting curious
Speaker 1: about what it is to feel sexy and feel desired,
Speaker 1: and you want to dress in provocative ways and you
Speaker 1: want to test those boundaries, and it's like, okay, Well,
Speaker 1: the question then becomes how how do we talk to
Speaker 1: girls about this? How do we And because I think
Speaker 1: just telling girls no, no, no, just don't do that
Speaker 1: you'll be asking for it isn't going to solve anything
Speaker 1: at all. Even if she does say okay, it's nothing
Speaker 1: but overalls and turtlenecks from here on out. It's not
Speaker 1: really that's not really teaching her anything beyond just what
Speaker 1: to put on. That's not you know, that's not really
Speaker 1: building up um, building up this self esteem. Yeah, I mean,
Speaker 1: I think a lot of it goes back to the
Speaker 1: choices that we talked about earlier, the choices of dressing
Speaker 1: modestly if you so choose, and not tying sexuality or
Speaker 1: or the potential for danger just to a woman's body. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, because the taking this back a few levels,
Speaker 1: it's not so much about the clothes. It's the fact
Speaker 1: that ultimately you know that the best thing a girl
Speaker 1: can be called in our culture is beautiful and desirable.
Speaker 1: And I think that that's where we get into the trouble.
Speaker 1: It's not that girls want to wear thongs when sometimes
Speaker 1: it's completely unnecessary, which brings up my follow up question
Speaker 1: of is a thong ever necessary? Really? Um more so
Speaker 1: than the clothes. I just think that it's the issue
Speaker 1: that we need to take a closer look at of, Well,
Speaker 1: why is it that the highest compliment you can pay
Speaker 1: to a girl in our society is that she's beautiful?
Speaker 1: Is that she is desirable? Is that you know? And
Speaker 1: and why for boys is obtaining a girl, of having
Speaker 1: sex with a girl some kind of prize to chase down?
Speaker 1: And there there was one Facebook comment that jumped out
Speaker 1: to me from someone who is arguing in favor of
Speaker 1: dressing modestly because we have a natural line of decency,
Speaker 1: to which I say, but then why is it that
Speaker 1: if you travel around the world to some areas, it's
Speaker 1: natural in quotes for women to be topless, for women
Speaker 1: to be far less modest than we are in Western society.
Speaker 1: All of that, really, to me is evidence that modesty
Speaker 1: in many ways is a construct and we just need
Speaker 1: to pay close attention to what we are really saying
Speaker 1: when we are saying be modest. Yeah, I'm definitely interested
Speaker 1: to hear from people once. You know, we prompted people
Speaker 1: before this episode to tell us what they thought. I'm
Speaker 1: interested to hear it. The same people respond once they've
Speaker 1: heard us, especially if you have girls. This is the
Speaker 1: thing that I still don't I still don't know how
Speaker 1: to talk to a girl about the issue of dressing
Speaker 1: without alienating her from her own body, if that makes sense.
Speaker 1: So if anyone has cracked that code, please let us know.
Speaker 1: Mom Stuff at how Stuff Works dot comm is where
Speaker 1: you can send your letters, and I know we're gonna
Speaker 1: be getting a lot of them. You can also message
Speaker 1: us on Facebook or tweet us at Mom's Stuff podcast,
Speaker 1: and We've got a couple of messages to share with
Speaker 1: you that have nothing to do with modesty. Right now. Well,
Speaker 1: I've got an email here from Becky about our Women
Speaker 1: Traveling Alone are Women's Wanderlust episode. She writes, thank you
Speaker 1: so much for your podcast about women traveling Alone. I
Speaker 1: too travel to Italy on my own to study abroad. Well,
Speaker 1: it was pretty nerve racking to fight international on my own.
Speaker 1: The freedom I felt was amazing. It's also the best
Speaker 1: feeling in the world after small victories like finding somewhere
Speaker 1: decent to eat on your own, finding your plane, making
Speaker 1: it through a day without feeling like you want to
Speaker 1: cry a little. It's been five years since i went
Speaker 1: to Italy, and I'm looking forward to going back again.
Speaker 1: This podcast gave me an extra nudge to make that
Speaker 1: goal of reality. Whether I go by myself or with
Speaker 1: another female companion. It makes me scared that I forego
Speaker 1: my travel dreams, as corny as that sounds, just because
Speaker 1: I'm afraid of experiencing things alone. So thanks for the
Speaker 1: encouragement and thank you Becky. Alright, I have a letter
Speaker 1: from Rochelle. She said that our Wanderlust podcast made her
Speaker 1: long for her first solo travel trip to the States
Speaker 1: ten years ago. She says, I'm from Perth, Western Australia,
Speaker 1: and I've since been back to America two more times.
Speaker 1: Back in oh four, I was twenty two and I
Speaker 1: had signed up to work in an American summer camp
Speaker 1: in the Poconos. I had a little time before camp
Speaker 1: started to see New York and lots of time afterwards
Speaker 1: to see the rest of America. My parents were very concerned,
Speaker 1: and my dad even gave me a rape whistle, which
Speaker 1: I assured him I wouldn't need. Traveling alone, I had
Speaker 1: a lot of interesting experiences that I wouldn't have had
Speaker 1: if I was traveling with someone. My first interesting experience
Speaker 1: happened when I got off the subway in New York
Speaker 1: after flying in. I had booked a hostile a little
Speaker 1: further out than I thought. I thought i'd booked somewhere
Speaker 1: on the Upper West Side, and it ended up being
Speaker 1: in Harlem. When I came up from the subway, a
Speaker 1: guy approached me and asked if I needed help with
Speaker 1: my luggage. He could have been just being a complete gentleman. However,
Speaker 1: I said that I was fine and carried on to
Speaker 1: my hostel. It's very true that you were approached more
Speaker 1: often when you're alone. In New York, I was approached
Speaker 1: by another tourist asking me for directions, and in l A,
Speaker 1: I was waiting at a bus stop when an ausee
Speaker 1: couple asked me the difference between dimes and nickels. After
Speaker 1: a minute of talking, they really lies. They frequented the
Speaker 1: store where I worked. Back home. Very small world I
Speaker 1: also had the interesting experience of staying in a unisex
Speaker 1: for bed dorm for two weeks, and the whole time
Speaker 1: I was the only female in the room while the
Speaker 1: men came and went. I never felt threatened. I ended
Speaker 1: up being taken under the wing of a slightly older
Speaker 1: German dude who took me on all sorts of crazy
Speaker 1: adventures I never would have gotten into had I not
Speaker 1: been traveling alone. UM So, Rochelle, I'm so glad you
Speaker 1: had some amazing solo travel experiences. I um just had
Speaker 1: my own to a Ruba not too long ago, and
Speaker 1: it was awesome and I I definitely felt like I
Speaker 1: press pressed the reset button. I think traveling alone is
Speaker 1: something that you, the general, you should all do if
Speaker 1: you get the chance. And thanks everybody who's written into
Speaker 1: us Mom stuff at how Stuffworks dot com is our
Speaker 1: email address, and you can also find all of our
Speaker 1: social media links, as well as all of our blogs, videos,
Speaker 1: and podcasts, including this one, which will also include all
Speaker 1: of our sources, so you can follow along with us
Speaker 1: over at stuff Mom Never Told You dot com for
Speaker 1: more on this and thousands of other topics. Is it
Speaker 1: how stuff works dot com