Modesty

In every aspect of our lives, we are always asking ourselves, How am I of value? What is my worth? Yet I believe that worthiness is our birthright.~ Oprah Winfrey  

Modesty; a good intention, a valiant effort to shield women from the over sexualization of modern media and society, but a horribly flawed one. Modesty seems to come from a place of good intentions however basing a person’s virtue on their attire is just as objectifying as basing their worth on their sexuality. 

An important thing to recognize about clothes is that they do not change who you are. If I were to wear modern society’s version of “prudish” clothing or “slutty” clothes I would still be the same person underneath. The only thing that would change is how others would perceive me. Similarly there is no set rule for what is or is not immodest, it varies greatly from culture to culture and changes overtime. This means that what we believe to be scandalous garb is only scandalous because of our perception and upbringing. This perceptual difference is important to note because it means that what may be "immodest" to one may not be to another. Furthermore, people in any given culture can recognize their own cultural bias and dress in the most appropriate way for each scenario, which, is simply just making good fashion choices.

However, the potential folly of a fixation on modesty does not lie in poor fashion choices. It lies in the belief that something as superficial as these fashion choices can effect your worth or virtue. A woman is not just her body. She is much more than that. Telling a woman she must cover up her body to be respected or to respect herself implies that she doesn’t deserve respect on her own. This fixation is still on her body for the pursuit of integrity and not on her actions or character. 

Women are more than sex objects. It may be sexually objectifying to show bits of a woman’s body to sell a product like a sexy little prop but many of the basic concepts and reasons for pushing modesty on young girls is just as objectifying. For example many people believe that women and girls have a responsibility to not tempt a man or give rise to “immoral” thoughts or actions. This belief is so absurd its disgusting. Everyone is responsible for their own behaviours and a woman’s body is for her own use. Modesty as a virtue insinuates that a woman’s body is so completely and purely an object, a tool, a toy for sexual purposes that it must be hidden when not used for these purposes. Therefore by this philosophy if women’s bodies are not covered sufficiently then women will not be respected as people beyond their sexuality, when males look at them all they will see is this sexual object and it will be the woman’s fault because she should know that that’s all her body is.

By the standard of modern western society certain outfits will gain you more respect and result in a more positive type of attention. This is an undeniable fact but your outfits will never change who you are as a person. A fixation on modesty will never benefit women, instead we need to respect our fellow human beings regardless of their attire.