The question of modesty in girls’ and women’s dress inevitably involves judgements about where the line must be drawn as regards how revealing it may be. However, even if you might have to draw some lines, it’s about much more than that. So what is it about?
The Material Specification of Modesty
A Question of Authority
Modesty cannot be defined by any one particular material specification but subsists mainly in the intention, and in the context. However, the fact that it is mainly about intention does not imply that the margin for discretion must be particularly wide. There is also the objective effect that a manner of dress and presentation has on men’s sexual sensibilities.
The practical measure of modesty then can be illustrated with the ‘question of increments’. It arises first in the rearing of children and adolescents who are still under their parents’ authority and must abide by a material norm set by their parents, or other relevant authorities.
Until they are mature enough to make their own decisions they need clear guidelines to follow, yet they also need to be assisted in understanding why their parents and other authority figures have drawn some particular line where they have. This is a process, not a single, simple lesson.
In exploring the meaning of this norm some adolescents will at times test the limits to find out how far they can go while still remaining within the rule. This is more acute with regard to modesty in dress for girls. (For boys, this testing of limits will tend to be with other aspects of acceptable or unacceptable dress, grooming and manner.)
Some girls then might readily acquiesce in the prevailing norm. Others will be inclined to test the limits. This can become a game. If no clear specification is given, a girl could wear something clearly unacceptable yet claim innocence of intention. Once this happens, to prevent a recurrence, a rule is laid down. Once such a rule is clearly specified it will be tested as to enforcement.
The Spirit of the Rule
At their best the authorities are really trying to inculcate the spirit of the rule, hoping the girls will internalise the rule as their own because it makes sense. Those in authority really do not want to be measuring this and that and being too exact. The more they are forced to do so, the more the rule seems to be about external conformity rather than inherent reasonableness.
This effect is increased if the girls are never included in the discussions about why it is important.
The spirit of any rule is most important, because of all the factors that are involved. Let us consider the comparatively simple case of the hemline of a skirt in a school uniform. (Even if this example is not relevant in the circumstances with which you are familiar it is still readily understandable as an example.) If the girls got into a contest of wills with the school authorities, and wanted to know why the prescribed length was set as it was, and not, say, a centimetre higher, it would not be possible to give any conclusive answer. For if it was set that bit higher, could the question not be asked again? And again?
Different Contexts
Not only that, the same girls at the same school probably also have a sports uniform which may have a much higher hem. At the same time it is probably combined with some kind of undershorts so that the skirt ceases to function solely as a skirt, but more as a stylistic effect, so the comparison is not direct. Also they probably go swimming and wear more revealing costumes again.
In each of these three cases the meaningful context changes, so the material specification of modesty changes, based on the intention to try and preserve the same underlying spirit.
In each case, if pressed to justify their specific rules the authorities would have to eventually answer ‘just because’. There needs to be some standard, whether it needs to be spelled out in a formal rule or not, and everyone admits there could be at least some adjustment without immodesty, yet we need to settle on something. So a reasonable judgement is made.
The most important part of the process is that the girls would understand and accept interiorly the spirit of the rule, being neither too lax nor too uptight, but with a sensible, good-humoured acceptance of the practical norm.
Modesty and Authority
My intention here is not to propose my own measure as to how high or low such-and-such should be.
So I’m not offering a set of specifications such as, for example, that skirt length should be so many inches above the knee or below the knee, or how much of various parts of the body should be visible or not.
This doesn’t mean that I don’t have my own views on how I would address these questions if I was in a position of authority involving girls and young women, such as a parent, teacher or relevant community leader.
I don’t by any means agree that one should simply follow the prevailing fashions. These days there are trends I disapprove of and that I would want to discourage. Yet I am just one individual, and if I was in such a situation involving leadership in these matters I would want to be able to clearly articulate to others what I think and why.
My main purpose in these posts on modesty is to try and clarify the meaningfulness of women’s dress with regard to relations between the sexes.
My aim is especially to assist those in positions of leadership as regards how to think through and articulate the issues involved and the criteria for judgement. This is needed even more so when parents, or a group of community leaders, need to engage in discussion about such matters and come to a consensus on the standards they will require in the situations subject to their authority.
Not a Line but A Zone
If modesty can be expressed differently in different contexts then it is not as simple as prescribing a single standard that applies in all contexts.
This implies that modesty cannot be defined by a single fixed line but by a ‘zone’ within which modesty can be preserved. In any community there will in broad terms be a sense of what is generally perceived beyond one end of the zone as improper and what is perceived beyond the other end as ‘so proper’ it signifies no intention regarding matters of attraction relevant to the question of modesty.
That still leaves the question of how adjustments within this zone are relevant to the question of modesty. Should this zone be considered merely coincidental, such that adjustments within it have no meaningful connection to women’s motivations?
This question has been addressed in earlier posts What’s Wrong with Wanting to Be More Beautiful? and Attraction as an End in Itself.
Women’s Desire to Be Attractive to men
It is at this point that we need to raise the question of women’s desire to be attractive to men and what can legitimately be intended. One of the things that would make it difficult to answer this question is the tendency to think that men perceive women in only two ways, sexual and non-sexual.
This view is based on the idea that almost anything about a woman could be found to be sexually arousing to a man, and therefore women should always be substantially covered. In case anyone thinks no one could really believe that, consider that in some societies women are or have been required to be completely covered, even their faces.
Yet in practice we find that in most societies, even ones that are fairly conservative in such matters, women may dress more freely than that without causing men to have a meltdown. There is clearly some reasonable scope possible.
Three Ways Men Perceive Women
In order to clarify this I have proposed in Beautiful, or Sexy? Three Kinds of Beautiful that we can view men’s perceptions of women as falling into three broad categories, not just two.
As well as the sexual and non-sexual there is, intermediate between them, a third that could be called something like attractive or alluring. It is difficult to find a suitable word because any choice could seem either too strong or too weak to accurately name the reality. ‘Attractive’ might be too weak and ‘alluring’ might be too strong.
It is true that men find controlling their sexual desires very difficult through much of their lives. Many women might be surprised to know just how alert and attuned men are to the particularity of women’s bodies and the many ways this affects their sexual interest, but also how it affects another kind of interest that could not be called ‘sexual’ as such, but resonates with that aspect of women’s beauty that could be called sensual in a broad sense.
So the question of modesty is not an outmoded concept nor a plot by men to control women’s bodies. It is a vital element of culture and of the harmonious relations between men and women, as well as between women among themselves and among men as a whole.
The Field of Play
In between the sexual and the non-sexual there is a zone generally perceived as potentially indicating some more intentional engagement in being attractive to men, even though there might not be such intention in any particular case.
There is a ‘field of play’ within which adjustments towards more revealing would be proper, and of course one could always move in the direction of less revealing without impropriety. And it would become absurd to measure increments so fine that there is no perceptible difference of the relevant kind.
In practice such choices occur within a cultural setting that shapes people’s sense of what is proper; what will fit within this zone.
When such a zone exists it will also tend to pivot around the mid point, even just implicitly. It doesn’t mean that people are consciously thinking about this but that a general sense of this kind will arise spontaneously, such that people can recognise it if it is pointed out, even if they had previously never given it any particular thought.
What then does this aspect of modesty imply?
The existence of this field of play implies that modesty is consistent with the intention to accentuate one’s attractiveness to men in the ways they are likely to perceive as aimed at them.
Labouring the Obvious?
Some readers might think I am labouring the obvious here, but I have in mind others who might believe that modesty requires no intentions of this kind at all. They might be concerned that they are improperly tempting men and don’t want to be responsible for any such thing. This motive is good, but it needs to be enlightened by understanding. This is where judgement is needed and how far, or not, this ‘field of play’ can properly extend.
In our times this is not an idle concern, for women’s dress is strongly affected by prevailing, and changing, fashions. Some of those influential in the fashion world deliberately ‘push the envelope’ into improper territory, and can get enough success that many women start to wonder whether such styles might be acceptable after all.
This opens up a big topic in its own right, so I just note it here, and hope to take it up on another occasion.
An Important Implication
So if the principle of modesty, as represented in its material specification, does not lie solely in the direction of movement towards less revealing but in a balancing equilibrium of two directions of movement, then the direction of movement towards more revealing must also be affirmed as a potential good.
This means that there can be good and genuine motives for being more revealing in dress than you need to be. Not only that, goodness must also be able to subsist in the ‘play’ that occurs in the ‘field of play’.
That is, it must in principle be good for women to experiment, adjust and create so as to attract attention to the kind of beauty relevant to the question of modesty.
This ‘zone of tolerance’ is not a merely negative notion, as though just a concession to realism, to avoid the counter-productive consequences of trying to define propriety by a single rigid line. Such an approach would be more subtle, but would still imply that the principle of modesty consists in having no intentions of accentuating any specific attractiveness to men.
In Favour of Moderation and Subtlety
This notion of a field of play does not imply that it must be very wide. Depending on how the idea is presented it might sound like approval for an improperly wide margin for discretion. It might sound as if there is no real principle of limitation in the endeavour to be attractive to men. However, there are several factors that can add systematic pressure towards greater subtlety and less obviousness.
Firstly, men’s own sensibilities are quite finely attuned and detect even small deviations from a norm - if they know what the norm is. Then they can detect the relevant kind of intention without much difficulty. However, a culture that has no clear norms of modesty makes this difficult for men, who then are never quite sure what a particular woman is intending, which leads some women to become more and more obvious, and others to wonder what they are supposed to do. Others just seem to give up.
Secondly, if the culture contains clear and moderate norms on what is the acceptable range in the field of play, this gives a measure for men’s perceptions and they will readily perceive meaningful moves in even small increments towards the more ‘alluring’ direction.
Thirdly, a narrower range allows for an ambiguity that itself can become a source of playfulness without being problematic. Women can be intentional while affecting ‘innocence’ of intent. If men get the impression that such ambiguity is intentional this adds a subtlety to their enjoyment. They enjoy things that feel like a game.
Fourthly, it serves women’s communal interest to maintain a ‘level playing field’ among themselves, one not privileging immodesty as a tactic to gain men’s attention.
An Important Lesson
I began by considering the case of girls’ attire and how a school’s authorities might feel constrained to lay down some guidelines on appropriate dress. If you are in such a position of authority, including as a parent, you might be able to use the ideas above to help the girls think through the reasoning behind the rule.
If they are not included in the discussion they might come to the conclusion that you are telling them that there is something wrong with the intention itself of trying to be more attractive to boys.
If they realise you are supportive of this intention (though not of any obsessive preoccupation) they could be drawn into a more mutual and helpful discussion.
In future posts I intend to address some practical ways that ‘intentional attraction behaviour’ can be encouraged, and some means that can be used to ensure there are built-in moderating elements that draw the feelings evoked towards a balanced, enjoyable centre, not towards impropriety and aggravated feelings.