Why Is Modesty Treated at Length in Man+Woman?
The modesty of women in dress, manner and attitude is an issue that has more significance than many people seem to realise. I want to give an overview here of why this question will be treated at length at Man+Woman. However, I am not approaching this from the usual standpoint, because it is not just a matter for individuals.
Community Leadership
I want to explore this topic from the perspective of local community leaders who are trying to develop a culture that celebrates the complementarity of men and women.
What would communities of this kind do to foster the development of the celebration of the complementarity of men and women? There are many things they could do, but my focus here is on one of the most important.
They would try to ensure that young people would have a ‘pathway of hope’ from puberty to matrimony – that they would not be left on their own to navigate this part of life, but receive guidance and support from the community.
In brief, they would be invited and encouraged to participate in social and educational-formational opportunities that would help them develop good relationships with the opposite sex appropriate to their age. Among other things this would include opportunities to learn about what the other sex finds attractive, how to develop their own potential romantic identities, and to develop ease in social and interpersonal encounters with the other.
Growing in Understanding of the Other Sex
In practical terms this would include opportunities for girls to develop some understanding and growing sophistication in what it is to be an attractive woman, how boys and men perceive and respond to them, and how to find a good balance in this aspect of life. It is in this context that I want to explore the question of modesty in dress and manner of women.
The key issue in the question of modesty regards girls’ and women’s awareness, understanding and intentions. There is a complementary set of issues for boys and men, and these will be addressed in due course.
A community seeking to promote a beautiful culture of relations between men and women will organise suitable communal events. This would typically include dances. A dance is an opportunity for women to dress and present themselves in a way men find attractive. It is one of the contexts in which the question of modesty arises, and this poses questions to those who are the relevant community leaders in this setting. Do they take the opportunities such events present to foster a better understanding of modesty?
It might be in a school, church or neighbourhood setting, under the auspices of these bodies or particular groups within them. It is important that leaders are well prepared, not only to deal with challenges, but to include young people in leadership roles and opportunities to develop their own understanding.
Beyond a Minimalist Approach
Modesty has become a contested notion in our times, so it is important that leaders have a clear understanding of it, what kind of thing it is, how to talk about it and how to positively foster it. It is commonly thought of in a minimalist way, with people hoping not to have to address it specifically, hoping that no one pushes any boundaries such that they would have to take action.
Underlying this is an understanding of modesty that is solely protective. It is certainly important to protect the dignity of girls and women and to protect the sensibilities of boys and men.
The understanding of modesty developed here at Man+Woman is conceived as a positive project, one that includes a protective concern while also aiming to foster a mutual and wholesome attraction and partnership between the sexes.
These are not opposite aims, rather, they go together, fostering more delicacy and deference in relations between the sexes, exploring and balancing limits and possibilities.
Encouraging a merely neutral or prosaic manner of relating between the sexes is not only less enjoyable, but less effective. The sex drive is strong and will still find its outlet even if in somewhat drab and unprepossessing ways. Much better to help young people feel happy and uplifted, developing moderation in the context of beauty than to merely acquiesce in low expectations.
Achieving this requires a better understanding of modesty in all its aspects, and Man+Woman seeks to contribute to this goal.
Beauty and Modesty
Modesty stands in relation to those aspects of the feminine that are specifically attractive to men, especially in those that seem more overtly sexual in nature.
There are two ways that modesty can serve a protective function.
Firstly, dressing and acting modestly can protect women by signalling to men that their sexual attentions are not desired.
Secondly, it can protect men’s sensibilities so that their desires are not unduly provoked and consequently frustrated.
Such modesty can help preserve solidarity among women if they observe a common approach to achieving those two ends, as well as signalling to men that women as a whole are serious about the respect they are owed.
Ambiguities
The beauty of women, understood broadly, gives women a certain kind of power over men, and this effect can be quite strong.
Although this is something a woman could misuse to affect men sexually for her own perceived advantage, it is more likely for young women to have a somewhat vague sense of this, such that they just go along with whatever the current culture presents as normal. However, in recent years the effects of widely available pornography has upset this more usual state of affairs and caused a lot more confusion and hurt.
The realm of sexual attraction can contain many ambiguities. It can be unclear to those in some social situations what the intentions of others really are. Male and female perceptions can be quite different on this score.
This is why clarity of context and consistency of behaviour are so important. They set the background conditions against which particular choices are perceived as intentional and meaningful.
Community and Culture
Such clarity and consistency need to be communal and cultural realities. They are not primarily about individuals, but about commonly accepted and observed norms. A culture which is clear and consistent enables people to be more relaxed because they know what the expectations are.
At the same time such expectations are not defined by rigid lines but by a clear zone in which attractiveness can be enhanced in acceptable ways by those who wish, without forcing others to do the same. There is variety and flexibility to allow for different personalities to express themselves.
The greater the consistency that characterises this culture of attraction the more subtle means women can use to be attractive to men.
By contrast, when the culture is a jumble of ‘anything goes’ no one is quite sure what anything means. Subtle signals are lost in the static. The power of attraction can be diminished or lost as the ‘language of attraction’ ceases to convey clear meaning, and you end up with two extremes as some women make exaggerated attempts at sexiness while others just opt out altogether.
By contrast, the development of a culture of balanced interplay between beauty and modesty does not go to extremes but tends towards a sustainable and vibrant equilibrium position.
It is such an environment that helps both women and men to develop deference and delicacy in the relations between them, and gives them reason to do so.
A Helpful Body of Thought
The question of beauty and modesty (and many others) will be treated at length here in order to provide a body of thought to help guide community leaders in their role.
There are many things people might already know implicitly but would struggle to articulate clearly if put on the spot.
Have you ever had the experience where you read something and think to yourself - “I knew that”, but you wouldn’t have been able to articulate it yourself, at least not without spending a lot of time thinking about it and trying to clarify your own experience and intuitions.
For example, consider the picture at the top of this page. If you were a member of the leadership group responsible for what I presume is a Prom or school dance, what would your attitude be to what the girls are wearing? Should bare shoulders or backs be permitted? What about dresses showing some ‘cleavage’?
How would you go about discussing this with other leaders, parents, and the girls themselves? How would you explain the decisions you would make? Are any of these questions relevant? When put on the spot it can be difficult to clarify your own thoughts and feelings, and you might also find that you have little idea of what others feel about these things. What would such a discussion be like with only mothers present? What if only fathers were present? How would a group of fathers and mothers together discuss these matters?
From Implicit to Explicit
A significant part of my motivation in writing these posts is to do some of that thinking so others will have a ready resource to draw on. I want to try and make explicit a lot of these things that are implicit, and people might not have seen spelt out clearly before in an accessible way.
The question of modesty is one of the areas where most people seem to be caught short for what to say. You can have a clear sense yourself of what it is about, and because it seems simple and obvious you haven’t given any thought to how to explain it except in some very basic way. This will not necessarily be convincing to others, especially in an environment where the whole idea of modesty has been rubbished as just another means of putting women in their place.
In our times this and related issues need to become the subject of clear thought and intentional learning and teaching. You might sense that this is true but still wonder - what will I say?
It can be easier to keep quiet and hope the issue doesn’t come up, even while being uneasy about a lot of what is going on in the culture around you.