Modesty: Who Says It Has To Be Itsy Bitsy

Oh, I just stumbled across something wonderful. Please take a minute to watch this clip. It's a swimsuit designer talking about modesty. She has some wonderful quotes and I think this is a video I will show my *future* children when I teach modesty.

Here's the original link I found this on. Can I just point out that she's not LDS? I just LOVE that! She's still not conforming to what we would consider modest in our LDS culture, but the fact that people outside of our religion can put forth such a deep argument for an important principle makes me beam with pride. I LOVE those people.

First, please let me requote her quote, "It was hardly necessary to waste words on the bikini because no girl with tact or decency would ever wear such a thing." Oh, yes our culture has change a lot since then hasn't it. I think I'll ask myself that question (and my future daughters) when evaluating clothes. Would a girl with decency or tact wear this?

Now, what does this have to do with the power of women? I'm sure you caught onto it a little from the video. What power do women have? They have the power to make Adam partake. She talks about how when men see pictures of scantily clad ladies they don't use the portion of their brain that evaluates what others are thinking. I was wondering about this, and I think that when that kind of immodesty is reserved for marriage something supplements that. The deep emotional relationship and love (real love, charity - true care for the other's well being) supplements this and husbands do not see their wife as objects. Their concern for their wife offsets this "tool-mindset". But when there is no deep emotional attachment and there is no charity between the man and the woman, that power that women have goes awry.

So one of the purposes of modesty is to protect that power that women have. It shows her respect for her power.

But there's something more to modesty. It's the power the woman in the video alludes to. Modesty does not only have a spiritual significance. As the Lord says in D&C 29:35, none of the commandments are strictly spiritual and none of them are strictly physical. There is a physical benefit to the command of modesty. When a woman dresses modestly she obtains a power. She obtains the power to change perceptions and the power to change her own attitude. As a the church's website on modesty says, "Our clothing expresses who we are. It sends messages about us, and it influences the way we and others act." Our clothing changes the way we act and the way others act. That's quite a bit of power.

I firmly believe in this too. The way I dress dramatically changes the way I act. If I want to feel self-confident and in charge, I wear my dress slacks, a button up shirt, a belt, and my high-heeled boots that make noise when I walk. Weird right? I wasn't doing it consciously for the longest time. And you know what? It really made a difference. When I want to lounge, I wear a loose t-shirt and my sweats. And you might say, "Well Kenzie, your dress just reflected your mood." But the truth is, it wasn't until I was all dressed up and walking into a classroom with a suit jacket that I became confident. I definitely wasn't confident that morning. Sorry, a bit of a tangent there. What I mean to say is that I KNOW that how I dress affects how I act.

I also can attest that how I dress affects the way others act. Growing up in California, the way I dressed was a constant reminder to my non-LDS friends that I was different and that they were to behave differently around me. My boss treated me different on the days I showed up in my dress uniform verses the days I showed up in shorts and needed to change. And as a more recent example, the way I dress signals to my husband what we're doing after he gets off work and what the mood for our house is going to be.

So quoting Jessica Rey, ""Modesty isn't about covering up our bodies because their bad, modesty isn't about hiding ourselves… it's about revealing our dignity." They way you dress says what kind of woman you are. And I'm not talking about how expensive your clothes are . . . or I guess that says something about you too. (In my opinion, wearing very expensive clothing reveals you as a very self-centered woman. It shows that you sink money into things that don't benefit others . . . course even that's a judgement 'cause they could have been a gift. Anyway, another tangent.) What I'm trying to say is we need to ask ourselves, "What kind of woman do I want to be and what image do I want to portray?" Divine? Dignified? Virtuous? Powerful? Tactful? Decent? Then we need to evaluate the clothing we wear and ask ourselves if we convey that message.

The Women in Moses's Life

So I'm not done with Moses's story yet, but just in the first five chapters of Exodus there are lots of women mentioned. In fact, there are four women who have already saved Moses's life. Ready for them?

http://gardenofpraise.com/bibl85s.htm

~1~ Pharaoh's Daughter
We don't know her name, but we do know her story. She rebelled against her father and saved a Hebrew baby. She didn't know how important that child would be. She simply acted to save a life. Not only this, but somehow this great woman managed to raise the next prophet. How does an Egyptian woman raise a young man into a prophet? I would love to ask her later. When I was reading her story, I realized that feeling I get when I look into the eyes of my two newborn nieces is probably the same divine attribute of women and God-given feeling that saved Moses's life. I think that this woman demonstrates the important role all women have to play. I love to see that this woman didn't come from the "chosen" people and yet she still had a huge role to play in God's plan.

~2~ Jochebed

Ok. So her name hasn't been mentioned in Exodus yet, but from my other studies I've found out that her name was Jochebed. What I love about this woman is that she combined that mother-bear instinct with cool-thinking and a well-thoughtout plan. She's oppressed, overworked, and fearful. Yet she still finds a way to save her son. First of all, I really want to know how she kept him a secret for three months. Newborns take a lot of work. How did the soldiers not notice that she was pregnant . . . then wasn't and that nobody had killed the baby? Then when she's sure she can't keep him hidden any longer, she sets an elaborate plan in action. Surely she knew where the Pharaoh's daughter bathed. She put Moses into the water at the right time and right place and sent along her daughter, Miriam, to be sure the baby made it to the princess. Then she relied on the kindness and godliness of the other woman. Her faith, courage, and smarts are so inspirational to me. 

~3~ Miriam

She plays a smaller role in this part of the story, so I'm not going to spend much time on her here. Basically, she follows to make sure her baby brother survives the water and then suggests to the pharoah's daughter her mother as a nursemaid for the baby. Which may I say, was a very clever addition to the plan. Not only did Jochebed save her son, she also got to spend more time with him. I'm pretty sure most of Miriam's part in this was just obeying her mother . . . but she does more later I think so we'll move on.

~4~ Zipporah

Last of all, Moses's wife. Now people like me will stop and say, "Wait . . . his wife? I thought you said this was a post about women who saved Moses's life." Others of you already know the story I'm about to recount. So apparently Moses disobeyed God kinda like the brother of Jared forgot to pray . . . except more serious. Moses didn't have his son circumcised . . . maybe he forgot, but I have the feeling that based off the Lord's reaction Moses probably knew and didn't do what he was supposed to. When the Lord is about to kill Moses (how is what I'd like to know . . . an angel? disease?), his wife takes the lead and circumcises her son thus saving her husband's life. I read Women's Rights in the Old Testament Times and he makes it sound like maybe Zipporah was raised in a more matriarchal family and that might be why she felt so comfortable taking charge. I think she demonstrates the importance of obedience and the leadership a woman has. In the church, it's not that a woman CAN'T take leadership in the home. In fact, she has a responsibility to lead and protect her family too. She just needs to give her husband a chance to develop those characteristics since he'll need them later. (In fact, just speaking strictly from my point of view . . . I almost wonder if natural leadership is one of the divine characteristics of women and the reason we let men preside in the home is in part to help them develop a characteristic that may not come as naturally to them. This isn't the only reason of course, and maybe this wasn't true in Old Testament times, but I think that especially in a world where good men worry about dominating women, men NEED an opportunity to develop those leadership skills they'll need as Gods later on.) As I read on, I really want to know where she is the rest of the story. I swear I didn't even know the scriptures mentioned her leaving with Moses. 

So there you have it. Four women who saved Moses's life. 

Also as a side note, the same chapter of Women's Rights in the Old Testament Times talks about Dinah's story and . . . well it sounds like it was rape. So maybe my Romeo and Juliet theory doesn't hold up. I did like my interpretation better. In the end, Dinah may have just been a woman caught up in the middle of great wickedness from at least three different men. So as Heather says at Women in the Scriptures, it may just be another story of how when men are wicked, women suffer.

Ok wait. I don't want to end on a bad note. So I'll also throw this probing thought in. I was just thinking about how bad I wanted to be a princess when I was little (course I don't remember admitting this to anyone since most of the time I acted like a tomboy) and how even now when I daydream I think about how I'd love to be the princess in the disney stories my nieces watch (okay and my college roommates). Then I was thinking about the temple, and basically it really hit home that it's not just a metaphor when we say that we're princesses. We are daughters of God and with that we are princesses in training to become queens, and we are priestesses in training to become goddesses. Hold on. I'll say that again. "It's not a metaphor. We are princesses in training to become queens, and we are priestesses in training to become goddesses." With both of those titles (princess and priestess) there are duties expected of us. We are expected to become something. We are expected to DO something. We are expected to ACT differently. And just because all the other women on this planet also have the same inheritance and duties, our duty and our inheritance doesn't diminish. We are no less of a princess because there are many other princesses. Yeah. So that's my thought. I need to live my life the way a priestess of God would and I better be behaving the way a princess should. 

5 Named Women You May Not Have Known

As a quick post, I just wanted to bring to your attention 5 women who are named in the scriptures AND have stories, but are often forgotten. I think we should remember these women's names along with Rebekah, Sarai, and Rachel. Don't forget these women!

~1~  Deborah
Now, there's not a lot mentioned about her in the scriptures, but she has to have been an important person. Deborah was Rebekah's nurse. As Heather (Womeninthescriptures.blogspot.com) says, she was probably Rebekah's wet nurse and left with Rebekah when she got married. The reason I say she must have been important is because her death and her burial place are mentioned. That's rare for women in the scriptures. Mention of burial places has basically been reserved for the great forefathers and their wives. I have feeling she made a very big impact in Rebekah's life to be mentioned by the male writer of the Bible.

~2~ Asenath
Asenath is the wife of Joseph (sold into Egypt). First of all, she's the wife of that great seer. Second of all, it's mentioned that she's the daughter of a priest. Was she a priestess? What kind of priests were they? The Egyptians couldn't have been too far off from the real religion because they recognized the spirit of God that Joseph had. Is this a story of conversion? Or was the marriage of a seer and priestess? Anyway, just curious.

~3~ Keturah
Ok. So how many kids did Abraham have? Isaac and Ishmael right? Wrong. Everyone knows the story of Sarai and Hagar, but did you know that Abraham got remarried after Sarai died? He married Keturah and she gave him at least six more children. Now that's a lineage that we forget about. I wonder where that went!

~4+5~ Puah and Shiphrah
Ok. So you want a story? This is more of story than the three above. In fact, I'm sure you know this story but never learned the names of the women behind it. Remember how Pharaoh decided that the Hebrews were getting too numerous and started killing all the boy babies? That's how the whole Moses story got started right? What you may have forgotten is that before Pharaoh sent out the soldiers to kill babies, he tried to be sneaky first. He went to Puah and Shiphrah, the Hebrew midwives, and ordered them to kill all the male babies. Puah and Shiphrah not only didn't do as they were told (that's kind of a big deal) but they also were clever enough to come up with a response that didn't get themselves killed. So here's two women who are important to society, using knowledge that benefits everyone, being courageous like Ester and clever. Love it. The Bible has a lot of stories of clever women. (Rebekah, Tamar, Puah and Shiphrah . . . ) Don't forget their stories too!