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.
Thank you for posting this. I found the study interesting. I agree with you about how charity affects our thoughts. I would add though that we should all be striving to have charity for everyone. It is considerate of a woman to not make temptation harder for a man, but a man is also responsible for his own actions, despite what his natural man would tempt him to do.
ReplyDeleteI think every point made is valid and valuable, and I know the speaker had an agenda which focused her speaking points, but I wish she had added a caveat that her points shouldn't enforce what has been called rape culture by some (my use is for lack of a better word); that a woman's dress somehow justifies a man's bad behavior.
Tawnee, I love your point. It's true. Both men and women are responsible for their actions. Women need to realize that their actions affect other people's actions. They do. But men need to realize that nothing forces them to do something. No matter how great a temptation a woman is putting on them, they are still responsible for whatever they do.
DeleteI like this because it shows that neither side is powerless. Women do have a form of power in the situation because they can add a layer of protection and dignity or a layer of temptation. But no matter how scantily a woman is dressed, a man never loses his free agency. There are things in this world that impair our ability to choose (addicting substances), but the way a woman is dressed is not one of them.