Diary of a Disturbing Influence

This article probably won’t make much sense to the fortunate readers who do not attend Cedarville University. However, I believe that conservative Christianity’s obsession with female modesty is oppressive and therefore I’m reposting my article here. I will also post a response from Dannah Gresh, the conservative co-author of Lies Women Believe.

Here’s the article:

First, a disclaimer: I am not overly concerned with the issue of modesty. I do not get up in the morning and worry about the tightness of my jeans and T-shirts because I find tight clothing uncomfortable, and therefore I do not wear it. I do not see myself as temptation on two legs (it’s an objectifying concept, and after all I am a feminist). Yet according to the men of Sanctify Ministries’ Modesty Panel, that is exactly what I am: temptation.

I find the very idea of an all-male Modesty Panel offensive. To me, it reeks of the morality police I read about in Saudi Arabia and Iran. But in the interests of fairness and yes, curiosity, I gave the Modesty Panel a try. I submitted four questions for the men and attended the Panel’s meeting on March 12^th to hear their answers.

Although my particular questions were not answered, I received great insight into the mind of the typical Cedarville male. Since I have a teenage brother and graduated from a public high school, much of what was said came as no shock. It was the ideology behind the women’s questions and the men’s answers that I found truly shocking.

I’m not sure what to call this ideology. It goes beyond simple sexism, since the men claim that they are trying to respect women. But it certainly contains elements of sexism. There is no other reason for a group of men to feel that they have the righteous authority to tell a group of women how to dress. Clothe the sexism in religion, and it becomes even more insidious.

“We’re not trying to tell you what to do,” was a phrase repeated many times throughout the Panel. But when a religious man tells an equally religious woman that if she wears a particular piece of clothing it will force him to envision her naked, that is as good as a command.

The questions ran the gamut of the female wardrobe. From skinny jeans to wedding dresses, no article of clothing was left undiscussed. And the men were more than happy to offer their candid opinions. “Don’t wear those pajama bottoms to Chucks, girls, because if you do that it makes boys think about bed, and that makes them think about sex.”  “Be careful how you sit, because sitting a certain way makes you look easy.” 

The responsibility of modest behavior was put completely on women. In a subculture that reveres male headship, this is ironic. We women are told that men are our divinely ordained leaders–just don’t expect them to control their thoughts around an errant bra strap.

I believe this double standard is best illustrated by the conversation I had shortly before the Panel began. A male student stated that relaxing the dress code to include jeans would encourage women to dress immodestly. “I shouldn’t have to look at that!” he complained. When I asked him why he was looking at women like that anyway, he stared at me and exclaimed “That’s just how we’re wired!”

That is a cop-out. It is the coward’s response to a personal problem that he is not willing to confront. Should we excuse the alcoholic because that’s how she’s wired? The pedophile and the murderer are not excused for their crimes because of some genetic predisposition. Any student of psychology can tell you that some criminals are predisposed to criminal behavior. But this is the bottom line: we still send those criminals to jail. We still hold them responsible for their actions.

Modesty goes both ways. Women have a responsibility to themselves and to their male peers to refrain from dressing like sex objects. However, even if a woman fails this responsibility, men have a responsibility to respect her as a human being. They do not have that duty simply because they are men, but because they are human beings and women are their equals. And if a man can’t look at a woman in pajamas without thinking about sex, the problem is probably not with the woman’s pajamas.