Our Weapon is Modesty

I don’t feel completely comfortable writing this. And yet, I am writing this, because I believe in my message. I believe it could change the world.

 I’m a very sensitive person. This sensitivity can produce exceptional joy or exceptional pain. The pain comes to expression in hearing about tragedies. Other people can hear of tragedies, feel sad, and move on with the rest of their day. Maybe they will recall the tragedy momentarily or maybe not. Sometimes, I can do this. But if the tragedy was of the most heinous variety – a sexual offense-I don’t have this luxury. Once I’ve heard of the tragedy, no matter how remote, I’m not forgetting it. I dream of it. I imagine it, I am tormented by it. 

Sometimes this is frustrating. Unpleasant. Upsetting. 

At other times, I realize I am extremely fortunate that I am sensitive to the horrid crime of sexual abuse. All people should be sensitive, all people should be aghast when they hear of a sexual offense. I think maybe a long time ago, before molestation was commonplace, people were horrified. I remember as a child, I sat with my parents watching the news. A rape of a twelve year old girl had been reported, and she was quoted saying, “My private part touched his private part.” My parents shuddered, shaking their heads in disbelief. I did not understand what rape was, but from my parents reactions, I discerned it to be something awful.

Today 1 in 6 American women has been the victim of an attempted or completed rape. This means that basically, we all know someone who has been the victim of sexual abuse. If that friend has confided in you, then you know to some degree the hell your friend has been through, and the hell, that no matter how much healing or therapy your friend dives into, will never truly leave her. It’s time to take a stand. It’s time for this to end. Enough lives have been broken.

I’m not an expert; from what I’ve read there are many ways to affect change politically. And I’m certainly in support of that. But it’s not what I’m here to talk to you about.

I’m here to talk to you about something, that you and I, as women, can do, everyday, almost effortlessly, that will impact your lives, and the lives of other women. I’m talking about your clothes. How you dress affects men. But you already knew that, didn’t you? If you don’t let me tell you. If you wear a miniskirt, a low cut blouse, or even something skin tight,  you can expect comments, or staring. If you haven’t noticed, it’s because you’re not looking. The comments could be abusive, or they could be charming.  They could be desired or not.  But what if you dress modestly? In a way that honors your body instead of revealing it? The likelihood of body focused comments nearly dissolves. 

You may be less privy to the secret that your dress doesn’t prompt just speech, it prompts thought. If you dress flirtatiously, men will think certain thoughts about you. Not just the ones you have a crush on. The wrinkled ones with the combovers, the greasy ones, the nerdy ones, just about every heterosexual man who sees you. And I’ll give you a hint. They won’t be thinking, “Wow she knows how to match her dress to her shoes!” They won’t be thinking “I’d like to enjoy a date with her, getting to know who she is and bonding with her soul!” They’ll be thinking the kinds of thoughts that you don’t want them thinking about you. In the cleanest-yet-still-well-understood terms -they’ll be thinking about using your body to satisfy their desires. And it’s not because they’re gross or malicious or selfish (though maybe they are). It’s because they’re men. And that’s how their brains work. 

Now before anyone starts to point a rape culture finger at me, I’ll tell you that rapists are responsible for their crimes. They are evil and they are scum, and I am all in favor of returning rape to its former category as a capital crime in the United States. A victim should never be made to think that she is in some way responsible. 

Dress’s influence on men is much more complex. One scantily clad woman is not going to drive mankind into an animalistic attack on womankind. But what about billions of scantily clad women? What if every man who walks out the door finds himself bombarded by multitudes of gorgeous, half- naked women? What if he doesn’t even need to walk out the door? He could just  turn on his phone, and all the women in the world are staring him in the face?  With their facebook seaside family portraits, in bikinis, with their instagram workout regime photos.

Well, then those men would constantly be thinking sexual thoughts.  What will become of the steady supply of sexual thoughts? No the answer isn’t that now he’ll have to find a victim. I’m sure both of us can think of many virtually harmless solutions that are not fit for print. 

The answer is that now, in his mind, females are things. Sexual things.

Let’s examine the other half of the equation. Lots of women will honestly tell you that they dress as they do, not for men, but for themselves. It’s not just the men affected by our way of dress.  Your dress affects you, as a woman. It affects us, as women. It tells us who we are, what we want, what we are willing to compromise on and where we are unyielding. A long time ago, a sexual relationship was something special and existed only in the sacred context of marriage. Women knew that their bodies were capable of something awesome – bonding physically, emotionally and spiritually with their chosen partner. And that this was not only sanctioned, but encouraged and commanded by G-d. You’ve caught me, not all women knew this. But Jewish women of old knew this. Because it’s taught in Torah, the guidebook given to the Jewish people thousands of years ago. And that is why they were modest. They knew that their bodies were precious, and that at the right time, with the right person, their body could be used in a holy way. When something is precious, a Torah scroll, each of its hundreds of thousands of letters written with quill and ink, or a diamond cut precisely, it is revealed intermittently. To serve its purpose. And then it is hidden, perhaps in a velvet box, perhaps under lock and key. Modesty does not mean a perpetual cloaking. Modesty means dressing appropriately for every given situation. 

When you dress with dignity, you remind yourself that you deserve to be treated with dignity. That you’re not willing to take part in a one night stand, because that’s beneath you. You’re not willing to let someone you barely know gain pleasure from touching your sacred body, even if it’s just your hand. And men will notice. Men react accordingly. No longer harassed with female sexuality in every corner, men have the capacity to respect women. To see women as people, children of G-d, not disposable objects. 

When women will dress as queens, as princesses, and reserve their touch for their kings and princes, we will have entered an era where  men respect women. Today, women demand respect from men, demand equal rights. Yet our demands go unheeded. Women continue to suffer in myriad avenues, the most tragic being sexual abuse. We must understand that the key to respect remains our hands. While we may demand respect all we want, it will only emerge, if it is cultivated.