Policing Modesty Standards

I took my toddler to the spray ground last week because it was like 75 degrees outside, which is entirely too hot for a 45 minute stint in a normal park, if you ask me.

When we arrived, I quickly discerned that there was some sort of religious community potluck going on, as evidenced by the 50+ group of people inhabiting the picnic area. If the number of children didn’t signal the religious element (roughly 6.5 kids per family), the females’ attire would have given it away: floor length denim, boxy, frumpy looking shirts, hardly any skin or bodily curves in sight.

I’m not going to lie; I was pretty judgmental about it. I was irritated with the men for requiring this legalistic attire in the summer heat and irritated with the women for complying. And yes, I know it’s not that simple and that my superficial judgments contribute nothing of value to these people who are likely quite lovely and worthy of admiration in other areas. Maybe they were genuinely happy this way, and I just needed to back off and stop imposing my totally unsolicited preferred living standards upon them.

But as I sat there worried I was scandalizing them with my entirely visible leg skin, all I could think about was how unspeakably uncomfortable those little girls looked running around with skirts down to their ankles, trying to enjoy the spray ground whilst being weighed down by wet denim and the burden of protecting men from lust.

“Lord Jesus, bless these girls with freedom in you,” I prayed under my breath, “and bless these boys with eyes to see women the way you do. May they grow up to be happy and free.”

I call it drive-by-praying. I do it often enough when I encounter people in public whose circumstances grab my attention for one reason or another. I like to believe maybe it releases some sort of blessing in the heavenlies. At least it can’t hurt, right?

But there I sat, watching my blissfully unaware toddler stomp in puddles while his mother contemplated the complexities of Christian approaches to women’s modesty, a topic that has occupied my mind countless times in the 20+ years since I graduated my modesty-conscious Christian high school.

It’s a theme that would resurface for me this week when I took my 13-year-old shopping for summer clothes: “No, sweetheart, you may not buy a pair of shorts if your butt cheeks are popping out the bottom of them.” And “What happens when you bend over wearing that? Is that something you feel comfortable inviting kingdom come to see? No? Let’s rethink it.”

As she tried on shorts and rompers in the fitting room, another young teen girl emerged from the stall looking self conscious, hoping for her mother’s opinion about the outfit she was modeling. “Are you looking for your mom?” I asked her. “She went over there for a few minutes.”

“Oh okay thanks,” the teen responded. “I’m going on my first date tonight. And I’m going to meet his dad. They’re very Christian. Do you think this outfit looks okay?”

Ironically, she was wearing a long denim skirt, but unlike the women at the park, she had paired it with a tight fitting crop top that exposed about five inches of her navel-ringed midriff, and let’s just say she was a very curvy girl. She inhabited this stunning body that seemed to be somewhat foreign to her, like a car she had not yet learned to drive.

“You look gorgeous,” I told her. “You said they’re very Christian, though? I might go for just a little more coverage on a first date. What else do you have in there?” I silently prayed that my words would resonate as wisdom, not judgment.

She heaved a sigh of relief and went back into the fitting room. She emerged a few more times, each time pairing a different shirt with the skirt until she found the perfect outfit. By this time her mom had returned, and we got into a robust discussion about just how difficult it is to navigate these waters. Mom was fluent in my language:

“I don’t want to teach her to be ashamed of her body,” she confessed. “But it’s just so hard to know where to draw the lines.”

And it’s so true, especially if you grew up in purity culture, where almost all the discussions about modesty seem so shame-based and disproportionately geared toward forcing girls to take ownership of boys’ lust. I saw a viral meme recently that made me cringe.

No, I will decidedly NOT be teaching my daughter that her body is a landing strip for the male gaze or that it is innately “dangerous” to men.

Or consider this other well-intended disaster that also went viral:

I get what it’s trying to accomplish. It’s trying to encourage dignity in the way girls dress by telling them how valuable they are. But it misses the mark for me.

For one thing, it continually compares girls to objects: diamonds, pearls, gold. These are things we use and commodify, however valuable they may be. Baubles. Playthings. Ornaments. Things we value strictly for their appearance. Things we expressly value for what they look like uncovered. When such an overwhelming amount of the messaging around girls’ bodies is already objectifying, surely we can go another route?

That last line just about sums up the heart of the author. “Class is better than trash.”

While claiming to encourage dignity, the author of this post is doing something else entirely. She’s not calling women valuable. She’s calling immodest girls “trash” and judging their value on superficial traits when God weighs the heart. Maybe they don’t know any better? Maybe they don’t have good role models. Maybe they have no idea how to successfully dress their rapidly changing bodies?

Whatever the case, these girls aren’t “trash” no matter what they’re wearing. The sweet girl in front of me in the fitting rooms was a perfect example of this. She was trying to look pretty and presentable. She just had no idea how exactly to accomplish this in a pornsick world with such relentlessly mixed signals about how women ought to look.

And she was asking for help from older women, who, in my opinion, are the only ones who ought to be talking to young girls about modesty. Can we just pause here to agree that what the world does NOT need right now are more creepy Twitter pastors making lengthy commentaries about yoga pants and women’s clothes? Let the older women teach the younger. Isn’t that what the Good Book says?

But I digress. Back to the point about the mixed messaging. On the one hand we have the Amish looking legalism of the splash pad. On the other hand, we have social media influencers wearing yoga pants literally designed to give you a wedgie. It’s all so confusing for young girls to navigate, and no matter what, someone is going to tell them they’re doing it wrong.

There’s so much pressure already on their shoulders that it can be tempting to eliminate standards entirely and just tell girls to wear what they want, but that doesn’t do anyone any favors either. You aren’t setting your daughters up for success if you send them off to school looking like they’re preparing for a Hooters call-back. So what can be done? What should be said? Where should you draw the lines?

Sometimes I think we try too hard to make complex issues into sound bytes. In situations like “the modesty talk,” I personally think asking open ended questions is a lot more useful than a pithy little analogy:

• “What is it about that crop top that you like?”

• “What are you hoping to communicate when you wear it?”

• “What do you think people decide is true about you when you wear it?”

• “Is that the message you want to send?”

• “Why or why not?”

• “Why do you suppose it’s only girls that are being invited to show this much skin?”

• “Do you want to cooperate with the agenda that’s driving this fashion trend?”

• “What role do the clothes you wear play in the way other people understand who you are as a person?”

I’m not teaching my daughter to take ownership of boys’ thoughts. I’m teaching my sons that’s solely their responsibility. When that burden is placed solely on my daughter’s shoulders, we end up with denim burkas at the spray ground. I don’t think this is healthy or fair. But I AM teaching my daughter that the clothes she chooses to wear are like the words she chooses to speak. They are absolutely consequential. Be it floor length denim or a string bikini, people will draw conclusions about who she is based on what they see at first glance. And much of that is hers to control. If it doesn’t communicate dignity for herself and others around her, it may be time to go back to the drawing board.

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