I call bullshit on modesty
And here we are International Women’s Day 2021. Sadly we weren’t able to march this year due to the pandemic but I am looking forward to being able to next year.
The theme for this years IWD is ‘choose to challenge’ and I have felt inspired to challenge modesty.
Every year we see the rounds of posts from women celebrating other women, the endless stories on Instagram and tagged grid posts from women talking about other women who inspire them.
NOW this is lovely. It truly is but it is also excluding. What if you are a woman who doesn’t get tagged or have someone else mention your greatness. It’s a nice concept but I want to challenge it because it’s disempowering. There are women out there today feeling unvalued because someone else didn’t celebrate their achievements for them.
This is how many women live their lives.
Waiting for other people to validate them.
Why?
I believe it’s because of modesty.
MODESTY
the quality or state of being unassuming in the estimation of one's abilities.
the quality of being relatively moderate, limited, or small in amount, rate, or level.
The word literally means to be small. To not take up too much space. It’s the very reason many women are terrified to celebrate themselves out of fear of being labelled ‘boastful’ or ‘too much’ it’s the reason many of my clients feel uncomfortable about showing themselves off in front the camera.
Women are conditioned to believe that modesty is attractive.
Now you might think this is pretty harmless but in fact I believe it’s one of the reasons for the MANY imbalances in this world.
Men for example will apply for a job if they only have 60% of the qualifications, they are also more likely to ask for pay rises and speak up in the workplace when they are worthy of merit.
Modesty stops women from doing this. And it’s high time we stopped playing into this patriarchal concept that in order to be attractive or respected women need to be modest.
This concept has dictated our behaviour for millennia. Mary Magdalen is a wonderful example of this vilification. She was one of Jesus Christ’s disciples (apparently the top disciple), she was outspoken, intelligent, and it’s believed she had her own gospel. The church painted her as a prostitute who had been ‘saved’ by Jesus. Mary was vilified throughout history for 1000s of years because of her so called immodesty.
Jesus’s mother Mary on the other hand was the definition of modesty being a virgin and all.
This pattern is painted all throughout history.
Sexual modesty is probably the most obvious oppression. Women who wear revealing clothes are labelled immodest and less deserving of respect and are often victim blamed if they suffer any form of sexual abuse.
Single women who have multiple sexual partners get the same treatment and there are those horrible myths that float around that a woman who has slept with ‘too many’ men is damaged and will have a loose vagina, which by the way is total bullshit.
Men do not get the same treatment.
A lack of so called modesty can mean death or severe punishment for women of certain cultures. In some parts of the world if you are raped and your ‘modesty’ destroyed can see you loose your life to something as horrific as being stoned to death.
Modesty is dangerous in the west as well.
It’s what stops women from speaking out when injustices are carried out against them because anger isn’t very ‘ladylike’ and if god forbid we shout we are labelled as crazy. Modesty also stops women from acknowledging their value which leaves them open to being taken advantage of or being overlooked for opportunity. It’s why more often than not women will put another persons feelings before their own.
I also think it’s really important to acknowledge that the concept of modesty is way worse for Black women or women of colour. The bullying of Meghan Markle and her comparison to Catherine is an example of this and society punishes Black women far deeper than white women for their so called immodesty.
So how do we challenge modesty?
I believe it starts with us. We as women need to get better at championing ourselves. We need to not be afraid to celebrate our achievements and who we are. I believe the more we do this, the more we cheerlead ourselves the more likely we are to change the view that we are being immodest. The more we champion ourselves the more likely it is we will give the women around us permission to do the same.
And a woman who fully knows and appreciates her own value is a powerful force in this world for good.
So I encourage you to ask yourself these questions…
Why am I stopping myself from shouting about how brilliant I am?
What is it about that that makes me feel uncomfortable?
Who am I serving when I don’t celebrate myself?
How has this impacted my life?
The other terrible thing about modesty is that it often sees women policing other women.
How many times have you seen another woman posting a selfie or a status celebrating an achievement have you thought ‘who does she think she is?’ perhaps you label these women as having strong personalities or being a bit of a handful.
Or have you ever criticised another woman for what she is wearing or maybe thought your friend is a bit of a slag because she has slept with ‘too many’ men. These thoughts are the insidious impact of modesty.
This only changes when we change.
So I also implore you to ask yourself these questions…
Does another woman celebrating herself make you feel uncomfortable?
Would you judge or label that woman as boastful or too much?
Would you label a man those things for the same behaviour?
Where do these feelings come from?
I really hope this blog post has made you think about how you can move forward as someone who is capable of advocating and cheering for yourself. The ability to do that is where you truly become empowered as it means never again will you need any form of external validation.
Happy International Women’s Day everyone.