"It was the cultural respect for women's natural modesty that protected her. Then some intellectuals came along and said that these codes respectful of modesty discriminated. Of course they did. But they also gave women freedom: freedom to walk in the street without having to fear being harassed, stalked, or raped, freedom for a girl to studying in school without being sodomized, freedom to be alone with a man and still deserve respectful treatment."
This may be one of the first statements in the book that has really made me think...
Has the movement in our culture away from modesty caused a much more hostile environment for females? Is it just that our society has come to grips with the fact that society has changed and we just prefer deal with it than talk about it? Is there any way to change female modesty from what it has become?
Maybe it's just the culture in which we live and the fact that I come from a younger generation, but I think it's a lot harder for me to comprehend and see any shift or really understand the concept of modesty because it has been the way it is for a while. I don't really know of the modesty women of the '50's and '60's because I wasn't around. I dont know how men acted back then either. I only know what I've grown up knowing and experiencing. I think it is and has been,for some time, a fairly modesty-free society. Maybe that is just me.
-Brandon Kinlein
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5 comments:
On chapter 6 Shalit discussed about the difference between women and men sex desire. I think that she gave too much emphasis on the meaning of sex as a pleasure or “orgasmic” feeling. Still, she could discuss others motivation why a woman have to keep a relationship. For example, the sense of partnership, or look for some one that she can share her life. It is interesting that on a modesty-free society women have the freedom to choose their partner, or simply be living alone. So, I think that sex has a close relation with cultural aspects of the society. In India for example the women has no right to decide how many children she will have. The decision is made by her mother-in-law. So, this is cultural. Even with strong cultural values India’s women have been changing their behavior. The international community is forcing the Indian’s society to change their cultural values in order to reduce the birth growth. I can conclude that the discussion about “sex modesty” is broader than what Shalit thinks.
Jose Luis Iglesias
I still do think that women are modest today, but maybe in different ways. What I do think has changed is the respect that men have for women's modesty. For example, most statistics say that men have more sexual partners in their lifetime than an average woman does. That's evidence of women being more modest than men, considering that the sex drive between men and women is equal, as Shalit attempted to prove. However, men don't make it easy on modest women today. They call women prudes or too picky or other much worse names. This is clear disrespect of a woman's decision to make an attempt at modesty.
-Chelle Dean
From what I know about how modesty used to be, I would agree with Brandon that modesty isn't around as much today as it was years ago. I would say that because of this lack of female modesty, our society has in fact become more hostile towards women. I don't understand why though. I was raised to treat women with respect and be a gentleman. Being a gentle to me means never physically hurting a girl, seriously or just playing around, holding doors open, paying for the date, and always being nice to them. Maybe this falls in line with "nice guys finish last" but I don't mind being the nice guy. I say all this to say that while modesty should still be around, not having it doesn't affect my personal actions.
-Bryan Leonardy
I think that I agree with Shalit. The farther we move from female modesty, the more vulnerable we become to hostile attacks in terms of dressing modestly. But it is not so easy to move back to modesty. Taking away part of a woman's independence to freely dress for the sake of a man's vulnerability, is unfair. I think it will be very hard to change society back to old customs.
I'm not sure on the equality issue. I'm sure statistics support what is being said about women. I think our society as a whole is a lot more screwed up than it was decades ago. With more freedom comes more trouble. Guys treat each other a certain way, sometimes not with a lot of respect. We tend to mock each other constantly. The friendlier I become with women I tend to mock them just as I would with a male friend. I don't mean any disrespect by doing so. Actually, I think its an even greater sign of respect to treat them that way. I feel its just bad propaganda to blame societies faults on our lack of modesty...
-John Johnson
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