Sometimes when I feel like I could use a little more batshit craziness in my life, I read the letters to the editor in the Daily Universe, the newspaper at Brigham Young University, which I used to attend before I discovered the joys of coffee and HBO. If anything, the letters are usually good for a laugh. It seems that at least once a month, a letter gets published whining about what the women on campus are wearing. These letters are usually written by men, complaining about all the CLEAVAGE and KNEES and PANTY-LINES and MIDRIFFS they’ve been seeing, and how disturbed they are by all the SKIN. Somebody even wrote in once, complaining about women wearing messenger bags across their bodies. Apparently the messenger bag strap situated between the breasts was just too much for this gentleman, and he wished that they would stop drawing attention to themselves and their breasts by the way they wore their messenger bags. I wish I were making this up.
Students at the university must sign something called the Honor Code, which has a very strict set of guidelines for dress and grooming. No tank tops, no visible midriff, skirts and shorts to the knee, no tight clothing, no cleavage, etc. The letters usually invoke the Honor Code, then accuse the women who are supposedly violating the Code of being well… slutty.
While I agree that people who sign the Honor Code should dress accordingly, the vicious, sanctimonious screeds that appear in the Daily Universe are much more problematic than unsolicited cleavage, because they illustrate the problem of modesty itself. Modesty is a false concept, a social construct that is relative to culture, and a tool for controlling and manipulating women. Furthermore, the idea of an “immodest” woman shifts responsibility for men’s actions. That’s why I have a problem with letters like this, because it suggests that women are somehow responsible for the behavior of men, which is not only deplorable, but patently false. (You can read my response to the letter here.)
In Mormon culture, modesty is a huge issue. While I was growing up, I was told by my church leaders that I had a responsibility to dress “modestly” in order to help the men and boys around me keep their thoughts clean and avoid sexual sin. I’m just going to come right out and say it: men will have sexual thoughts no matter what the women around them are wearing. It has nothing to do with clothing. Take, for instance, Muslim countries, where women cover their entire bodies, save their hands and faces. Do you suppose that men in those places don’t have “dirty” thoughts? That rape and sexual harassment don’t occur? The idea that negative or unwanted sexual attention from a man is somehow deserved if you’re wearing a short skirt is sexist, offensive, and rape-enabling.
I once tutored an adult student who stared at my breasts for an hour straight every single morning. It was humiliating. I took to wearing a huge hoodie when I tutored him, hoping that by dressing in a tent, I could get him to focus on grammar instead of my chest. It didn’t work. He stared anyway, at the place under my tent-like hoodie where I’m sure he imagined my breasts were located. What I wore made absolutely no difference whatsoever.
A man should take responsibility for himself, not blame women, their bodies or their clothing for his actions. Additionally, the preoccupation of some men with what women should or should not be wearing is just creepy and weird. Quit judging my hemline and mind your own damn business.
