Deconstructing the female modesty myth

Why female agency is considered a threat

Growing up in a culturally conservative country, most girls are asked to prescribe to a certain code of modesty. What exactly constitutes “modest behavior” differs with each individual’s understanding; however there are certain generic categories of ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ conduct. From a very young age, an average woman is taught to be mindful of what she wears, how she carries herself, how she walks, who she walks with, who she trusts, what she does, who she does it with, who she makes eye contact with, if it’s dark, if the area is unfamiliar, what time it is, what environment it is, what kind of people she is with, who her friends are, who she gives her number to and these factors are kept in check by the constant threat of being labeled immodest by society. While the numbered liberal element of our society holds that modesty is not a gendered term, living in Pakistan, one cannot avoid noticing that men and women are, broadly speaking, held to different standards of modesty. As with other things, the general concept of modesty is shaped by religious and cultural norms—in a patriarchal society that translates to the repression and censure of women. In relation to women, the term ‘modesty’ is intrinsically tied to the myth of female purity and the threat of feminine desire.

The very idea that one can categorize women into two types—“good girls” and the rest — is a biased notion as it presupposes that “goodness” is quantifiable as opposed to being subjective. When norms are enforced through the threat of social renunciation, women are socialized to believe dangerous ideas about their virtue and worth. This leads to an internalization of things one has been taught all their life: “that a woman’s value is inextricable from her ‘purity,’ that a woman without value had no reason to live, and, more obliquely, that her life and her body weren’t really her own anyway.” To make the process of filtering women into types, society has come up with a number of signifiers such as dress, demeanor, conduct and even speech. Whereas there is no strict regulation of dress as there is in Saudi Arabia, a woman does not feel comfortable wearing whatever she wants to a number of public places such as the bazaar, in fear that a bevy of conservatives might tear her down with their stares or she may be assaulted or worst of all, be seen as immodest by her peers. The need to create associations of right and wrong, good and bad, modest and immodest with superficial things such as dress reinforces the idea that patriarchal society feels the need to control women and limit their freedom of expression in public spaces. Labels and tags for people are passed around freely but take forever to get rid of. Without out rightly banning certain kinds of behavior, societal beliefs and idealizations reinforce the necessity to conform, lest one be considered a social pariah.

The double standards that exist between male and female modesty are not only starling but completely lack any logical justification. Take for example, a man who is forward is considered bold and charming while a woman who possesses the same traits is made out to be ‘desperate’ or easy. While male sexuality is celebrated and even glorified in our discourse, female sexuality is seen as a dangerous threat that can possibly destabilize the current power dynamic in a phallocratic society. Individuals are able to take advantage of a culture’s patriarchal power and exorcise their feelings of insecurity by perpetuating shame based propriety attitudes over women’s bodies. There is no actual way for “purity” or “modesty” to be verified because it’s not a real thing. The entire discourse about female modesty is just an effort to rig a system in which get to determine female worth no matter what the input. As columnist Lindsey West suggests, “There is nothing you can do to be pure. Meanwhile, they (men) get to do literally whatever they want with anyone, to anyone, at any time. The double standard is so blatant it is almost too boring to point out.” Women can’t even escape sexualization in the context of making of attempting to make a statement about their own sexualization. Moreover, the sexualization of women (apart from glorification of female sexuality on screen) is only appealing if it is not on purpose or nonconsensual. Otherwise it is equated with “sluttiness” and sluttiness is agency and agency is threatening. Ironically, our culture also conditions girls to believe that if they are not attractive, they are nothing. We reinforce over and over that their attractiveness has an expiration date, so the only thing they can do is desperately leverage that attractiveness while they have the chance.

Girls and women, if nobody has pointed this out before or if you have any self doubt: you are good, you are a complete person and you are yours. You do not exist to please society nor is your value as a human being contingent upon your physical capital. Modesty is a social construct and should not control you. You are your own boss!

The writer is a staff member of Pakistan Today and holds a degree from Mount Holyoke College.