Creepy Conservative Christian Modesty Doctrines Harm Young Women

[tekla]

http://www.alternet.org/story/153227/how_creepy_conservative_christian_modesty_doctrines_harm_young_women/


Modesty taught me that I was a decoration. Everything about my life was governed by whether or not a man was watching. How I moved and what I ate or wore all depended on the male gaze. Modesty taught me that nothing I did mattered more than avoiding sexual attention. Modesty made me objectify myself. I was so aware of my own potential desirability at all times that I lost all other ways of defining myself. I couldn't work out or get fit without worrying about attracting men. I couldn't relax my eating habits for a moment lest my shirts start to pull a little in the chest. I couldn't grow like a normal human adolescent because staying slim and sexless was the biggest priority in my world.