Dress for Success

In a recent article in Relevant magazine the author made the claim that Americas cultural standards of modesty are sexist, citing as evidence that men are allowed to go bare chested on beaches and women aren't. Read the article HERE. Leaving aside for a moment the adolescent nature of that statement (Mikey does it!), it seems to me that women and men are held to different standards of dress as it pertains to modesty because, well, men and women are different.

Is allowing women to go topless on a beach really a way to achieve equality? Is that what they really want? Women are sexually harassed all too often, do they really believe that dressing provocatively is going to help?
Don't get me wrong, unwanted sexual advances are never justified....NEVER.....but until we figure out how to change the sordid reality of how many men treat women, a little restraint, modesty if you will, in how women dress couldn't hurt.


I've been through a number of changes in my lifetime regarding my attitude on the subject of modesty, ranging from my college days in the late 60's as a flamethrowing liberal raging against the outmoded mores of my parents generation. The Age of Aquarius, free love, radical politics, and rock and roll were the buzzwords of the day. Transparent tops and no bras were political statements not slutty dress. Then in my alcoholic days, it was all about slutty. Morals were buzz kill not a way of life, and modesty was boring. Hardly one of my finer periods.

Today, I walk with the Lord, I'm busy trying to help others recover from the devastation of addiction, AND, I'm 60 years old with a teenage daughter. It's called growing up, which some people never do. Loose morals, suggestive clothing, and disregard for common sense are no way to address life, and modesty is a sign of character, not uncool. My idea of what constitutes attractive in a woman has changed, I long ago shed the idea that casual sex was anything more than emotionally destructive friction, and I don't find women attractive that dress in a way that suggests otherwise. And I want above all that my daughter strive as much to show character as she would to appear attractive to the opposite sex.

I guess what's really surprising to me is that we're revisiting a conversation from the 60's and 70's that I thought had been settled in the rehabs of the 90's.