Book Club Part 2 with your {bits & pieces}
Thanks for all your thoughts on my own book! I will keep you posted on how it’s going, including the number of volumes!
Continuing with our reading of A Return to Modesty (affiliate link), let’s look at Part Two. (Part One is here — we can still continue the discussion in the comments!)
Forgiving Modesty: Maybe modesty is a fine virtue, we can’t help thinking as we read the compilation of evidence in the book. Maybe, as Shalit says, there really are differences between the sexes, and when we women choose something to wear that is pretty and not provocative, we simply feel more comfortable. We feel more settled in ourselves and more able to cope with the outside world.
I grew up in the miniskirt era. Truly, the sheer embarrassment of those days was so scarring. So much energy put into what one was going to wear and whether one could manage it all without some untoward exposure (keep in mind that undergarments had been jettisoned). No wonder our wardrobe ended up being jeans and more jeans.
Modesty, says Shalit, invites men to “consider what the ideal relation between them and women should be” (p. 102). It doesn’t just invite them. It requires them to respect women, by not allowing them past the point where they can do otherwise.
The Great Deception: I am not as interested in what (early) modern philosophers thought about modesty as Shalit is. The whole problem comes down to the modernist rejection of givens and the desire to remake human nature.
The given that men and women are different must be recovered if we are not always to arrive at the position of John Stoltenberg (p. 112), that our relations amount to various forms of rape — of men imposing on women.
Instead of cooperating to make life peaceful, we are engaged in a war of all against all. That’s what I hate about the MeToo movement: It’s just another way to lock us into this endless battle, and it doesn’t ask women to do anything about how we behave or think about ourselves — it wants to keep the feminist sense of war going.
We should be able to ask ourselves why this wasn’t always the way the sexes looked at each other! And I think Shalit is making the best case for finding our way out again.
On the question of what is sexy to women: Modernism, because it begins and ends in doubt and will accept nothing outside of itself, is narcissistic and will always leave us with the man’s perverted understanding of himself — and that is why women find ourselves being force-fed male erotic imagery. We women don’t even understand that when society abandons modesty, it arrives at homosexuality — and with women being required to pretend that we like male nudity; the final mockery is in fact our unawareness that naked men exist for men, not for us.
Can Modesty Be Natural?: P. 132: “So one of modesty’s paradoxes, then, is that it is usually a reflection of self-worth, of having such a high opinion of yourself that you don’t need to boast or put your body on display for all to see.”
I think this is undeniable — modesty protects women in the way a beautiful aqua box protects a Tiffany jewel, and proclaims in the same exact way the worth of what it protects. But —
Perhaps the weakness of women, that we often don’t have the self-worth necessary to make this claim for ourselves, can be resolved by Scripture: “Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, which you have from God? You are not your own; you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body.” (1 Cor 6:19-20).
P. 137: “You may think you see me, the modestly dressed woman announces, but you do not see the real me. The real me is only for my beloved to see.”
I would say that the modest woman is presenting her real, true self — but not every bit of it. A modest deportment is not a lie, but it is not the whole truth, because it couldn’t be. Some things are intimate and not for general consumption!
Male Character: Male honor, being a gentleman, the restoration of chivalry… “Ultimately, it seems that only men can teach other men how to behave around women, but those men have to be inspired by women in the first place, inspired enough to think the women are worth being courteous to.” (p. 157).
I think men would treat all women well if there were some women around to inspire them to it. This, after all, is a principle of chivalry: to be honorable no matter what the circumstances. But yes, we have to demonstrate that this is the world we wish to be in — we need inspiration all around.
I believe that one effect of virtue is precisely to help those who are less virtuous. An honest person provides a bit of cover for a person who struggles with honesty. A brave person helps a timid person over the rough patches.
If the most thoughtful women are modest, they contribute to a culture where heedless women are nevertheless treated with more respect, because the men have an ideal before them to which they, in turn, can aspire with their own kind of goodness.
The ending of this section should give us food for thought. If legislation designed to eliminate inequalities has the effect of making women’s lives harder, perhaps equality ideology (i.e. feminism) should be rejected.
bits & pieces
Three lessons from the fall of communism in Romania.
I was blown away by this insight from Fr. Pokorsky (remember how I had said that Pope Benedict offers a great Lenten meditation on the Temptations of Christ in his book Jesus of Nazareth? Well, Fr. P shows how Mary beat him to it!).
Fr. McTeigue interviewed me on the topic of abortion this past week. There was some technical difficulty, so things get a little iffy at times. However, I do get my main thoughts in! At the end, there wasn’t time to get to the point of my little story, but I will tell you here that the priest I was speaking of was open to learning more. We the laity need to be brave and hold the priests and bishops to the moral law.
The proof for God’s existence is all around us.
Oregon Engineer Makes History With New Traffic Light Timing Formula — I just love this story, not least because he had to overcome some ridiculous professional licensing injustices to get… the green light.
A secret passageway in Parliament — just discovered!
A Catholic artists’ directory.
“A society that believes in nothing can offer no argument even against death. A culture that has lost its faith in life cannot comprehend why it should be endured.” Death on demand comes to Germany.
Amazing chant
from the archives
The moral life of children and how to nurture it — a series (linked within)Rosie’s cauliflower soup!
liturgical year
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