does anyone else feel unnerved by the concept of modesty?
i don’t mean just wearing more clothing because you want to. how much or how little clothes you decide to wear is completely up to you.
“Physical modesty is a mode of dress and behavior intended to avoid encouraging sexual attention or projecting excess.”
when muslim women say they dress modestly for god, i laugh a little. because no, you don’t. that’s not what modesty even intends to do. the concept itself is male centered.
islam teaches that physical modesty is an expression of self respect and “a way to ensure that a person is valued for their character rather than just their physical appearance.”
but when a hijabi has a single hair poking out, she’s a whore. her clothing is too tight? slut. too glittery? she wants attention from men.
how’s that valuing her for her character rather than her physical appearance? you’re fantasizing about her sexual life just based on what you see and getting angry at your fabrications.
and the guidelines get stricter and stricter. niqabs, burkas. i can see your eyes, you shameful whore. cover them.
your fabric cage is too colorful, you just want to attract men, don’t you? wear black. black is good. black hides you. your face unnoticed, your eyes covered and unseeing through the net. your body engulfed in layers of suffocating fabric.
don’t eat in public, you mustn’t uncover your face to perform basic human functions.
don’t speak in public, your voice can seduce men.
don’t wear a jacket in public, it hugs your figure.
in fact, just don’t go outside. it’s better for women to stay home.
away from prying eyes. because no matter what you do as a woman, you’re “not leaving it up to the imagination”
because, of course, the aim of this game is to leave it up to the imagination. you must hide yourself so that they can fantasize about you.
modesty is a fetish. it’s a way to turn you into a trophy. to hide you. to stroke a man’s ego because he’s the only one who can see you.
but he won’t see you. no one will. he won’t see the person under the mountain of clothing. he will see a body to use.
a body he controls. one he can do anything he pleases to because it’s a sin to refuse him. don’t you know the angels will curse you if you disobey?
your modesty means nothing. men will ogle and harass you. you will be blamed no matter what because there’s always more that you could be doing. always something you did wrong to deserve it. a rule you broke.
modesty as a concept forces the blame on women every single time.
wore a miniskirt and got assaulted? if you wore a hijab, that wouldn’t have happened.
wore a niqab and got assaulted? if you wore a burka, that wouldn’t have happened.
what were you thinking walking outside like that?
you should be unseen and unheard, only then are you safe.
oh but actually, not really.
because it will still happen. your clothing, your modesty isn’t the problem.
they fed you a lie and you believed it. your hair isn’t sexual, it’s a part of your body that provides warmth. your legs don’t just exist to be stared at by men. they exist so you can walk. so you can give yourself the freedom to move. your breasts exist to nurture and feed a life that you created.
covering your natural body won’t stop these males from hurting you. modesty wasn’t made to protect you.
it was made to control you. to turn you into a fantasy so that males could jerk off to the idea of what you look like under there. what they could do to you. how innocent and naive you must be.
wear as much clothes as you want. wear as little as you want. but not under the guise of modesty.
modesty was created to trap you. douse you in fabric so you don’t realize what they’re doing. it’s hard to breathe under there. to see. to move freely. quickly.
because they don’t want you to. the less you see, the better. if you can’t see, you won’t know how badly you’re suffering. if you can’t move, you can’t chase freedom.
modesty is disgusting and perverse.
muslims don’t even stop to ask themselves why slave and working women in the past were forbidden to wear the hijab. they claim modesty is decreed by god. it’s fardh.
so why were only free women allowed to wear it?
when you were taken as a female slave, your clothing was controlled in the opposite way. if you wear too much, how will your captors access your body? it doesn’t matter that you’re muslim, you’re forbidden from covering your body. because the concept itself is centered around men and what they want.
modesty a fetish. and you’re what’s being consumed.
it’s a power play. it’s just flipped now, but the essence is still the same.
