Modest Dress For Women

  • Thread starter Thread starter ChristinaAH
  • Start date Start date
Status
Not open for further replies.
I agree. I think catholics can do this by trying to avoid dehumanizing terms that nobody is even using besides Catholics preaching modesty, if that makes sense.
 
GospelOfMatthew said:
But that doesn’t matter. We are talking about 2019.
Click to expand...
No. It does matter, and that is exactly the point. If modesty does not depend on “cultural circumstances”, why wouldn’t the woman in leggings and long tee-shirt be considered modest in 1819? Better yet, why wouldn’t she be considered modest in Saudi Arabia today?
 
I am attempting (in my human weakness and brokenness) to take the viewpoint of the Catholic Church as made known through the great saint JPII in his writings of Theology of the Body. But I am not a master of this stuff nor a saint, so I fail to express it effectively
 
Last edited:
How are you defining modesty? You are defining it on how others view it. Who are these others? Why should I care what view about modesty? I should care what Jesus thought about it. I define modesty as a concept of self-respect, you define it as some societal concept that we all must adhere to based on our own views.

But we are all entitled to our views so all respect to you for having your views
 
Do you think there is nothing immodest at all about a women being topless in public?

I think this is immodest.

You I’m guessing will say “not in her society it isn’t considered immodest”.

That’s like saying “you do you man”, it’s just moral relativism. Being topless in public for a guy or a girl I say is immodest
 
I think we actually agree on what the virtue of modesty is. It is self-respect or decency.

The problem we are having is that you take your cultural norms for dressing and equate them with the virtue itself. You do this because you want to insist that no aspect of modesty can be culturally dependent.

What I am saying is that the norms of dress as they relate to modesty depend upon the cultural context.

So, an American woman in leggings and a long tee is practicing her virtue of modesty just as a Zulu woman with a bare chest is practicing her virtue of modesty just as Saudi Arabian woman in her hijab is practicing her virtue of modesty.
 
Last edited:
I think the rules for appropriate dress go something like this:
  • If the bottom is tight, the top should be loose.
  • If the top is low-cut, the bottom should be long
  • The shorter the skirt the lower the heel
  • The longer the skirt the higher the heel
And as Tim Gunn says, “Leggings are not pants.”

Obviously, these are rules for stylistically appropriate dress, and not rules for modest attire. My own opinion from my Catholic perspective is, I’m afraid, along the lines of how SCOTUS Justice Stewart defined obscenity: “I know it when I see it.”
 
I have actually read stuff from men who have lived in different cultures, and they say that there is a different effect depending on how people around them dress. Like western men living for a while in certain parts of the middle east, finding that after a while some exposed hair seems sexual. Or the other way around, if you live in an area where most women go topless, bare breasts just don’t seem sexual anymore.
 
By nature of Mary and women both having wombs there is a connection. I am not saying every woman must dress like the Virgin Mary or be just like the Blessed Virgin Mary. I am saying, the womb is a most sacred place and should be veiled as such
 
I think what matters in this discussion is not points about modesty in some distant African tribe, we can agree to disagree as this isn’t relevent to this thread. What matters here is @ChristinaAH appreciates modesty and wants to know if her dress is modest and we all agree it is modest. It is nice to hear that she appreciates modesty not because it prevents others from lusting but because she is modest because she wants to be 🙂
 
Last edited:
There is nothing specially sacred about wombs.

Humans, as a whole, are made in the image of God and are therefore sacred.

There is more to women than just their wombs.

You talk about veiling wombs. How exactly should they be veiled?
They are an interior organ and therefore already hidden.
 
Last edited:
I do not disagree with you. We are all made in the image and likeness of God. We should all dress reverently and modestly. The womb topic I did not bring up as it’s not relevant. It was brought up because someone mentioned not covering their stomach and so I mentioned my thought. There is nothing specific to the womb that isn’t specific to the rest of the body, I am merely noting that it is a holy place.

We should all dress modestly not for others to not lust but because we want to veil our dignity. There is more to us than our bodies, and we want others to see the entirety of us, not just the physical attributes
 
Last edited:
This is like saying Christmas trees are a pagan ritual. They may have onec been one but it doesn’t negate the purpose they have today.

Veils may have once served that purpose but now they generally are to protect what is holy and dignity and such. It is a sign of, if you want to see my body you have to see the rest of me first, and therefore commit (marriage vows) to see my body. It’s a symbolic reverence to chastity before marriage, Jason Evert really expands and explains this concept.

The wedding dress may have once been viewed that way but now it is viewed as a sign of purity. As such, the traditional view in today’s sense of the word, is that these are signs of purity and chastity. But the historical background is interesting, so thank you for bringing that up!
 
Last edited:
Yes agreed, it is only a color haha. There is no requirement to wear a veil or white and it’s not sinful not to. I know plenty who haven’t worn veils. It is only tradition that some people use and others don’t. But the people that do wear veils usually do it either out of tradition/custom, or of symbolism.

Yes, when we care more about a color over the sacrament that God instituted, we have lost our way haha
 
Last edited:
Dlee said:
Today’s leggings are yesterday’s tights/pantyhose/nylons. The length of your top should be the same in all of these instances.
Click to expand...
I agree ! Leggings are essentially just thicker tights with no feet.
 
What about running tights/leggins? Worn in cooler weather, cold weather, worn for warm-ups. Do the same rules apply? In my opinion, no. The rules do not apply in this case.

Guys usually wear gym shorts over the leggings, not for moral modesty per se, but because they’re afraid they’ll look ‘gay’ otherwise. The few times I’ve worn cold weather running tights, I have not worn gym shorts over them because I think it looks dorky and being married with three children, I’m fairly secure in my sexual orientation.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top