What Has the Feminist Movement Done to Modesty -- And American Girls?

Human Events Online ^ | Feb. 16, 2005 | Linda Chavez

[MisterRepublican]

If you watch a lot of cable television, you've probably seen the ads, especially late at night or early in the morning. The "Girls Gone Wild" videos promise to show you coeds behaving badly on the beach during Spring Break or getting down and dirty at Mardi Gras. The formula is simple: find a group of nubile young things drunk out of their heads and induce them to pull up their T-shirts or pull down their shorts and expose themselves to anyone willing to fork over $19.95 for the privilege. The most recent incarnation features gangster rapper Snoop Dogg hawking fresh, young flesh.

Call me old-fashioned, but I just can't imagine what these girls were thinking when they agreed to "show off their assets," as one knock-off video boasts. These young women aren't pros -- they are not part of the pornographic underworld -- but ordinary teens and twenty-somethings who one day will be wives and mothers. One young girl, who was 17 at the time she allowed herself to be photographed topless, has already sued the producers of "The Guy Game," a video game featuring females in various stages of undress. Her suit claims she did not give a "valid or enforceable consent or release" for photos to be used by the video game makers. "Plaintiff is still a teenager and wishes to attend college, develop her career and be active in her community and church." Good luck.

What is most shocking about this phenomenon is that we're not all that shocked by it. Modesty used to be considered a natural female attribute. No more. Just take a look around next time you're at the mall.

[cinives]

Makes you wonder - it's a nationwide trend, I guess. The boys can't keep their clothes on because they're so baggy.

The girls can't keep theirs on because they're so short and tight they reveal everything.

Sadly, the same "fashions" the 14yo are wearing has been filtering down to the kindergarten set.

[RayChuang88]

And you wonder why Bratz-related products have become extremely popular items.

[68skylark]

For most of history, most people lived in horrible squalid conditions. Whole families (sometimes several families) would live in a room or two -- the people had little more modesty or opportunities for privacy than barnyard animals (who often also lived in the same room). In large parts of the world (maybe a majority of the world) most people still live this way today. Exposed breasts are common. Modesty was only an option for very few in the upper class.

It's this tiny upper class that gets depicted in Jane Austen romance novels and Hollywood movies, and people think this was the norm. It's not.

[AppyPappy]

In the older days, Feminists didn't want women to dress in a revealing way because it was catering to men. Now they want them to dress like sluts for older women to enjoy.

[rockabyebaby]

<<<>> Their parents aren't teaching them anything, obviously, because neither parent is in the home, they're both out working, trying to "have it all". You see these days, material things are more important, cell phones, tv in every room, big SUV in the driveway plus a car for each family member, vacation home, bla bla bla. It goes back to what I've said over and over again, women NEED to be in the home instead of out working 50-60 hours a week. This is the result of supermoms.

[rockabyebaby]

>>>In fact, the past was more sordid, grubby and immodest than anything we can now imagine<<<

On what planet did you witness the sordid, grubby and immodest past?

[Airborne1986]

Well said. These people have trouble dealing with the naked truth. They have been ... exposed ... to the consequences of their actions. Now, they are busted. This story really has legs ... Sorry, I'll stop now.

[clearsight]

"In fact, the past was more sordid, grubby and immodest than anything we can now imagine." Please elaborate for us.
and.........there were tv crews around to tape the events and disseminate it into homes all around the world...right????? I am alluding to the idea that personal debauchery's influence was pretty much limited to those within eye shot or ear shot of the event in the past, but not theses days. Which means we have more responsibility to keep our personal perversity's private.

[AnAmericanMother]

I beg to differ.

The English have had a solid yeoman class at least since the Black Death, and a middle class of minor gentry long before that. Your average yeoman-farmer's daughters in the 13th century were as modest as they could be. This tradition has continued. Jane Austen was not upper class - she was very much middle, daughter of a country rector whose brothers went into the Navy.

It's the upper class that has always been immodest in Britain - the real scandals in Jane Austen's period were generated by the nobility and royalty.

[newzjunkey]

Bratz costumes...

[<1/1,000,000th%]

There is no room for modesty in radical feminism.

[Alter Kaker]

Examples??

Well, from a historical perspective, did you know that in the Victorian era -- the golden age of "female modesty," prostitution was far more widespread than it is today, and was socially acceptable to boot? In many parts of the country, it was considered the norm for a father to take his son to a prostitute as a rite of passage.

[longtermmemmory]

Feminists are good for fun becasue they will have an abortion as a result of recreational sex. Feminists do not want marriage, but they do want sex. Feminists are not so picky about their sex partners because they enjoy recreational sex.

seems very clear.

[eno_]

If God meant us to be naked we would have been born...

Oh.

Never mind.

[newzjunkey]

Remember this: How did Monica seduce a president? She snapped her thong at him!

I miss the days when females work skirts that fell just below the neat or were ankle lanth, where I wasn't looking at their flab oozing over their waistbands, where they obviously weren't wearing undergarments like Ms. Natalie Portman (right):

[A Ruckus of Dogs]

In fact, the past was more sordid, grubby and immodest than anything we can now imagine.

We didn't have a 30% illegitimacy rate in the past and tons of fatherless welfare families the taxpayers have to support.

[68skylark]

My views are at post #23.

[eno_]

there were tv crews around to tape the events and disseminate it into homes all around the world...right?????

Nope. In the good old days you went down to your choice of local whorehouse and did your sinning in person. We've become spectators.

[A Ruckus of Dogs]

It's the upper class that has always been immodest in Britain

Yep, just look at the royal family.

[eno_]

"Mmmmmm. Perky Natalie Portman."

Scary thing is, that's what Hillary is thinking.