“Women, young ladies, modesty means you have beauty and power. And you use that to teach men how to love you for the right reasons”.
“Women are constantly bombarded in movies, television, fashion magazines, and in advertisements with the message that looks are everything! The pitch is, ‘If your looks are good enough, your life will be glamorous and you will be happy and popular.’ That kind of pressure is immense in the teenage years, and continues into womanhood.
It is no wonder that so many women, and far too many teens and girls are obsessed with how they look. They want to be beautiful, just like all of those women that they see in the media every day.
Part of that desirability, according to the underlying messages from many fashion magazines and media stars, lies in clothing, especially revealing clothing.
In too many cases too much is being done to the human body to meet just such a fictional (to say nothing of superficial) standard…In terms of preoccupation with self and a fixation on the physical, this is more than social insanity; it is spiritually destructive, and it accounts for much of the unhappiness in women who may not be able to live up to these standards.
The key to understanding what constitutes modesty in dress, is for a woman to sincerely examine the attitudes and intents of her heart. Those whose hearts are inclined toward revealing their dignity will make every effort to dress modestly, decently, and appropriately. Those whose hearts are inclined toward self objectivity will dress in a manner designed to draw attention to themselves with little or no regard for the consequences to themselves or others. Her only desire is in telling the world that she determines her own worth on a purely physical basis and that that her attractiveness depends on how much of her body she reveals.
Further, by dressing in an immodest fashion, displaying her body for men to lust after, she causes her brothers to sin, and the reality is that immodest dress affects men, young and old, some men are even disgusted by this. It should be noted that the way that one dresses have a great impact on others.
Especially to the young ladies, when you live only “to be looked at,” self-conscious of our bodies, you are left with fewer mental and physical resources to do what can really bring happiness. You perform worse on math tests, logical reasoning tests, athletic performance, have lower sexual assertiveness (including the ability to say “no” when needed), and you are left unfulfilled and unhappy. There are many young ladies that can attest to this.
Women should learn to dress modestly, not because we want them to do so but because they understand that their worth is not determined by how much of their bodies they reveal. We want them to do it because they know that the media has LIED to them about what real beauty is all about. We want them to do it because they know that they are SO much more than just a beautiful object to be displayed for men to desire. They are daughters of God who loves them, and who has blessed them with talents and abilities within the context of their incredible bodies that will allow them to make a difference in the world, and in so doing, to find more joy than they have ever known.
Modesty in dress sends a message of purity and honor. It puts an emphasis on and values the inner person over outward attractiveness. It says that a person is worth far more than what meets the eye. There is a depth of character that rises above beauty or charm. When we dress modestly, we are saying that we posses inner qualities for which we should gain appropriate attention and value from others.
Young women, older women, you have the potential to learn, to accomplish and to become.
So just do it.
