Emphasis on Modesty=Rape Culture in Utah

[Calm]

39 minutes ago, Tacenda said:

I remember it specifically directed to the women, no men. 

Interesting.  I assume you mean this was announced in RS and your husband told you it hadn't been talked about in Priesthood meeting.  (Unless you mean to say during Sacrament Meeting someone got up, said something like "Women of the ward, you must all wear shoes when the HTers come because....." which seems highly unlikely.  If it was the bishopric, it is a very odd request.  If it was the RS presidency, I could see that as happening easily, them getting together and asking how can we help our members have a better attitude or interaction with HTers.  Or one of them hearing from her husband that their teachee wasn't wearing shoes and taking it upon herself to correct that in RS, but none of them seeing it as appropriate to tell the men the same thing...or the Priesthood leaders blowing them off.

Edited September 22, 2016 by Calm

[Yirgacheffe]

6 hours ago, bsjkki said:

We always have male leaders to protect all us women at girls camp. You know, the bears.

We never had bears at camp, coyotes, fox, raccoons and deer but no bears.

[Calm]

3 minutes ago, Yirgacheffe said:

We never had bears at camp, coyotes, fox, raccoons and deer but no bears.

You need to move to Canada.  Best place ever for camping. 

Actually bears got into the little trailer where Mom stored the food when we were camping in White Wolf, Yosemite one time, so I suppose you can run into them down here as well...but still Canada is where mountains are really mountains and bears are bears, not the wimpy stuff south of the border.

Edited September 22, 2016 by Calm

[Yirgacheffe]

6 hours ago, Bernard Gui said:

Well, this is certainly one way to look at the issue. Apparently you haven't been following the discussion very closely. If what you say is true, then there should be no modesty-related dress codes for adults. 

I've never had a "modesty based dress code" even in school the word modesty was never used, and has never been used in my kids school dress code.

[Tacenda]

1 hour ago, Calm said:

Interesting.  I assume you mean this was announced in RS and your husband told you it hadn't been talked about in Priesthood meeting.  (Unless you mean to say during Sacrament Meeting someone got up, said something like "Women of the ward, you must all wear shoes when the HTers come because....." which seems highly unlikely.  If it was the bishopric, it is a very odd request.  If it was the RS presidency, I could see that as happening easily, them getting together and asking how can we help our members have a better attitude or interaction with HTers.  Or one of them hearing from her husband that their teachee wasn't wearing shoes and taking it upon herself to correct that in RS, but none of them seeing it as appropriate to tell the men the same thing...or the Priesthood leaders blowing them off.

I have racked my brain to remember where it came from, I asked my husband and he remembers it but can't remember where it came from either. I know it wasn't in Sacrament meeting though. 

[Tacenda]

42 minutes ago, Calm said:

You need to move to Canada.  Best place ever for camping. 

Actually bears got into the little trailer where Mom stored the food when we were camping in White Wolf, Yosemite one time, so I suppose you can run into them down here as well...but still Canada is where mountains are really mountains and bears are bears, not the wimpy stuff south of the border.

http://www.snopes.com/canadian-business-offers-land-to-relocating-americans/

Here's some free land and a job to boot if you want to relocate to Nova Scotia. I'm sure game to!

[Yirgacheffe]

5 hours ago, Tacenda said:

It gets pretty bad when you're told not to be barefoot when the home teachers visit. This really happened in my stake, sad to say.

Why in the world can you not be barefoot?

[Yirgacheffe]

2 hours ago, Calm said:

Are you saying they were telling the women and girls they had to have something on their feet and the men could walk around barefoot or that they wanted everyone in footwear (I suspect they see it as being respectful and not treating HTing disrespectfully, like requiring the men visiting to wear Sunday clothes)?

Don't home teachers come to your house, and if so why would you be required to put on shoes when they come over?

[Tacenda]

2 minutes ago, Yirgacheffe said:

Why in the world can you not be barefoot?

I took it that it would make the home teachers uncomfortable for some dumb reason. And this was when I was a TBM. I might have to be brave and ask ward members that would have been around back then to see if they can clarify why this was asked of women.

[Yirgacheffe]

55 minutes ago, Calm said:

not the wimpy stuff south of the border.

I prefer the wimpy stuff, especially when taking 18 2nd graders camping.

[bsjkki]

Tacenda's comment about having to wear shoes with home teachers brought back this memory.  Did any of you ever hear this one.  Back in the day, men were required to wear socks at BYU.  I don't think the girls had to but I can't remember.  I remember hearing a rumor I refuse to type about why men must wear socks?  I know this is vague but it's too unseemly to explain further.  You would know if you had heard it.  Silly stuff remembered from my youth.

And if anyone knows, was this something just whispered by students or more official?

Edited September 22, 2016 by bsjkki

[Bernard Gui]

6 hours ago, bsjkki said:

Yes things are very different.  I agree with this. That is why it's important for women's voices to be heard. 

I have found the solution that would treat both sexes the same and help all us keep our thoughts pure.  Everyone should wear over sized, sloppy sweatsuits to church and everywhere else and it should be a world wide law. 

I agree that women's voices must be heard.

This discussion has been directed towards the LDS standards of modesty and how they are taught and received. No one is suggesting

we impose our standards on the rest of the world nor that modesty standards should be enforced by laws. Rather, I would appeal to

the good will and faith of the members of the Church to care enough for each other that we wouldn't burden ourselves unnecessarily.

[Bernard Gui]

6 hours ago, saemo said:

And there are multiple exceptions in every school. Cheerleading uniforms being singled out for what reason?

We are rehashing old issues here. Perhaps you could read some of the previous discussion. 

The boy supposedly complained to a counsellor that the cheerleader uniforms being worn to class violated the school dress code

and that they were a distraction in his classes. The Catch 22 is that by objecting to a supposed violation, he was himself violating

the people who were violating it. 

[Glenn101]

1 hour ago, Calm said:

You need to move to Canada.  Best place ever for camping. 

Actually bears got into the little trailer where Mom stored the food when we were camping in White Wolf, Yosemite one time, so I suppose you can run into them down here as well...but still Canada is where mountains are really mountains and bears are bears, not the wimpy stuff south of the border.

Yellowstone grizzly says hello.

[Bernard Gui]

6 hours ago, saemo said:

Certainly dress codes are a social construct. Not all societies define modesty in the same way. Some wear no clothes at all. Clothing in the most base sense of survival is a protection from the elements. 

Personally, I like the teachings of JP II, from his Theology Of The Body, where he describes modesty as a reaction to the fallen nature of humankind. That is, in the garden Adam and Eve wore no clothes, and they didn't seek to own, control, or objectify each other.

After the fall, they cover themselves, which was a protection of their innermost selves, against the new (broken) desires that are based on owning, controlling and objectifying. All healthy humans, especially in particular age groups, experience our fallen nature. 

When I say a reaction to God, it is in this context, where we were originally created as healthy sexual creatures. God's desire, being that we love one another based not seeking to satisfy our desires to own, control or objectify the other person. Dressing immodestly, by both men and women, can be a form of seeking to control or to own the other. Agreed? I dress modestly, for myself, as a protection of my inner self. I hide what is mine and share my inner self only with the man who I love. 

Not everyone believes as I do. Some have different ideas of modesty, that are solely based on societal norms. Either society in the larger sense or micro-societies to which they identify.

Now schools, have a responsibility to teach and provide an environment conducive to learning. Dress codes can be dependent on localized issues, such as gang concerns, or what the student can afford. My daughter went to one school that had a "uniform", of sorts, and all the kids hated them, feeling their individuality was squashed. Such is teenage angst. The adults have a responsibility to all involved, not to one boy, or to one group of students.

Thanks for sharing those thoughts from a Catholic point of view. Most of the devote Catholics I have known are extremely modest people.

Interesting thoughts on school uniforms. When we first moved to Australia, my teenage and pre-teen kids hated the school uniforms, no makeup, no hairdos. After a year when we moved back to the States, they dreaded the foolish American notion that we express our "individuality" with the things we wear in school. They learned in Oz that it's what you do that is important in defining who you are, not what you wear. Besides, they said, there is plenty of time after school, on weekends, and on breaks when they could wear whatever they wished. School was a place to learn, not to flaunt fashion. This attitude has stuck with them into their adult lives.

[Bernard Gui]

5 hours ago, Rock_N_Roll said:

Not according to this…   

https://vwo.com/blog/ab-test-proves-women-find-bearded-men-attractive/

"For every research that claims the smooth clean-cut look is more desirable among women, there are two counter studies claiming face fuzz is the way to go."

 

That's why I am skeptical of studies in general and in this issue in particular.

[Garden Girl]

1 hour ago, Calm said:

Interesting.  I assume you mean this was announced in RS and your husband told you it hadn't been talked about in Priesthood meeting.  (Unless you mean to say during Sacrament Meeting someone got up, said something like "Women of the ward, you must all wear shoes when the HTers come because....." which seems highly unlikely.  If it was the bishopric, it is a very odd request.  If it was the RS presidency, I could see that as happening easily, them getting together and asking how can we help our members have a better attitude or interaction with HTers.  Or one of them hearing from her husband that their teachee wasn't wearing shoes and taking it upon herself to correct that in RS, but none of them seeing it as appropriate to tell the men the same thing...or the Priesthood leaders blowing them off.

I've never heard of anything so silly... in fact when my home teachers come into my house they automatically take off their shoes (and I'm only in stocking feet) because here in the wet/dusty Pacific Northwest it is a matter of courtesy to remove one's shoes upon entering a home so as not to track in dirt or mud, etc.  

GG

[Bernard Gui]

5 hours ago, Rain said:

What I was saying was that it made me smile that you felt my lack of information, before the further links were posted, didn't matter, yet you found lack of information after the links were posted. The only difference that I can see is that I didn't feel we should scoff at what the girls (and the boy too actually) said or did without more information and you are saying we shouldn't do the same of the boy without more information. 

We actually dont know how the girls feel. We know statements from a couple of them , but not all. We don't know why they felt the way they did. We don't know if they are justified in their thoughts.   We don't know if there is a pattern of them being called out for "immodesty" or not. There are just a ton of things here we dont know enough about to justify calling them out. 

So if we are going to say we don't  know enough about the situation to disdain the boy (which I agree) then we should be willing to say we don't know enough about the situation with the cheerleaders to disdain them either.

I hear what you are saying. We heard more from Kate Kelly and a sister of one of the girls than we did from the girls themselves, and we heard nothing from the boy. Yet it was enough for the media to condemn the Utah/Mormon "rape culture." There was just enough information given to spin the story in the direction that it has taken. The negativity in the reports was directed entirely against the boy, his mother, and the Church. I haven't noticed any follow up reports, have you?

The saddest bit is that this pits us against one another, when in reality we should be pulling for each other.

[Bernard Gui]

3 minutes ago, Garden Girl said:

I've never heard of anything so silly... in fact when my home teachers come into my house they automatically take off their shoes (and I'm only in stocking feet) because here in the wet/dusty Pacific Northwest it is a matter of courtesy to remove one's shoes upon entering a home so as not to track in dirt or mud, etc.  

GG

Yep. We do the same in Washington. That's trended over the past few years, though. It started with the big influx of Korean immigrants we had a while back who always remove

shoes at the door. It has caught on big time. Fortunately, our home teachers have good foot hygiene. 

[Honorentheos]

11 hours ago, Bernard Gui said:

 Another question for consideration....

If it is the LDS man's responsibility to avoid "impure thoughts" or "look the other way" regardless of the circumstances, what criteria should LDS women consider when making the decisions of what clothing they purchase and wear?

In the OP you ask a more provocative form of a question that may be softened to ask if LDS culture plays a role in how this event played out? And implied in that question is the follow-up question if there might be a better way?

Modesty is a cultural norm. What one culture may define as appropriate, modest dress may be prudish to some and immodest to others. It's subjective and reflects learned behaviors and value systems.

How a person views a member of the opposite sex, how they react to normal biological emotions that arise from finding someone attractive - these aren't the same class of thing. Poorly developed abilities to express or respond to what one feels or how one acts towards someone one is attracted to is damaging for a number of reasons that transcend cultural norms or value judgements such as what is modest or not.

Personally, I think LDS would do well to ratchet down the rhetoric against all sexual emotional feelings and behaviors outside of marriage and engage the questions of sexual mores and expression in terms of relationships between people. The moral issue isn’t about sex itself. The moral issue is complex, but includes how one extends respect for the other person’s self (body and soul, emotional and physical) as well as acting respectfully of one’s self. There is a lot of room for unfortunate dysfunction to develop when sexual expression is defined as sinful when a person would be far better off developing a better understanding of the role of respect, emotional sharing and expression, and connection as important parts of a healthy physical relationship. A young person who experiences normal biological induced emotions who is taught to take responsibility for their own thoughts, but not be ashamed of having them and learning to engage with respect those to whom they are attracted is far better off in the long term than the young person who responds with self-flagellation and shame which they externalize with blame.

I honestly don’t think the young man did anything wrong until he turned this into being about the cheerleaders and their dress. Being aroused by attractive people is normal. The guidance and focus on helping him understand that, how to react to it, to own it for the subjective personal thing it is, and use that ownership as motivation for developing healthy, mutually respectful ways of exploring and expressing what comes of becoming a mature adult person equipped with self-knowledge and a sense of earned self-worth is by far the best service the current adults in his life could have given him.

IMO, given the fact it made the news because it became about modesty tells us they failed him.

IMO, they all were set up to fail by the parent culture that does not teach or enable healthy options over shaming, blame, and denigration of powerful natural emotions and what they lead to.

Sex is one of the areas I feel Mormonism really falls down and fails its membership. This news story is just one example of countless many that demonstrate it. And from the inside, using the language and norms of Mormonism it’s so hard to even see it that way because it’s set up to lead people to make evaluations on criteria that are part of the flawed system.

Edited September 22, 2016 by Honorentheos

[Calm]

35 minutes ago, Yirgacheffe said:

Don't home teachers come to your house, and if so why would you be required to put on shoes when they come over?

Because some people are hung up about proper manners I guess, even in people's own home.  Some manners I am all for (if you are a guest, you act like a guest and you don't boss around the woman cooking the meal and criticize what she is doing even if she is your daughter...you also keep your mouth shut about what your currently living at home son's new mother-in-law is doing who has come over for dinner, even in your own house. )

I have gotten the Sacrament given to me in bare feet.  The young men don't mind or are very good at acting like they don't.  They very kindly even pretended me wearing a bathrobe because I forgot they were coming was just standard practice.

Me, I would generally want people to do what they normally do if they have friends over.  First that means I would see them as they really are and might be better at picking up interests as well as areas they might need help in and second, that means they are comfortable with me and we can have friendly conversations rather than just lectures or routine chit chat.  But boy, would my grandma give me a good scolding if she heard I did something like that...probably both of them, now that I think about it.  Mom gets up three hours early to prepare for the young men bringing her the sacrament.  When I stayed with her, I had no clue they were coming before the meetings so I threw a housecoat over my pjs.  Mom knows better now that it is more important to be there than what one wears, though occasionally these days with some of her mind shutting down, it is like her mom is being reincarnated.  Different generations, different approaches.

[Calm]

34 minutes ago, Bernard Gui said:

The boy supposedly complained to a counsellor that the cheerleader uniforms being worn to class violated the school dress code...

Where was there any suggestion in the reports that he claimed they were in violation of the dress code?

[Calm]

1 hour ago, bsjkki said:

Tacenda's comment about having to wear shoes with home teachers brought back this memory.  Did any of you ever hear this one.  Back in the day, men were required to wear socks at BYU.  I don't think the girls had to but I can't remember.  I remember hearing a rumor I refuse to type about why men must wear socks?  I know this is vague but it's too unseemly to explain further.  You would know if you had heard it.  Silly stuff remembered from my youth.

And if anyone knows, was this something just whispered by students or more official?

It was one of those extreme, what a joke folklore reasons, repeated by Martha Nibley Beck in her book where she claims to have encountered every odd ball ever reported personally as opposed to the 'did you hear about...., my roomate's friend's sister knew the guy who baptized the guy who married his cousin' kind of thing.  When the book came out, a number of people, including some FM members...and Smac iirc (it was a long time ago) or it may have been a different obsessive compulsive type that went to the BYU library to check on claims of stuff removed from microfiche, fact checked her claims.  This was one of them discounted iirc.  Someone dug up the history of the dress code.  It didn't make sense anyway because guys could wear shorts exposing all that inappropriate leg hair in PE.

She also claimed a hairdresser insisted on calling her husband to get permission to cut her hair as if that woman would have risked losing the tips, let alone having all those women customers walk out on her when she demanded it.

PS:  I think I didn't wear stockings with my open toed shoes in the 70s if I wore pants, but maybe my previous and future practice of avoiding hose---except in dire circumstances as in no other clean clothes to wear---has wiped out those few years of horror.  I think you had to wear hose or tights with skirts which, meant for me skirts probably came out only on Sundays unless they were long enough to wear with boots that removed the hose necessity.  I did knee highs with my maxi and in the temple.  I vaguely remember thinking it was funny that guys would have to wear socks with their sandals...maybe someone thought it would help hide less attractive toenails or keep feet from getting too smelly.  I missed my flip flops though.

Edited September 22, 2016 by Calm

[Tacenda]

27 minutes ago, Garden Girl said:

I've never heard of anything so silly... in fact when my home teachers come into my house they automatically take off their shoes (and I'm only in stocking feet) because here in the wet/dusty Pacific Northwest it is a matter of courtesy to remove one's shoes upon entering a home so as not to track in dirt or mud, etc.  

GG

GG, I remember it being said not to be barefoot, socks I believe, was okay.

[Tacenda]

6 minutes ago, Calm said:

It was one of those extreme, what a joke folklore reasons, repeated by Martha Nibley in her book where she claims to have encountered every odd ball ever reported personally as opposed to the 'did you hear about...., my roomate's friend's sister knew the guy who baptized the guy who married his cousin' kind of thing.  When the book came out, a number of people, including some FM members...and Smac iirc (it was a long time ago) or it may have been a different obsessive compulsive type that went to the BYU library to check on claims of stuff removed from microfiche, fact checked her claims.  This was one of them discounted iirc.  Someone dug up the history of the dress code.

Pretty sure it was a local thing, such as the Stake President, but maybe it was the RS presidency also. I will try to get the nerve to ask someone.