I know I’m a little late to the “Ticked Off By Elder Callister’s Ensign Article” party, but I only just got my copy of the Ensign and it’s March 2nd, so indulge me and forgive my tardiness please.
I was walking in the area by my office a couple of days ago. It was a bitterly cold day, and I was thinking that knee-length cotton garments almost seem to be G-d’s way of apologizing for winter. A man saw me walking said, “Hey Baby, how you doing?” I smiled politely and continued walking. He came closer to me and asked where I was going. I said I was heading to work, and kept walking. I kept my head up, my shoulders back, my voice firm, and my sentences short. He walked next to me, uncomfortably close, and said, “why don’t you come home with me?” I looked straight ahead and said “no, thank you” to which he stood in front of me, blocking my path, and proceeded to say some pretty offensive things that I’d rather not type out. I looked him in the eye and said, “Please leave me alone.” He then laughed and said “Oh, Baby, I’m just playing with you.” I walked around him and headed back to work.
I mostly forgot about this incident; it happens all the time. It came back to mind when reading an article (or more accurately, the reprint of a talk given at BYU-I) in the March Ensign by Elder Tad R. Callister, entitled “The Lord’s Standard of Morality”. One line in particular made me think of this incident of street harassment: “Women particularly can leave a lot to the imagination and in the process contribute to their own self-respect and to the moral purity of men. In the end, most women get the type of man they dress for.”
This infuriated me. Was my giant winter coat too alluring? Did my worn out snow boots offer a come-hither? Was the scarf around my neck drawing too much attention to the chest that lay hidden beneath five layers of clothing? Please enlighten me, Elder Callister, as to how my dress invited the attentions of this man.
I dress modestly. I do so as a personal choice, one that I have made for myself. I get harassed almost daily. It is a reality of my life and has been since my early days of puberty. To imply that I have earned such attention through the way that I dress is not only untrue, it is unfair, and cruel. And lest one suggest that I am speaking only of creeps on the street, I would like to point out that I have been harassed in LDS churches, by priesthood holding men. Is this my fault as well, for having failed to protect them by being brazen enough to show my calves?
The notion that dressing modestly saves men from falling victim to lustful and scandalous thoughts, as Elder Callister suggests, is a fallacy that demeans both men and women; it suggests that women are to blame for a man’s stumbles, rather than holding both men and women accountable for their own thoughts and actions, and it both ignores and exacerbates the frustrations women face.
I nearly forgot about the aforementioned incident of street harassment, because it happens so often. Having my personal space invaded, my pathway blocked, being intimated and having disgusting and offensive things said to me is a reality I have come to just accept as a part of my life. I automatically know to adopt a confident stance, to look the guy straight in the eyes, to speak just loudly enough to alert others nearby to the situation, but not so loudly so as to upset him, and be ready to go for soft tissue if it comes to that. I know these things because I have been taught many times how to protect myself because I have to. It is pathetic, but this is the world I live in. This is my reality, and it is not altered by the fact that I dress modestly. Statements such as the one by Elder Callister suggest that I have brought this on myself by failing to leave enough “to the imagination” and thus have not supported “the moral purity of men”. Suggesting that this is my responsibility lets the perpetrators off the hook for something that should never be acceptable, and condemns me for something I (nor any woman) have done nothing to deserve.
This is not fair, and we should not accept it. The church claims to respect and revere women, but statements such as Elder Callister’s undermine this in painful ways. Such statements blame and shame women, and fail to respect or even acknowledge the reality of the world. The result is an inflated sense of importance placed on men, guilt directed towards women, and a disregard for the real issue.
The real issue, and what our conversations should be focused on, is respecting the worth of every individual. Men should not ogle women to avoid “impure thoughts;” they should not ogle women because women should be treated with dignity, and not have to worry about receiving unwanted attention when they walk down the street. People should dress as they wish, and in a way that makes them feel confident and that they would not be embarrassed to be seen in if Jesus walked beside them[1]. Women should not be expected to dress in a way that protects them from harassment; harassment should not happen. We need to respect each other as people, rather than as saboteurs to blame for our own stumbles.
Elder Callister begins his talk by saying that the Lord’s word trumps anything “psychologists, counselors, politicians, friends, parents or would-be moralists of the day” have to say. Though I take umbrage at this, I will revert to the Lord’s word, as I think it does weigh heaviest here. In Matthew 22:39 Jesus explains that the commandment second only to love G-d with all one’s heart, soul, and strength, is to love one’s neighbor as oneself. To do so, we must respect each other’s value and dignity, and treat them as our equals. Scapegoating, blaming, and demeaning others fails to do so, and is certainly not what Jesus would do.
[1] This is the standard I like to use
K Comes Through 
thank you!
This is so perfect! Thank you for giving a voice to this issue.
Very well written and a great example of why that argument does not work.
In addition, I feel that Christ succinctly addresses this matter in Matthew 5:28. We must work to become bastions of upright living on our own accord, and accept responsibility for our choices and actions. I think scapegoating others undermines our divine potential.
Thank you for this post! We really need to all band together and change modesty rhetoric in the church, and this is a great step. Amen!
Beautifully said and written. I appreciate you expressing what millions of women experience and need to say.
I think this a really well written post and a good explanation of many of the things some have found troubling about the talk. As a convert, I have felt that women are treated with much more respect in the Church than outside of the Church. I also think men are often held accountable for their thoughts, words and actions and men in the Church tend to be far more responsible than outside (See the recent Priesthood Session talk by Elder Christoferson urging us to be real men). Overall, I think the notions of masculinity in the Church really help.
I am sorry for your experiences of being harassed. It is inexcusable for a guy to ever do such a thing. Period.
Thank you. Do me a favour, and don’t read any articles that are defending this one, or even some of the articles that were written in response to Elder Callister’s. The response ones are a lot less polite than yours, and the defense ones get really bad. You don’t want to put yourself through that. There is one I can recommend. http://www.beautyredefined.net/modest-is-hottest-the-revealing-truth/
K – Thank you for sharing your perspective on this, which is obviously informed by the inexcusable way you have been treated at times by men. While I regret your being subject to harassment, I disagree with many of the conclusions you have drawn from it. I hope you’ll allow me to share a contrary view:
Nowhere in Elder Callister’s talk – or in any other church-approved materials – is there an explicit or implicit acceptance of harassing behavior by men, or any hint that women are to blame for such behavior. I’m sure individual men – both in and out of the church – have voiced such ignorant and hurtful views, but it is simply false to equate the church’s teachings on modesty with “harassment is the woman’s fault.” And while Elder Callister does suggest that women who dress modestly thereby help their brethren avoid temptations, he never suggests that harassment is caused by immodesty, or that dressing modestly will protect a woman from harassment. There may be others out there who teach these things, but Elder Callister and the church do not. You are simply distorting Elder Callister’s talk into something you can easily criticize.
You claim that Elder Callister teaches that the way women dress can “save men from falling victim to lustful and scandalous thoughts.” You claim this is a fallacy that “suggests women are to blame for a man’s stumbles.” There are several ways in which you are distorting Elder Callister’s talk unfairly:
First, I can’t imagine that you meant to suggest that the type of behavior you described – outright sexual harassment – is no more than a “stumble” on the man’s part. I’m sure you can see the difference between, on the one hand, a man who struggles with the purity of his thoughts, and on the other, a man who physically intimidates and sexually harasses a women walking down the street. So the first problem with the argument you make in your post is that you portray Elder Callister as discussing harassment or other act by which a man outwardly sins against a woman, when in fact his talk is addressing the entertainment of inappropriate thoughts, by which a man sins inwardly against himself.
Second, you claim that Elder Callister is giving men a pass and blaming their mistakes on women, when in fact he explicitly taught the opposite—that men are responsible for their own sins, including the sin of lust. Here are some direct quotes from Elder Callister’s talk:
“The Lord has promised, “There hath no temptation taken you but such as is common to man; but God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able; but will with the temptation also make a way to escape, that ye may be able to bear it.” In other words, no one can claim as an excuse at the judgment bar that he was tempted above his ability to resist. Everyone has sufficient moral agency to overcome any weaknesses…”
“One cannot avoid seeing every improper billboard or every immodestly dressed person, but we can drive out the improper thought once it arises. The sin is not in involuntarily seeing something improper; the sin is in entertaining the thought once it comes.”
“In essence, our thoughts become the seeds of our actions. We do have the power within us to take control of our lives and our thoughts. Good and evil thoughts cannot simultaneously coexist in our minds anymore than light and dark can coexist at the same time and in the same place. At some point one must decide which will be his invited guest. If we so desire, we can drive out every evil thought and immediately replace it with an uplifting song or poem or scripture. Just as darkness flees at the presence of light, so evil flees at the presence of good.”
There is simply no basis for your claim that Elder Callister is portraying men as the victims of the sins women force upon them. So what does he say that leads you (and so many others) to react as you have? Here is the entire passage:
“Our dress affects not only our thoughts and actions but also the thoughts and actions of others. Accordingly, Paul the Apostle counseled “women [to] adorn themselves in modest apparel” (1 Timothy 2:9).
“The dress of a woman has a powerful impact upon the minds and passions of men. If it is too low or too high or too tight, it may prompt improper thoughts, even in the mind of a young man who is striving to be pure.
“Men and women can look sharp and be fashionable, yet they can also be modest. Women particularly can dress modestly and in the process contribute to their own self-respect and to the moral purity of men. In the end, most women get the type of man they dress for.”
I can see how on a first read you might get the impression that Elder Callister is implicating women in men’s sin of lust. But this is not what he is saying, and you owe it to yourself, to the church, and to your readers to criticize (if at all) FAIRLY, instead of distorting. What Elder Callister says is that a woman’s choice to dress immodestly can trigger – INVOLUNTARILY – inappropriate thoughts in a man’s mind. But as Elder Callister took great pains to make clear, a man does not commit a sin by experiencing these impulses. A man only begins to lust, and thus to sin, when he VOLUNTARILY entertains and focuses on those inappropriate thoughts, rather than dismissing them or replacing them with worthy thoughts. The choice of what to think is the man’s alone, and he alone is guilty if he chooses to lust.
But here’s the point that K and so many of her readers refuse to see—whether or not the man chooses to lust, the woman who dressed immodestly committed a sin by doing so. And her choice was a sin even if every man who encounters her throughout the day exercises self-control and avoids the sin of lust.
This is really just your “Letter to Men Who Respect Women” post all over again, only this time you are directly criticizing (and frankly lying about) official church teachings delivered through a general authority. I’m glad you are a member of the church. I’m glad that through your blog you and your followers can strengthen each other in the gospel. But I plead with you to reconsider your decision to use your blog to unfairly accuse church leadership and twist church doctrine.
I agree with Tyler. The statement “In the end, most women get the type of man they dress for” was not referring to random occurrences and things beyond your control; it was referring to more than just the clothing, but the attitude behind it, the company it invites (on average, not outliers like street harassment), and how she presents herself in it. Perhaps his article could have used some clarification or an stating-the-obvious caveat about how no matter how you dress or what you do, people can still make their own choices and your actions had nothing to do with them (like the guy you mention who was intentionally being a jerk), but I think he assumed we are educated enough to realize this already. We also shouldn’t try to read more into what people say and write than what is actually there. K, don’t confuse your watchguarding (which is good, unless you overdo it and find things that aren’t there) interpretation with his motivation; we cannot presume to know his motivation and it is wrong to assume we do.
Granted, he could have elaborated more about modesty, its purposes, and clarified that it’s not a woman’s fault if a man *entertains* lustful thoughts. He was simply pointing out the basic biological response of a man to a woman in immodest dress. After the initial response, men must choose to have pure thoughts. However, women can *help* (he said “contribute to,” not “control,” the moral purity of men) by dressing modestly. If he elaborated on every point in his article, it would be much longer. We are supposed to study these articles (which you did, even though it was mostly critical and I wish you admitted there was room for error on your part too) and add our own insights to them (with help from scripture, prayer, other articles, other good sources, etc). Plus we’re all human, so we can’t expect everything to be perfectly worded.
Well said, Angela. I interpret Elder Callister’s remark about women getting the man they dress for (which I’m sure he would say applies equally to men re women) in the same way I do the old adage “Dress for the job you want, not the job you have.” Both sayings are obviously simplifications, but they attempt to communicate a true principle in a memorable way. Elder Callister’s point is simply that if we want to attract people of virtue, we should dress in a way that communicates virtue. That does not mean a woman who dresses immodestly deserves to be mistreated, nor that dressing modestly is guaranteed to prevent the type of harassment to which K (and I’m sure many other women) unfortunately have been subjected.
Thanks Tyler. I like the comparison to the “dress for the job you want” thing. Well put.
I consider myself a feminist; I read feminist literature, study feminist ideals, and defend feminist thought.
That being said, I agree with Tyler here.
I actually think that saying the way a person dresses has no influence at all to the thoughts of those around him/her is quite naive.
Tyler, thank you! This is exactly how I feel about this post!
I was going to make a comment but it should suffice to say I agree with Tyler.
I think we should define “modest” dress and make sure everyone is talking about the same thing. Modest to me might be immodest to you. Frankly I agree with K-rather than seeing an object of lust in an immodestly dressed woman, a man (like my husband) is not tempted but rather repulsed by the obvious display. A man should deal with his own thoughts and not expect women to dress so as not to tempt him. Temptation is everywhere-learn to deal with it and don’t expect women to hold your hand.
This is not about men expecting women to dress a certain way. This is about The Lord expecting men (and women) to take responsibility for their own thoughts. This is about The Lord expecting women (and men) to dress in a way that shows consideration for those around them.
i plead with you to stop mansplaining. trolls are gross.
Tyler, you could have stopped at his first point, but I’m glad you continued.
I’ll be all sorts of fine with the modesty rhetoric once it’s the same for both men and women. Until then, I’m against it. I mean, seriously, when have men ever been warned that dressing in something tight (skinny jeans, perhaps?) could make women lust after them, which, of course, would be the man’s fault?
Also, men should stop commenting on how the use of this rhetoric should make women in the church feel. It’s akin to me telling a person of color how they should feel about the implicit racism that runs rampant in the US, which would be ridiculous, since I can’t possibly fully understand what that person’s experience with it has been. Just stop.
I think the imbalance in modesty rhetoric is the result of a fundamental misunderstanding about what modesty is. Modesty is not primarily about covering up our bodies–it is about humility. When the scriptures speak of modesty it is usually by way of chastizing those who make a show of their riches, their power, or even their “chances for learning.” The opposite of modesty is attention-seeking, which is another aspect of pride. It just so happens though that, in the context of attracting a potential mate, women and men have typically employed different means to seek attention from the opposite sex. Men are stereotypically attracted to physical beauty (and, frankly, sexual willingness), so immodest women seek to attract them by displaying their bodies. Women are stereotypically attracted to wealth and security, so immodest men seek to attract them by wearing expensive watches and driving expensive cars. That’s why, when modesty is equated with covering up, it inevitably becomes focused disproportionately on women. If we would teach modesty primarily as humility we would have more success achieving a gender-balanced approach.
This will sound strange, but I’ve been thinking about your definition of modesty a lot in relation to breastfeeding. Everyone in the mothers lounge at church uses those awful nursing covers, while I free boob it. I refuse to make my baby eat under a blanket, especially in the room set aside for nursing! And you know what? I would feel totally comfortable breastfeeding with Jesus with me. It makes me kind of sad that no one else at church seems to. But that’s their choice, and this is mine. 🙂
I agree completely with your definition of modesty as humility, but there is a problem when the church publishes materials defining modesty as standards for dressing. In the For the Strength of the Youth pamphlet, the only mention of modesty comes under the section entitled Dress and Appearance. The section gives an introduction to principles of appearance, then goes on to state that “Immodest clothing is any clothing that is tight, sheer, or revealing in any other manner. Young women should avoid short shorts and short skirts, shirts that do not cover the stomach, and clothing that does not cover the shoulders or is low-cut in the front or the back. Young men should also maintain modesty in their appearance.” Is the difference between the standards for young men and young women clear now? The Church propagates unnecessary focus on the specifics of women’ s clothing while giving no absolutes for the men.
Flora – I take it your intent was to respond to my post, above, rather than Cathie’s.
I don’t share your critical stance toward the For the Strength of Youth section on Dress Standards. I like that the general reasons for dressing modestly are given (in order) as (1) showing respect for one’s own body, (2) showing God that we love obey Him, and (3) being a good influence on others. Although I wish the standards more explicitly defined modesty as humility, I do like that the standard equates immodesty with “using your body to get attention and approval.” The standards are also clearly not as “sex-focused” as many critics claim. While they do address “revealing” clothing, they also encourage youth to be neat and clean, while avoiding extreme or overly-casual dress as well as tattoos or excessive piercings. If I had to sum up the dress standards in one word it would be “dignity.”
There are very few aspects in which the standards treat boys and girls differently. In some the boys are given more explicit instructions or have a more strict standard (e.g., earrings). By contrast, in the sentence or two on avoiding “revealing” clothing, girls are given several specific rules while boys are left with the general principle of modesty. I think this is understandable, given that men and boys are generally affected more by the sight of the female body than women and girls are by the sight of the male body. This may not be true for every man and woman, but there’s no use denying the truth of the general rule. And partly for that reason, society is much more aggressive in pushing revealing styles on women and girls. Thus it makes sense that the church would see a greater need in providing specific guidance to young women in avoiding revealing clothing.
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