I can’t explain what modesty means to my dd age 21

Your analogy implies It's almost as if they're asking for it.

Oh and the way you dress will not protect you.

I see the notion of modesty being more related to manners than misogyny nowadays. It's been used as a female insult, but is equally as applicable to men. Someone up thread referenced school skirts - as a female teacher, I don't want to see arses or sanitary towels when girls' skirts are too short. I don't want to see men with their tops off, it's quite repellent (particularly when coupled with sad looking boxers under droopy shorts, dirty white socks and sliders). IPeople can wear whatever they want but manners would mean with thought for audience or situation. Seeing as noone gives a flying fuck about anyone else anymore, modesty is gone and while the Victorians used to swoon at an ankle, we are now increasingly immune to nipples in public. I don't feel society is better for it.

Men are also very much judged for walking around without tops on in public (when not on the beach)!

Modesty is damaging. If I am too modest about my successes then they tend to be devalued by others. Nothing to do with clothing in that interpretation of modesty.

@rowenwren but women and older girls should definitely be aware that many men will definitely be staring at them (thinking things), if they are strolling around on full display. It isn't "fair" but if you left all your windows and doors wide open,it wouldn't be "fair" if your house was rifled through/burgled.
Clearly lots of women like/don't mind being letched over, but I do, so I dress accordingly in public.
It's just basic security.

I would worry that your DD is either naive about how women are sexualised in our society or she does realise how women are objectified and doesn't care and wants to join in the game.

I think one of the saddest parts about how young women dress these days is that in the main the clothes they wear are cheap quality and unflattering. They give the impression that the wearer actually doesn't care about looking good and that she herself is just interested in presenting as much bare flesh to the world as possible. And it looks as though they are desperate for attention of any kind.

All clothing choices send signals. We do have choices in the UK within parameters. There is a big difference between dressing for practicality and comfort and dressing to accentuate sexual characteristics.

Women feeling obliged to cover up OR to display themselves are both problematic.

There is a large community of travellers where I live and I find their culture very interesting. The women often appear to face expectations to fit a gender role of housewife/mother with early marriage but the current fashion amongst young traveller girls is shockingly sexualised. Young teens out in town yesterday in tiny scrunch bum shorts with crop tops. Heavy make up with nylon lashes. Not the most comfortable outfits for sweltering weather.

I struggle with the idea of modesty too. I think it boils down to defending and supporting women wearing whatever they want but at the same time acknowledging that we are basically female mammals living amongst constant potential unwanted attention from males so should be aware of the signals we’re sending.

My Mum and two of her sisters were taken into care in the 1960s and ended up in a convent home with nuns who systematically tortured and abused them. She’s now in her 70s and is still scarred by what they did to her. So, to be totally honest, I couldn’t give a fuck what those sadistic, twisted, evil bitches had to say about what you should or shouldn’t wear and how you should or shouldn’t wear it. They are in no moral position to dictate what is acceptable or appropriate, especially to young, vulnerable and impressionable girls.

Society has moved away from having "norms", which some may say is a good thing, however, as someone who crumbles in situations where boundaries are not apparent and therefore I don't know what I should be aiming for / working to / etc., I don't think it's all that great.

That's your issue and nobody else’s.

Blurting out everything you want to say is not the same as wearing clothes that you choose to, that is not impacting other people. I will wear what I choose, what I feel good in. I’ve got good legs, I will wear shorts for ME

Which part are you confused by?

Before this century, I never heard 'modest' being used to describe clothing. I would have recognised what a nun meant, for instance, if she spoke of 'modest clothing' but I'd have found it quite amusing.

Modest means moderate, not bragging or showing off. For some reason, 'modest' has now been replaced by 'humble' on social media. (Humble really means something far more self-effacing than modest.) This leaves poor old 'modest' with nothing to do but act as a fashion diktat.

So ... moderate, unostentatious clothing. Those parameters vary by situation, because clothing is primarily a social instrument. All you really need is a blanket, or nothing if it's hot. We wear clothes to meet our culture's standards of decency: some cultures say no flesh may be exposed, some say cover the genitals, some say full nudity's okay. Beyond that, we wear clothes to advertise where we belong, our social or professional rank, our beliefs or clan/tribe, our personalities and so on.

'Moderate' dress for a gala ball looks completely different from the 'moderate' outfit you might wear to an office interview. Some social occasions actually require ostentatious dress, so a modest outfit would single you out as (immodestly) making a point. But, should someone admire your ultra-flashy attire, your reply would be modest if you have good manners.

I'm no scholar of medieval Arabic, but I strongly doubt that the word translated as 'modest' actually means modest. It probably means something like 'meeting the rules of decency as understood in 7th century Saudi Arabian society'.

As a concept to be applied across time and through many cultures, a modest outfit should be a middle-of-the-road effort to blend in with the prevailing norms: not trying to show off or make a point. If being worn by a young woman at a party in a night club, it would likely be tight or revealing. If you want 'modest' to mean something closer to medieval Saudi Arabia, you really should choose a different word.

What is it that you're trying to tell your daughter, @coffeegirl73? To wear more boring clothes? To look like she's not proud of herself? To cover 20% more of her flesh than other women her age? If you manage to put your finger on it, you'll be a lot closer to understanding why you feel it's better to dress that way.

You seem to have a hard time differentiating between people ‘understanding’ an issue, and just disagreeing with you.
what you wear doesn’t make you more or less a target from men. And even if it did it’s still their mistake not hers.

modesty is morally neutral, it’s not good or bad, it just exists. If you want to be modest, fine, beyond that it’s not your business.

Modesty isn't just for women, it is also for men.

@AllTheChaos Beyond this there is also an expectation that women will keep a certain minimum of the rest of their body covered, usually the torso from roughly armpits down, buttocks, and upper legs - so say mid thigh upwards. There is also an expectation that men will keep these areas covered, but not so much of a taboo if they don’t, and in hot weather or on the beach this taboo is lifted for men.

What on earth are you talking about? The last time I checked, it's fine for women to wear bikinis that show their arses. It is not socially acceptable for a man to show his arse in public (and rightfully so- no one wants to see a horrible hairy arse).

@coffeegirl73 she just keeps saying but why shouldn’t women bare whatever they want

Putting aside the issue of clothing, I'm concerned that DD can't see that this reasoning is nonsensical. Obviously, being able to bare whatever you want is not an absolute right, and there are restrictions and what people can and can't show.

I am more worried about your DD's logic and reasoning skills rather than anything she wears.

Most religions that require modesty for woman also require it for men. Muslim men, for example, also have modesty rules they have to follow.

But I think a lot of the supposed confusion on this comes down to the fact that people don't seem to want to acknowledge that women's fashion in particular is often designed to present them as sexual objects ni a way we don't typically see with men's clothing.

It's weird, because almost anyone you talk to understand easily that the fashion industry does this, that advertising and the music industry spend a huge amount of time and effort using women's bodies as sexual objects to make money.

But for some reason when it comes down to asking about modesty, or why some types of clothing on children might be seen as inappropriate, they can't remember the thing they knew 5 minutes ago.

This, with bells on. Society has moved away from having "norms", which some may say is a good thing, however, as someone who crumbles in situations where boundaries are not apparent and therefore I don't know what I should be aiming for / working to / etc., I don't think it's all that great.

To me, the argument of "why shouldn't I bare as much as I like?" is no different from someone blurting out every last thing they see, just because they are physically able to vocalise it...no, we make dynamic choices and judgements, and react & behave accordingly. Someone I know made the choice not to wear her wig yesterday, given that she's almost 90 and the heat was unbearable. Yes, I was shocked when I saw her totally bald (even though I had suspected it was a wig), but I chose not to mention it even though I could.

what is modesty for men?

I would vote for not using a farting car exhaust as it makes you look uneducated, poor and aggressive. OIK.

The idea isn't that clothing will protect her.

It's that putting children into styles of clothing that were designed to highlight the sexual attractivness of adult women is problematic. The clothing doesn't lose those associations just because the person wearing them is a child.

That has a number of issues, one being what the child does or does not understand about this herself. But also - some men are particularly attracted to just that kind of contrast. They may also see it as a signal the parents may not be watching out for signs of the daughter being exposed to adult material.

I think for me it’s two fold; bearing all and being seen.

Whilst occasionally you may wear something more revealing I come back to the adage that you tell your children that not everyone wants to hear them when they are being loud, well not everyone wants to see them when they are less than modest.

Modesty isn’t about the outfit but about the setting, a bikini at the pool be body confident, a skimpy outfit in church perhaps not.

Body confidence and outfit choice are more about appropriateness of time than misogyny for me.

Did your dd go to a school with uniform? Schools spend lots of energy on skirt lengths - does your dd think that they have an obligation to protect girls’ modesty by having rules about length?

What about different occasions? Would your dd wear something more conservative or a funeral or if a conservative relative was getting married so she looked more “respectful” and not draw attention to herself by showing cleavage? If she worked with young children, would she be mindful of her neckline because she’d be spending lots of time bending down? In theory women can wear whatever but would she be ok with her barrister in court or voting for a “sexy” PM?

I think this is it. In London no one bats an eyelid to what anyone else is wearing. I saw a man in Knightsbridge with leather studded pants and other fetish wear walking his dog. It was an unattractive sight but each to their own.

I also dislike cleavage, male or female. I really don’t want to see the gap between two breasts / pecs. It makes me queasy.

I was never taught about ‘modesty’ tbh. I was fine wearing whatever I wanted and my parents never said anything negative about it.
But they are very forward thinking, liberal people.

Nowadays more people are non-religious and more chilled out, less interested in old fashioned ideas.
‘Modesty’ seems pretty misogynistic to me. Regardless of religion.

Oh god that What she was wearing exhibition was an eye opener 🥺, but then men walking around Aldi with their shirts off on a hot day told me everything I need to know - that I want to come back as a cat in the next life.