To be surprised that M&S has a section on their website for Modest Clothing?

[Scabbersley]

here

What's that all about then? Why does it warrant its own category?

They've gone thru heaps of Buyers over the last 12 years - no one stays long - and whoever on the Board has voted for this range has faulty thinking. They have probably employed a muslim consultant to advise them as well

There is absolutely NOTHING wrong with the clothes. I'm not sure how much of a 'range' it even is. Probably a handful of stuff has been designed with very conservative women in mind, the rest is plucked from their general range to complement those items because they fit the brief of 'modest.'

I don't mind at all if they consult a Muslim about what Muslim women perceive they need. I mind when their clothes are separated into modest and therefore not modest or immodest, based on the religious requirements of a very small cross section of British society.

And I mind that men don't have to worry about modesty, but apparently women do.

God alone knows that they call this range.

The photo doesn't actually do it justice - it's far more ugly in real life. I didn't check the price tag.

modest is just the wrong note to strike... completely out of step with modern life

being modest is synonymous with being:
self effacing
obedient
demur
unexceptional

exhortations to be modest remind you to know your place, stay in the background, never put yourself first, dont take the credit

it is the antitheses of empowerment, modern women dont want to be repressed and suppressed

Said it before "modest" is just a fashion term. Usually used by Muslim women but not exclusively.

Who would talk about modest dress if they weren't religious?

Said it before "modest" is just a fashion term.

And you were wrong then, too, shhhfastasleep. Have you even read any of this thread, where poster after poster points out where "modest" is a hell of a lot more than "just a fashion term"?

Diatdlays - there's a word I just made up. It means nothing in any language on the planet.

Modest - is a very loaded word.

Great! Looks like we're going round again!

I know you can't ever hope to 'win' an argument on here, but I genuinely thought we were some way towards a lightbulb moment for the "it's just a word" contingent when it was shown, you know, how men (the Egyptian lawyer) sometimes talk about women who don't dress 'modestly' or when anna beautifully demonstrated how the speaker doesn't get to determine whether the audience finds a term offensive... But no. We're back at square one. I despair.

My next door neighbours the women wear "modest" dress (have described it as such) and they are fundy type christians.

A lot of it about.

It definitely has meaning which has been well gone into in this thread.

See also "modesty shorts" for tiny little girls at school - if they want to do handstands at school these days they need to wear knickers over knickers.

A lot of this stuff in USA as well with schools and girls and modesty and "distracting for the boys" and it's all very enraging.