Exposing Our Daughters

Modesty, it means a lot of things to a lot of people, and you can get get 11 opinions of its definition if you ask 10 people. Sometimes the best way to think about it is by determing what isn't modest and go from there. As a husband and father though, I think it is important for me to make sure that I understand what modesty is and why it is important. Some might think this is a "woman's area" but as a man, I have to have a voice otherwise the women in my life are left without an understanding of how modesty does and doesn't affect men. We are either foolish or liars if we think that the way a woman dresses only affects her as a person. That is why two recent blog posts on this subject, although on its "edges," peaked my interest in how they dealt with the subject.

Roccy Grimaldi's Stand on Modesty

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The first post that caught my attention was at the Puck Daddy Blog, which is a Yahoo! Sports blog about hockey. The writer, Greg Wyshynski wrote a pretty harsh indictment of Rocco Grimaldi, a 2nd Round Pick of the Florida Panthers and a Freshman playing for the North Dakota Fighting Sioux. Grimaldi seems to be hockey's version of Tim Tebow. He is a great player, charismatic, and unabashedly Christian. Here is a taste of the Puck Daddy post:

I respect that, in the end, Grimaldi views faith as a way to affect positive change in someone's life and in society, which is a view I imagine places him in the majority in the United States.

What I don't respect, however, are Twitter rants that espouse Puritanical nonsense about how women need to cover themselves lest their feminine curves tempt men.

Rocco wants to know, ladies: Are you honoring God with those jeans that make your butt look great?

Before we go on, we can see a couple flaws in his thinking. He calls this "Puritanical nonsense." He decides as a blogger, that this subject is important enough, a week before the season starts, to write about. Remember, this a player who isn't even playing in the League yet. So, let's look at what nonsense he is talking about. From Grimaldi's Twitter feed (http://twitter.com/RGrimaldi23):

Ladies, you can help us guys out big time. Put your boobs away and everything else that is hanging out. Guys have a hard enough time with...

that temptation without u helping it along. When did being a beautiful girl become dressing with the least amount of clothes on? When did...

what u wear become a competition? Before you dress ask, “Does this outfit honor God, does it honor my body, does it help serve/love my...

brothers? If it’s a no to any of those questions, then u shouldn’t wear that outfit #ThinkBeforeYouDress

This seems pretty straight forward to me. I wonder if Puck Daddy has any daughters and if he wants them wearing jeans that "make their butt look good." As someone that has worked with teens and young adults, the carnage that exists in the minds and souls of young females comes from the fact that they live in a world where guys want and expect that they dress to "make their butt" look good. Here is PD's follow up:

There's a thin line between "ladies are too scantily clad these days" and "God wants you in a potato sack because your brothers can't help themselves," and Rocco ran through it. I mean, to each his own, but in my eyes this entire request veers uncomfortably close to the asinine "she was asking for it/look how she was dressed" denouncement women have had to battle for decades.

Wait? Did PD just pull out the "I am protecting women" card? I can't even unravel the convoluted thinking here. He finishes his social critique with the following:

But his comments about women are the kind of sexist, archaic thoughts that cloud the positive impact of faith. As a (lapsed) Roman Catholic myself, it's a constant struggle: You believe there are aspects of religion that are undoubtedly beneficial, but they're constantly overshadowed by clunky views on sex and gender that repel people and open up the entire community to ridicule.

So in the end, the reason PD doesn't like these views on sexuality is because they "repel" people and are a source for "ridicule"? How is this sexist? Isn't Grimaldi essentially saying: "Women, respect yourself and don't treat your body as an object? And don't tempt men to do the same?" Isn't that in and of itself sexist and archaic? Isn't saying, 'you should wear jeans that make your butt look good' a little... objectifying? It just makes my head hurt.

Look, Wyshynski is a hockey commentator, he isn't used to writing this stuff. He attempts to say that Grimaldi is objectifying women by saying that men should objectify them. There are too many falacies in his piece to disect it all. Needless to say, I think you can see the flaws, and you can also see that Grimaldi is the kind of player we need in pro sports and utilizing Twitter in a beneficial way. All that being said, Wyshynski should probably stick with hockey blogging, but from what I have read in the past he might want to start looking for something else entirely. Grimaldi, he is a stand-up young man and I would be proud to have sons that think like him (and play like him.) I would also be completely tickled to have my daughter describe a man like him as having caught her eye. We need more men like him.

Cheerleading... as a legitimate activity for our daughters?

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The next post about modesty that caught my eye is actually on Faith and Family Live. It was written by Lisa Hendey of CatholicMom.com. She asks the question, "Is Cheerleading a Sport?" What is even more interesting are the questions not asked. Here is an excerpt of her post:

I would imagine that some of my same thoughts from last week hold true—the idea that a little girl should be exploring lots of different activities and also having time for just simple fun. But my sons grew up playing youth football and their teams were often accompanied by pint sized cheerleaders who seemed to be having a blast on the sidelines. I’ve also had the experience of staying at a major hotel in Orlando on consecutive Spring breaks when a cheer competition was in town and witnessed first hand the zeal the girls had for their sport.
I don’t know enough about private cheerleading teams to know the costs associated, but I’m sure there are often expenses related to cheering as there would be in travel soccer or tackle football. If we permit our second graders to dress out, hit full force, and travel to games, should there little sisters be encouraged to cheer competitively along the sideline or the court?

I’d love to hear from any of our moms who are former cheerleaders, to learn what you loved about your sport and what you learned on cheer team. I’d also love the input of moms of cheerleaders—has your daughter benefited from her sport and how have you countered any of the safety risks that seem to be prevalent as stunts and moves become more daring?

What about the questions that instantly pop in my mind: What about your thoughts on the uniform of Cheerleaders? And what about your thoughts on the nature and message of why cheerleaders exist? As a father these were the first things that popped in my head and when I read the post I was pretty shocked that they weren't there. (Similarly there was another post on the topic of Beauty Pageants that didn't ask the question either).

Now, I dont want to blame Hendey for not asking the questions I guess. F&FL try and pose pretty open ended questions thereby letting their readers take the discussion where it will. That being said, for a Catholic site, I don't think the modesty question is out of bounds. We aren't just talking cheerleading in general, we are specifically talking about younger girls.

I personally think the idea of cheerleading is generally pretty scandalous and often borders on immodest activity for our girls. Yes I will consider it a sport, but that being said, I don't think it is one we should have our young girls participate in. Even if there isn't an intrinsically bad nature to the sport, uniforms, or routines, there is too much room for "problems" to crop up. There are plenty of other sports for girls to participate in if we want our girls "active." I am quite familiar with the "culture" of it all, and just don't see how it adds anything positive to our girls lives, that they can't get somewhere else without short skirts and gyrating moves. For instance, I didn't post a picture of young cheerleaders on here because after Google searching it, I felt really uncomfortable looking at the pics trying to find one that was appropriate, they all just seemed very exploitive to me. Again, this is in light of the fact that the beneficial parts of the sport dont outweigh these negatives.
[*UPDATE*]:
After a littler further reflection, and some wise advice, I want to clarify something about cheer. I think there can be an appropriate way to have a cheer team, as it relates to attire, routines, and presentation. I am sure there are Catholic and Christian schools that have found a way to make the cultural and social benefits of it possible, while keeping out the exploitive and immodest features. I grew up playing hockey, so to mean I found cheerleading kind of ironic, that you need a bunch of cute girls to encourage you to cheer for a brutal game like football, maybe this is a perspective thing.


I didn't want this so much to be an indictment of cheerleading as to think about how we "expose" our daughters in the culture. We need to teach modesty as the norm, and not the exception. Everything we do with our children needs to be intentional, it cannot rely on the culture for a default, there are just too many knives to cut. 

Modesty... as something to desire

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As a man, I take it as my duty to let the women in my family know how important modesty is for me as a man. I also take my role as a parent seriously. We need to teach our daughters to be desirable, but not sexy. I don't think either of these posts address that point and that scares me. We can't let things like dress simply exist because it is "normal" in our culture. Yes, cheerleading is a part of sports, but it doesn't have to be.  [This might be somewhat cultural so the question should be asked: If modesty is adhered to, can Cheerleading be a positive part of football?]One could argue that strippers are a part of bachelor parties, but we sure don't want our boys participating in that manner do we?

Therefore, we shouldn't be exposing our daughters in a way where we say it is OK to exploit their looks. It isn't just about the uniforms. In fact, I might even say that with proper modifications, I would be fine with the uniforms, instead what bothers me is what cheerleading portrays. It places our girls front and center and their "looks and movements" become center stage. We can't fool ourselves and say that it is simply an artistic expression, because then we are taking away their personhood from the equation. We have to teach our daughters to dress modestly, to act modestly, and to seek modest activities. Modesty is not the same as removing femininity from a woman; it is a way of acting and dressing that makes women desirable in a way that compliments both form and content. Our women deserve better than arguments for scantily clad clothing, "butt jeans", and cheerleading. We need to teach our daughters the virtue of modesty, and luckily there are women leading this charge. Our daughters deserve this, they are virtuous creatures of beauty, desirability, and love - not sex and lust.

Don't get me wrong, I think it is an important part of our humanity that we are attracted to one another in a physical way. I think that the sexuality and feminine form are works of beauty. Both man and woman were created in God's image, and I think that women got their form from God's "beauty". Yet, exploiting women distorts that form, and turns it from beauty into something else. Like all sin, it isn't pure evil, but a distortion of the good. Satan tempts us not with his designs, but by the abuse and deception of God's. Satan creates nothing, and therefore when I talk of modesty, I am not speaking against preventing against evil things, but against things that have good somewhere locked deep down inside, and are calling to us and enticing us with that hidden goodness. In the end modesty is about walking a difficult road because sex, lust, and immodesty are so easy, which is why we call girls that practice such things by the same vulgar name. We want our daughters called to a married vocation to have men like Grimaldi falling in love with them and not Wyshynski. We want their entire selves being desired, and not their bodies because their "butt looks good" in jeans.

Let us uphold things like beauty. Let us teach modesty to our daughters. Cheerleading and "tight clothing" are not natural inclincations. Yes, they are a part of our culture, but as Catholics we are supposed to be counter-cultural. There is beauty in modesty that preserves a woman as something to be desired not for what she gives, but for what she retains. We should want our daughters to be cherished for their femininity, and that can only happen, when they are viewed as a lady. Modesty allows for beauty to shine through in a way that magnifies not only he physical beauty, but her spiritual beauty as well.

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