Going Back:
A Review of: A Return to Modesty: Discovering the Lost Virtue. By: Wendy Shalit. Free Press. 291 pp.

I found Wendy Shalit’s book, A Return to Modesty, in my mailbox a few weeks after a conversation with my mother in which I excitedly informed her of my decision to add a Women’s Studies minor onto my English degree. Along with Shalit’s book came Danielle Crittenden’s What Our Mother’s Didn’t Tell Us: Why Happiness Eludes the Modern Woman and a year or so earlier I received The Rules by Ellen Fein and Sherrie Schneider. My mother and I are rooted in a conservative background. Knowing that her book purchases reflect her world-view, I was skeptical to read A Return to Modesty described as “a book for us all—feminists, antifeminist, conservatives, and liberals” and as exhibiting “the first argument by a third-waver to blaze down the center of the postfeminist battleground between left and right.” What’s more, why did I—after reading A Return to Modesty—feel like Shalit wanted me to again embrace aspects of an upbringing I had come to re-examine and understand as harmful?

Drawing upon her experience at Williams College ($30,000+/year) and study of magazines such as Elle, Cosmopolitan, and Glamour, Shalit discusses our culture’s perceptions of sexual modesty. She believes that in many aspects of life, from our elementary school sex education classes to magazine editorials, women are instructed to go against an innate protection device—modesty. Modesty is a response that arises naturally in women “to protect [their] hopes and guide their fulfillment—specifically [the] hope for one man.” When this reflex is suppressed, “sexual harassment, stalking, rape…‘whirlpooling’ (when a group of guys surround a girl who is swimming, and then sexually assault her)” and eating disorders increase. Shalit insinuates that women are angelic while men are barbaric. Yet there is hope. By learning to respect our modesty, men become civilized. And women, when we allow our true natures to surface, exude a heavenly glow that resembles Wendy’s grandmother (see page 141). Otherwise, we are unappy and the high percentage of eating disorders proves it. The sexual revolution has only hurt women. We would rather go back to a time when our gender roles were clear. This nostalgia explains why we “flock to Jane Austen movies.”

Though I appreciate Shalit’s concern with sexually related crimes and do not deny the increase, her premise is questionable because she primarily relies on experiences of women whose parents dole out (in most cases) $30,000+ a year for college. Shalit creates a theory based on women who make up a small percentage of society. Also, drawing upon Vogue and similar magazines, Shalit treats these publications as the representative voice for all women instead an ideal woman (whose ideal?). According to Shalit, these magazines present the condition of the 1990s woman and demonstrate just how low we have sunk with our quick “hook ups” and brief “check ups” (a periodic phone call from a previous boyfriend). Shalit does not consider how magazines such as Vogue work to sell the editorials, glossy pictures, and hot topics located therein with flashy covers and catchy titles.

I am also concerned with Shalit’s nostalgic connections with the past. She cites Tocqueville that in Colonial America “a young woman [could] set out on a long journey alone and without fear” because her modesty would protect her. Shalit offers no examples of women travelers during this period; yet, she informs us that women “could have” wandered about freely. Nor does Shalit acknowledge that most women’s home responsibilities prevented travelling for pleasure. Further, supposing there was women who traveled alone, Shalit does not consider which class of women benefited.

On another occasion, Shalit quotes a mother who is concerned with boys at school “taunting” her daughter. This mother, who grew up in the 1950s, says, “this kind of thing never happened to us. Sure, the boys would flirt and tease us, but they were shy and nervous about it. They never ganged up on the girls like this. I’d never heard of a bunch of guys assaulting a girl verbally and physically” (emphasis Shalit’s). So, because this woman did not hear about such occurrences, Shalit concludes they just did not happen. Along with A Return to Modesty, I happen to be reading Memoirs of an Ex-Prom Queen by Alix Kates Shulman, which is an autobiographical consciousness-raising novel of the early 1970s. Shulman recounts a similar instance from the same era where Sasha, the protagonist, is driven down a deserted dirt road by a group of guys from her school and forced to touch Jimmy’s “thing.” Sasha doesn’t reveal the assault because she is frightened that her reputation (not the boy’s) will be ruined. This offers a possible explaination why the woman quoted above did not hear of such circumstances.

The most dangerous conclusion drawn from Shalit’s argument is that if women practiced modesty, that is, if women dressed and acted in a shy, reserved manner then sexual crimes would not occur. It is the victim (woman) that is being blamed here. If she would not dress so provocatively, speak so flirtatiously, or look at a man steadily, then, well, she would not be in such a situation. A woman’s dress, speech, or mannerisms never deserve to be responded to by harassment, raping, stalking, etc… Instead of blaming a victim, why not educate men and women on these very issues? But wait, we already have such a system in place—our sex education classes. And it is precisely these classes Shalit wants to throw out the window. Shalit would like to send us back to the silence of the 1950s.

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