On the virtue of modesty

Modesty is too often a topic fraught with unnecessary anger and defensiveness. I was listening to a fascinating series on modesty by Fr. Rippeger, posted by Sensus Fidelium (who posts to both youtube and bitchute). It was fascinating because it did not stay on mere dress, but addressed the roots of modesty as well as its expressions outside of clothing in behaviour and speech. In behaviour, modesty was naturally portrayed in terms of moderation and courtesy. Attention seeking behaviour is obviously immodest, but what does that look like?
Dance can be modest—he pointed out how certain types of ballroom and folk dancing can actually help teach men and women how to comport themselves well with each other and as composed and graceful humans, whereas modern dance was decried for its immodest self-expression and provocativeness.
Vulgar speech was also presented as transgressing modesty, while a distinction was observed from the profane and the vulgar. It seemed that while both were to be avoided, particularly in mixed company, the profane was absolutely to be avoided. Again, it seems a straightforward matter—if you are a believer in God, you should want to honour Him; swearing or otherwise using His names apart from talking to or about Him is disrespectful and breaks the command. Moderation came up in the topic of speech, one can talk to much.
When Fr. Ripperger did talk about clothing he addressed it from a rather nuanced view, I thought. He took into account current custom, the inherent distinctions between men and women, the different purposes of dressing between men and women as a result of that, as well as the simple question of what does the clothing reveal. One distinction to be made in that last was “does it reveal more of the body or more of the person?” which distinction I have heard before. Fr. Ripperger did talk about how the clothes also affect mannerisms, posture, and behaviour, which I have heard less noted. Most controversially, while noting that the wearing of pants by women is not inherently sinful now, he did note that dresses and skirts are inherently more feminine, therefor modest skirts and dresses ought to be preferred to pants for women. Similarly, since care to attractive appearance is naturally more feminine, he described most jewelry, makeup, and focus on clothing and style for personal statement in men to be immodest. Fr. Ripperger sees men’s dress as being more about function: it is for your job, it shows what you do, it demonstrates externally your virtue (I was not entirely clear on his use of that term, but he did note things like the appropriateness of a wedding ring or a pectoral cross, jewelry that signifies a man’s position, as opposed to mere decorations). Even with the observations about things like makeup being inappropriate for men ordinarily, he did observe the appropriate use in acting or even to cover or make less distracting some physical deformity. The key seemed to be on the use of makeup for women, it should enhance what is already present and should not be done in order to draw attention to yourself, and for men and women it might be used to cover something that otherwise would be excessively attention getting. Moderation, moderation, moderation, and a respect for people around you.
Something that was striking down in the comments: While there were those who simply commented on this point or that with maybe further observations or questions and those who just left thank you notes, there were also some other responses. Fr. Ripperger noted various times that women were more naturally tender or sensitive than men. A woman objected to that adding the word, “weak”.
 There were also comments that said how “out-of-touch” people think the father is, sometimes accusing him of calling things sin (like women wearing pants) even while he made it clear that he does not in general consider it sinful, just not as excellent as wearing modest dresses. Some also simply went off topic to ask why he didn’t address other issues first. On the other hand, during one talk, there was a lady who was asking things like, “Isn’t wearing makeup sinful?” seeming in general to want to put the “Sin” sticker on things that don’t necessarily deserve it.
All told, they were an interesting set of lectures and homilies.

In favor of Segregation

We are all a part of the human race, so that is not what I am talking about.  No, something much more intrinsic. Male and female.

As a student teacher, I had a middle school geography class that I had to train for their tests. Now, one class towards the end of the day physically stank.  It was almost all boys, almost all of them were or had been under IEPs. They were a class that was being integrated into the “mainstream” of classes. They were the most engaged in the material.  They talked and batted the ideas around, asked questions, went off topic, but they were involved with the material. The other classes were neither as loud nor as physically stinky, and I certainly had more involvement from the middle school students than from the high school students when I was there, but they were less involved with the material, more hesitant to ask questions or answer them out loud.

As a teacher, I saw this played out in smaller classes.  If I had mostly boys, there were fewer behavioral issues and they stayed on task better.  If I had all girls, they were more relaxed and would talk much more freely about the subject.  They would engage with the material better.

With fairly evenly mixed classes, or classes with more girls than boys the students seemed more concerned about their peers opinions and the attention of the opposite sex.  This was true even down in 3rd, 4th and 5th grade. On days when the girls were absent or out of the classroom for whatever reason, the boys would settle down and work; when there were girls in the classroom, they were more apt to goof off or try to be clever.  When the boys were absent, or when I had a class of just girls, the girls worked more steadily and were more ready to give answers to questions and enter into conversation about the subject material; when boys were present, they were more apt to be giggling or rolling their eyes at the boys or hesitant to answer on one side or becoming super condescending on the other.  These are overall patterns. This is not every boy and girl every day, but it is enough of a pattern to make it much easier to teach all boys or all girls rather than mixed classes.

The all-girls school and all-boys school sort of approach makes sense to me, but what if we were to segregate even just classes? This is the young ladies English class, the young men's English class--same curriculum, just separate classes? Bring them together for set activities and presentations--they do, after all, need to learn to communicate with each other--but allowing them space from each other in order to, ideally, grow more freely.  This, I am certain, would encourage academic growth in the students, but only if the teachers themselves were committed to teaching academics and not ideology.