Veiling and Revealing: A Thesis

I came across this thesis that Caitlin S Cohn did on veiling and revealing.
Veiling and Revealing: A Qualitative Study of Young Women's Views of Dress.

She interviewed young women and thoroughly documented all their answer- the result is quite interesting and noteworthy.

Peter Philips, Leather Masks
www.trendland.com

Here follows an extract from her Thesis:

People dress for many different reasons, as Entwistle (2001) pointed out:

“Dress does not merely serve to protect our modesty. It embellishes the body” (p. 33).

In some cases, dress serves both to cover and decorate the body.

 My research questions were:

Do young women between the ages of 18 and 24 consider whether (or not) they reveal or conceal their bodies as relevant to their clothing choices?

What do young women say influences their views on revealing and concealing their bodies?

The themes that emerged suggest that many factors interact to form an

individual's perspective on revealing and concealing her own body. The three main

themes are:

1) socialization and appropriateness,

2) fitting in and standing out,

3) self-focused dressing motives.

Socialization considers how the participant learned values concerning revealing and concealing her body. Appropriateness is concerned with how participants evaluated revealing and concealing as fitting themselves and/or situations.

Fitting in and standing out relates to the use of dress within the women's social group or a particular social scene.

Self-focused dressing motives are concerned with choices that an individual makes with herself as the focus. The main factor in self-focused dressing motives was comfort; a secondary factor was self-expression.

The Concept of Revealing and Concealing

The meaning of women’s clothing vacillates between two opposing raisons

d’être: the need to be covered and modest and the need to be uncovered, immodest and objectified (Sterling, 1995). Sterling wrote that types of dress project different

archetypes: “sexy, professional, virginal, chic” (p. 89). For example, androgynous

clothing can be a way to distance oneself from overt sexuality (Arnold, 2001). A long

skirt could be considered both feminine and very modest, whereas a mini-skirt might be

considered both feminine and immodest.

Lynch, (2007) who studied flashing behavior on a college campus, argued that men tend to sexually objectify women and may focus on specific parts of a woman’s body, as opposed to looking at women as whole individuals. Lynch went on to say that men also may view sex as a conquest, which implies that young women who are present at particular events on campus and/or exposing their bodies are viewed as willing participants even if they are not actually willing, which is similar to arguments made by Lennon, et al. (1993) and Sterling (1995). Harvey (2007) suggested that women’s sense of identity has been affected by a male dominated society. Women have displayed their bodies because it has been desired by men, but, at the same time, many of the diatribes against immodesty also have come from men (Harvey). Duits and van Zoonen (2006) wrote that:

 “Girls’ bodies function as carriers for much wider discussions about decency [and] feminism . . . .” (p. 114).

The authors explained that the female body is seen as passive, which can keep young women from defining their own actions.

Moral Evaluations

People make moral judgments about women based on how much of their bodies

are exposed (Arnold, 2001), and standing out too much can be considered problematic if people perceive it as drawing too much attention of a sexual nature.

An article published in Dutch explained that G-strings were blamed for gang rapes that took place in France (van Beemen, 2003 cited in Duits & van Zoonen, 2006). Lennon, et al. (1993) described a kidnapping and sexual assault case in which the jurors referred to the clothing that the victim wore. The authors explained that the jurors’ statements exemplify the stereotype that: “Women invite their own rapes, sexual assaults, and sexual harassment by the manner in which they dress” (p. 392).

Women’s character is more likely to be judged based on how revealing or concealing her clothing is (Lennon, et al.; Ribeiro, 2003;Sterling, 1995). Lennon et al. referred to a rape case in which a judge said that women should “stop teasing” and that women should dress more modestly, implying that if they do not they are to be blamed for men’s behavior. This case illustrates that dress that is perceived as immodest can lead to inaccurate, negative judgments about women. Sterling’s (1995) study examined semiotic and evidentiary meanings of women’s clothing in rape trials, but the statements she made about clothing are relevant in general. She pointed out that: “Clothing covers the body. In doing so, it describes the body” (p.92). The act of wearing clothing draws attention to what the clothing covers as well as what it reveals. People who believe that women’s bodies are irresistibly tempting to men argue that a woman is responsible not only for herself but “for man’s sexual behavior too: if a man succumbs to sexual temptation in thought or deed it is considered her fault for dressing provocatively” (Entwistle, 2000, p. 150). Yet, almost anything can be construed as sexually provocative, which makes it easier to place the blame on the victim rather than the perpetrator.

Decency

While certain types of clothing may represent different archetypes within a culture, they do not have an objective meaning, and their significance will be interpreted differently depending on the individual characteristics of the observer (Lennon, et al.1993).

For example, one person might interpret a woman’s outfit as being sexually explicit, while another person might think that she was dressed appropriately for a night out. The terms “decency” and “modesty” are framed in everyday usage as concepts that are defined clearly and generally agreed upon, when in reality there is no clear definition of what it means to be decent in modern society (Duits & van Zoonen, 2006).

Modesty often is associated with a more religious and/or conservative perspective, but even so, there is variation within more conservative groups. Arthur (1998) completed a qualitative study of college women who were members of sororities. She found that the women tended to dress in a manner that was more conservative and tailored than did women on campus who did not belong to sororities and that brands that are considered more conservative and tailored, like Ann Taylor and J. Crew, were favored by sorority girls who wished to emphasize a more traditional, feminine appearance. A statement made by a participant in Arthur’s study implies that modesty is related to a more traditional and conservative viewpoint. Shalit (1999) defined a “modestynik” as a young woman whose family is secular (but presumably Jewish) who suddenly decides to dress in long skirts, which Shalit equated with modesty. In both Orthodox Judaism and some forms of Islam women cover their heads to preserve sexual modesty (Chico, 2000), and, in Islam, covering the head sometimes is seen as a way of protecting women from the gaze of men (Duits & van Zoonen, 2006). Duits and van Zoonen suggested that the headscarf may be viewed by others as too modest.

Circumstances of Wearing

Beliefs relate to an individual’s perspective on modesty, but context is also important. The idea of context ranges from the cultural context to more specific circumstances of wearing. Sterling (1995) described how she alters what she is wearing based on where she is. She compared workplace and cocktail attire and explained that, if she wore workplace attire to a cocktail party, she would be dressed too conservatively, but if she wore cocktail attire to work she would feel too revealed. Lynch (2007) explained that context plays a role in what is considered provocative and gave the example of a young woman wearing a bikini top to the beach versus to a bar. At the beach, this top would be considered appropriate, while at a bar it would be considered provocative.

Hendrie, et al.’s (2009) research suggested that it was the percentage of skin showing that related to attracting attention from males in a night club, rather than which parts of the body were exposed. The line between immodest and modest occurred at about 40% body exposure. Hendrie, et al. pointed out that other research has found that night clubs are dark, crowded and very noisy, which means that physical display is more important than it would be in other situations. They suggested that these are the reasons that exposure garners more male attention. Thus, going to a club in conservative clothing

might make it more difficult to interact with others given that it is very difficult to talk,

and dress may be considered to express personality more than it might in other settings.

In Lynch’s (2007) study a participant stated that girls at homecoming were supposed to

dress in clothing that was very revealing, which as Lynch pointed out, suggests that provocative dress may be associated with revealing the female form.

Fitting In

Fitting in relates to both fitting in with one’s peers and fitting within society as a whole. In some cases, young women may choose to reveal or conceal their bodies depending on whether their peers reveal or conceal their bodies.

O’Neal (1998) studied inner-city students’ attitudes toward dress. She found that one issue her participants discussed was conforming to the dress of their social group. Two of O’Neal’s female participants suggested that being well-dressed is important because it allows an individual to fit in with everyone else. Similarly, Sterling (1995) argued that women feel compelled to fit into the norm. Thus, the objectifying imperative makes women feel that they must dress in revealing clothing: “They as a group are compelled to dress both modestly and immodestly, and what results is a limited spectrum in which the majority of women lean toward modesty” (p. 103).

However, Duits’ and van Zoonen’s (2006) study suggested that revealing clothing is marketed even to young girls, so it is possible that revealing clothing has become normative. Thus, it may be that some young women do feel compelled to dress in clothing which reveals a large portion of their bodies.

Shalit(1999) argued that young women may feel pressured to dress provocatively because they feel they will be ostracized if they do not. Her statement suggests that what is considered normal is immodest. However, it is important to note that Shalit’s book is a religiously based attempt to convince people to dress more modestly, not a study published in a peer reviewed journal. Lynch’s (2007) respondents cited lack of self-esteem as a reason why other young women would dress provocatively and engage in flashing behavior, which Lynch pointed out implies that the respondents assumed they could gauge others’ self-esteem accurately. Similarly, a female participant in O’Neal’s (1998) study suggested that showing a great deal of skin advertised lack of self-respect.

Read her Thesis: Thesis