Personal Reflections on “Real Housewives” and the Virtue of Modesty
by: Claire Snyder-Hall on February 3rd, 2011 | 13 Comments »
Does the “Real Housewives” franchise have anything to tell us about American politics today? I have been pondering this question for a while, but my thoughts began to congeal this morning in a bit of a circuitous way. It all started as I was perusing the Christian Right websites, thinking about what to write for my weekly post covering the Christian Right beat.
While every newspaper is covering the uprising in Egypt, that was not even mentioned on any of the websites I checked. Instead, opposition to the health care bill and abortion were featured on almost all the sites, including Concerned Women for America, The Susan B. Anthony List, Traditional Values Coalition, Focus on the Family’s Citizen Link, and the Family Research Council, as well as the American Society for the Defense of Tradition, Family, and Property.
Since I did not feel like writing anything on the health care issue, I clicked on a blog entry on Citizen Link (an affiliate of Focus on the Family) condemning Barbara Bush’s recent video in support of gay marriage. The entry was titled “It Would Really be News If Barbara Bush Supported Marriage.” Accepting the fact that culture actually has an effect on people, the blog entry maintains that it’s no surprise that the presidential daughter, along with Meghan McCain, supports gay marriage, given the culture she grew up in:
It’s rather easy for 20-somethings — or millennials — to jump on the very tidy-looking “rights” bandwagon that proponents of same-sex marriage have made marriage to be. It’s not entirely the fault of millennials that the purpose of marriage is lost on them. Bush, McCain and their peers grew up breathing air thick with a cultural disregard for marriage.
This anti-gay post linked to another Focus on the Family affiliated website called “Rising Voice: We’re One Generation.”
Rising Voice is an outreach to millennials who want to help transform the culture. We provide resources that equip young adults to live out their Bible-based faith in a way that tangibly helps others. Rising Voice is more than just a millennial outreach — we’re also a group of young adults, led by young adults. Our team of twenty-somethings is a reflection of the millennial generation at large: We’re passionate about life, we’re learning as we go and we’re eager to share what we learn. Most importantly, though, we believe that, working together, we can help make this world a better place for all.
Prominently featured on Rising Voice were two blog posts on modesty: “Why Modesty Matters: An Older Sister’s Thoughts,” parts 1 and 2. The articles made the following appeal:
More than simply rules about clothing, behavior or abstinence, modesty is a mindset, a woman’s conviction that she possesses inherent dignity and purpose because she is God’s creation. It is an attitude rooted in the truth that intimacy and sex are wonderful gifts when enjoyed in the correct context of marriage. It is a heart disposition that enables women to confidently live like they are deserving of respect, free to set healthy physical boundaries and worth waiting for… It is an exciting opportunity to transcend the cultural norms of skimpy clothing, lax physical standards, sexual innuendos and hook-ups by rising to self-respecting, God-honoring standards of wisdom, self-discipline, virtue and purity.
The blog post goes on to praise Wendy Shalit’s book from a decade ago, A Return to Modesty (2000), which lauds the modesty of Orthodox Jewish and Muslim women, among others. While the Rising Voice post has troubling aspects, frankly it’s refreshing to see Christian Right advocates praise a book that respects Muslim women, given the Islamophobia that they often support (like this American Family Association post from this week).
While Shalit’s book (which I have not yet read) makes a lot of problematic claims about natural gender differences and seems to support the Christian Right’s pro-patriarchy, anti-gay agenda — all of which I reject — a person does not have to accept that ideological baggage in order to believe that modesty is a virtue worthy of resuscitation, for both men and women, and one that could bring people together across religious boundaries. At the very least it provides an alternative to the whorification of American women, which animates the corporate-owned media.
On a personal note, I have been thinking a lot about the issue of modesty in my own life, as I have been increasing my level of religious observance. Personally, I don’t believe I have to embrace the Orthodox Jewish standard — covering knees, elbows, collarbone, and hair — in order to dress modestly. Nor does modesty require one to be frumpy. Indeed, in this culture, simply covering most of your breasts could pass as modesty. Besides, modesty entails a lot more than simply appearance, which I will get to in a moment.
This discussion of modesty on the Rising Voice website also struck a chord with me, given that I had just spent two nights watching various renditions of the “Real Housewives” franchise on Bravo, in an attempt to plug into popular culture. I find these shows completely appalling — junk food for the brain — but I wonder what kind of ideological work they do on the people who watch them.
The shows are popular, but does anyone really admire or want to emulate those women? I hope not, since they seem to think that selfishness, aggression, and rudeness are admirable qualities. What I find stunning is the disjunction between what the women think the show is about and what is really going on. That is to say, while the “housewives” apparently think they are bona fide celebrities and the envy of all, most viewers probably find the women totally despicable — money-grubbing, ostentatious, classless, immature, narcissistic, catty, and vulgar. At least I hope that is the case.
So what is the appeal of “Real Housewives” and similar shows? I think the women who watch such shows — and I suspect it is mostly women — watch them because the shows make them feel good, by inducing in them a sense of smug superiority, or at least that is how they make me feel, as evidenced by the above paragraph.
This has political relevance, I believe, because it seems to me that the desire to feel superior is one of the strongest underlying forces in American politics right now. Many people want to feel superior to others — to “illegal” immigrants, to gays, to Muslims, to the poor — or, on the Left, to she-whose-name-must-not-be-mentioned-in-the-month-of-February. And feelings of superiority threaten to erode the principle of political equality, upon which self-government is based. Unfortunately, indulgence in media depictions of outrageous women fuels this anti-democratic desire.
While the desire to feel superior is no doubt part of the human condition, it is not a positive trait, and it is one I do not like to feel in myself. I see religion as one counterweight to that vice. Isn’t religion about stifling the sense of superiority people are prone to feel and instilling humility? That is how I see it, at least, since I believe religion is about making people better, not about rubber-stamping whatever they desire or want to do anyway. Religion should be about thoughtfulness and self-improvement, not about smug self-satisfaction and superiority.
That is why the posts on modesty actually resonated with me. Modesty is an important virtue in all three monotheistic religions, and it includes more than dressing tastefully. Modesty is essentially the opposite of egoism. It entails humility and not making yourself the center of attention through drama or obnoxious display. These ideals may be foreign to American popular culture these days, but they are ideals worth revitalizing on the Left as well as the Right, and they should not be ridiculed. At least that is my humble opinion.
We live in a competitive culture, where everyone is taught to be a winner and to shun losers. As a consequence we assume that no one knows how to cooperate, making it necessary that people be organized by authority. I have not read about kibbutz culture in a long time, but it once was one place where cooperation was learned early on.
Pop culture is governed by what sells, so you may well be right that marketing is directed at helping the customer to feel superior. Little do we realize that makes us all losers, so long as it runs its course without awareness of alternatives.
…..Ever wonder why people don’t know how to cooperate? It’s been bothering philosophers and social scientists for ages, and stirred many responses and belief systems, hasn’t it?
I loved reading this post. I find myself strongly identifying with your focus on modesty as a ‘forgotten’ and important value, or attribute. I believe modesty is actually a manifestation of empathy and compassion as a natural facet of authentic connecting of humans.
But I understand the outrageous backlash to the obsession with modesty as a dictate particularly for women, and particularly coming from too many authoritarian, male dominated religious institutions that have lost their own internal modesty (compassion, empathic presence).
I myself have experienced it when it becomes a ‘whip’ in the hands of authorities who abuse religion and opress women into confinement or ‘excommunication’.
So, I pursue the same values you appreciate here, though under the names: empathic presence and compassion. All of these are forgotten natural human traits which need encouraging and practicing.
So I connect with your passion for this fundamental human goodness, and join in your praise of its beauty.
I loath “Real Housewives” for the way it portrays housewives (and women) as nasty, bitchy, brainless bimbos obsessed with their appearance and sex. I am also horrified at the thought that there are housewives, or any women out there, who aspire to duplicate this behaviour which includes an immodest and very tacky dress-code that has deliberately been included in the show to draw attention to the housewives in the show and, of course, to attract viewers,
Yet, with that said, we need to be both honest and fair and recognize the reality, which is that society is extremely dismissive of women who are real housewives, – and full-time moms, be it out of choice or necessity.
And here I speak from experience. I am a college graduate with post grad degrees who was fortunate enough to have the financial and emotional support of a great husband to choose to be a full-time mom and housewife while my now adult children were growing up. But, I also remember – all to well – the way most people (male and female !) would literally dismiss me when I said that I was a housewife and full-time mom, and literally ignore me if as if I was brain dead. Fortunately my sense of selfhood and self esteem was healthy enough to simply brush this type of response off and I never felt the need to dress immodestly, But this does not preclude the fact that these responses are still the norm, and that they do drive many women crazy.
The posts above, i.e., Rex and Shira, are also very astute in their observations in that they have both identified two key factors, along with my experience of simply being ignored flat out, – that underlie many women (and not only housewives), immodest dress code, namely the desire to be noticed and seen as no 1, (even if its for revealing too much cleavage !), or in an reaction to the stifling demands of patriarchy and/or any form of extreme religious dress-codes.
I therefore believe that a voluntary choice to return to a modest ( and here I exclude the complete veiling seen in certain communities in Islam, or the dress-code of extreme Haredi Judaism) dress code is directly linked to most women’s ability to feel confident about themselves and the choices they have made in their lives, despite what they wear.
Society therefore needs to to come to the table too help achieve this by acknowledging the amazing abilities, dignity and true value of women, which includes their role as house-wives and full-time moms.
WOW! What a terrific article and reflective, honest, responses. So very nice to read about the breaking being breached on that site and now here by critical and analytic thinking and discussion, of issues and concerns according to whichere we find some common ground.
For starters this makes me eager to read more of your work,Claire, and most certainly more of the responses it elicits as well. I am SO happy you are doing the exploration, just from your tone and your intellect, capacity to be iconoclastic, and eclectic, and your heart.
Now also i think it is a small but import thing to differentiate between dress codes imposed for extrinisic reasons (as may be done by families, organizations , and larger social systems–indeed all macro and micro cultures culture have extrinisic mores in some way) and the intrinsic aspirations towards modesty, which is lived and adopoted as a positive ideal to incorporate to some degree and in some ways, in one’s life–by choice, and for the value the chooser see in it.
I also think that yes, sadly, we have created a media driven society in which for profit we enculturate folks to imitate and to participate in the life styles we portray throughout our culture’s enculturative mediums.
We find then, that as the TED winner who researched and found that the second most popular graduation gift for high school girls in 2008 was a boob job, that we are in fact mass producing people whose entire ethos is based upon extrinisic values such as white teeth and evry possible manifestation of wealth (hence we have howard Dean being derailed in favor of george Bush by folks who preferred tto market to the general populace the plutocrat who had never been in a supermarket, Mr. Kerrey , rather than the decent and brilliant dr. dean and his wife whose Birkenstocks were savaged by teh beltway manohlo Dargis wearing crowd). that was real life illustration of how important modesty can be.
I also think of Harriet Meirs savaged for being enthusiastic and warm, middle class and middle of the road inteelect instead of an icy ghoulish priveleged elite who seems to believe that the only movers and shakers who should count inthe USA are those who have paid the plutocratic dues of putting their kids through and Ivy League school. You pay you play , seems to be the bottom line.
But aside from thes asides, the issue is vital for an examination of pop culture and its impact on producing people, for an anlysis of instrinsic and extrinsic social values and mores, and also for looking at the bedrock values inviting existential encounter that transcend any asserted monopoly by a particular group–ioncluding the left…and finally for the actual import of social darwin adn objectification on women to such a degree, that our inner beauty of person has become meaningless, and our sexual value is all that remains of note–hence women who have aged or decline to aprticiapte in a shallow show of titillation and exhibition are, as is the absolutley vital social role of raising children, by the mainstream , unless a cougar or some other exploiter devalued entirely.
sorry fro not being able to take the time to proof this at all, i have LD and ask for your indulgence to make some sense of it if you find it interesting enough to do so.
first sense should have said breaking down of walls .
Thank you all for your very insightful comments and also kind words. I thought I might get blasted for my post, but I guess that others share my concerns.
Great blog,Claire – I agree with your view on modesty and yes, I believe women watch these shows to feel better about themselves. I personally have never seen the ‘Housewives’ TV show, but sometimes I do find myself watching some things like A&E’s ‘Heavy’ or ‘Hoarders’ to feel better about myself and my surroundings!
Keep up the good work, girl!
Modesty has a lot to do with clothing and how it’s worn, but I’m taken back to the days of nude beaches and hot springs when nakedness could be perfectly modest. Also, I remember a chance encounter with a Muslim woman in her burka with only her eyes showing. One look set me ablaze and the next said, “not a chance!” This trick was astounding and thoroughly immodest.
Yes, so true! I believe modesty is an attitude, a state of mind, an approach to life and relationships. Like everything else, though, it’s manifested outwardly in many ways, and then exploited or distorted in times of stress and trouble.
Why aren’t the xtian far right websites writing about the radiation poisoning naked body scanners at the airports? That pat down was pretty immodest too.
Modesty in popular culture? – that horse left the stable about forty years ago.
What an insightful piece. The thing that really strikes me about the “Housewives” is that they seem to identify self with status, and that creates such a tragic loss of human identity. Contrary to the message these shows send, money and sex do not a person make. I also appreciated seeing the mention of people returning to modesty; years ago, as the Cole Porter song put it, “a glimpse of stockings was looked on as something shocking,” but now, truly, it seems that “anything goes.” Better to leave a little something to the imagination, and focus on doing something other than trying to “out-fab” the person next door. As the mother of a 5 year-old girl, it’s a challenge to lay down boundaries these days, when there are so many messages sent that conflict with the concept of establishing one’s identity, and the innate self-confidence that is rooted in that. My goal is to try to sway her from connecting with a “reality” that is anything but real, and to encourage her to think and do for herself. True confidence comes from within, not from preying on the insecurities of others. Thank you for such a thought-provoking blog, Claire, and I look forward to seeing more from you in the future!
Oh my goodness…. SOLUTION HOT!