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Culture War Roundup for the week of August 12, 2024

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While I don't think you're categorically wrong, I think there's the danger here of misusing a heuristic as a law.

Sloppily dressed people are often, yes, sloppy people who don't do good work, don't take care of their relationships, can't be relied upon etc.

And then, sometimes, they're astrophysicists who are so engrossed in their work that they never learned how to dress themselves. Before it become an coopted fashion signaling mechanism, the Silicon Valley "hoodie and shorts" was the mark of a developer who was a bit of a slob because he was dedicating 18 hours a day to working on his app.

On the modesty side of things, there are definitely women who use their wardrobes to appeal to the male lizard brain and attract attention that way. There are a lot of women who simply follow fashion trends and don't really put a lot of thought into what signals they're sending men but do care about what other women think. There is a certain small proportion of women who literally do not understand that wearing yoga pants and a sports bra 24/7 is going to result in increased male attention. Are any of these subgroups more prone to promiscuous and/or anti-social behavior. Hard to say. You can make some generalizations, but the danger there is the slippery slop of generalization --> heuristic --> iron law.

In the past 5+ years, I've never had a conversation about fashion expectations with a woman where she expressed frustration towards modesty standards (either too much or too little). Mostly, it was the simple and unending difficulty of keeping up with whatever is in fashion to signal (to other women) that you're "with it."

In the past 5+ years, I've never had a conversation about fashion expectations with a woman where she expressed frustration towards modesty standards (either too much or too little).

I may be misunderstanding you; let me know if I am. I don't know a women who isn't frustrated with the clothing available, and it's not all about pockets. I cannot easily find a shirt that isn't too low cut / designed to expose more of my chest than I typically prefer. Tshirts or fairly masculine tailored button downs are pretty much the only shirts I can depend on to meet my preferences. And hemlines are incredibly short. I can either go with long-and-flowy don't show an inch of skin, which tends to be too frilly and feminine for my preferences, or "this is so short it may not be long enough to cover my backside when sitting down" which is ridiculous. Apparently, wanting fabric to extend to my knees or there-abouts is too demanding.

But, I'm not sure I'd talk about these issues in regards to "modesty" because that term isn't really something I talk about much. I'd call it preference, or style. Modesty's part of it, but outside of a religious context I just don't see that term in use.

Apparently, wanting fabric to extend to my knees or there-abouts is too demanding.

Isn't this just a midi skirt? There's like a million of those on the market.

Tradcath women I know who can't sow often buy clothes from Mormon clothing stores, and while the modesty probably overshoots a little bit it probably overshoots by less than the undershoot you're complaining about. Their clothes seem feminine and not-frumpy.

I wasn't referring to the garments themselves, but more general attitudes / vibes around clothing expectations.

Too low cut and your other examples - absolutely, have heard that.

"I don't think I can wear what I want too because it's too revealing / I don't think I can wear what I want because it's too buttoned up" <-- Have not heard that.