I realize that, as a married Catholic woman and also as a feminist, I was doubly duty bound to put a brick in my purse and smack him with it at this point. But all the bricks on the pavement were firmly cemented down. I didn’t have any way to remove myself from the situation. There was nowhere I could go to get away and still catch my bus, and I’d have had a heat stroke if I didn’t catch my bus. In fact, the bus stop was very far from any open buildings at that time of day. Downtown Steubenville is mostly derelicts. There wasn’t a populated public place I could go to for safety or to get assistance. So I just had to sit there with a discouraging half-smile on my face, in my Mary-modest long skirt and 3/4 length top, and let the masher harass me.
The bus was extremely late. He went on for over ten minutes about his house, his other girlfriends, how much fun they had “ridin’ the camel” and how I should leave my husband for him if my husband ever did me wrong. I jumped on the next bus even though it was going to a different part of town; I didn’t get off on the stop nearest my house, because that’s where he got off. I rode all the way five miles out to Wal Mart in order to connect to a bus going three miles back to my house, in order to get away from a dirty old man who fancied me. And this happened even though I’m a very plain, frumpy housewife in my thirties; even though I was wearing an exemplary, textbook modest outfit; and even though I’d actually been wearing a nominally immodest outfit without drawing harassment earlier. I still couldn’t escape it when I got to Wal Mart. Another gentleman called me “Baby doll” as well, as I boarded my bus back home.
Looking back, I’ve seen this same thing happen again and again. I’ve been harassed when I went jogging in my sneakers, leggings and tank top, though I think those people were joking; when I wore a turtleneck and long loose dress pants at a different bus stop, and a man literally threatened to kidnap and rape me; when I walked to liturgy in another peasant-skirt-and-modest-tee combo. I can only imagine what happens to attractive women.
I am forced to draw a conclusion from this: other people’s sins are not the fault of my sleeves. If a man is determined to look upon a woman with lust, he’s going to do it, whether she’s naked or rolled up in a thick rug. He’s going to do it even if she’s frumpy and dressed like a stock photo from a chastity pamphlet. It’s not a woman’s job to make him stop, because what is physically impossible cannot be morally required.
I also conclude that there are no garments that are, in themselves, specifically modest or chaste; modesty and chastity are of persons and not of adornments. Everyone ought to dress in garments that are suited to their station in life and to what they have to get done on any particular day. They ought not to spend decadent amounts of money on their clothes, but the meaning of decadence can also vary widely from situation to situation. They ought to remember the poor and do their best to help clothe them in clothing as nice as what they’d want to wear themselves, while they’re budgeting to buy their own clothing. They oughtn’t try to be ostentatious in flaunting their wealth, nor should they deliberately try to sexually provoke people who aren’t their spouse, but if someone takes offense or is provoked to lust anyway, that’s not the clothing-wearer’s fault. They certainly ought never to judge others based upon their clothes. These things are required of the Catholic, according to my understanding.
You might also want to always carry a brick in your purse, if you’re ever in downtown Steubenville, but that’s just my suggestion.
(image via Pixabay)
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