Myth of the Modest Woman

One of my favorite travel hobbies is touring gyms. It makes sense: I spend a lot of time on such expansive platforms devoted to the production of sweat, and I try to find places I can enjoy.

Earlier this year I happened to walk through one of the more facilities in Idaho.

“Over here we have our workout room.”

A vast, cavernous stage with dumbbells and other heavy-handed equipment. Ah yes. This scene overviewed a pleasant plain of ellipticals at standstill, watching over the bodybuilders below.

And then a room: “Female-only Exercise Room”

What is this?
“This is where women come to work out who don’t feel comfortable on the floor in front of everyone else”
What does that mean?
“That means that if you don’t feel comfortable around other people, you can come in here where there are only women.”

A score of glistening females, pushing, pulling, carving their bodies into submission, away from that subversive gaze.

And yet this is nothing new. We live surrounded by the myth of modesty, where a woman’s value is directly correlated to her ability to restrain herself: her sexuality, her image, her voice.

Modesty is a myth, and this tale has been perpetrated throughout much of our cross-cultural social consciousness.

“The chariest maid is prodigal enough / If she unmask her beauty to the moon.”

• Shakespeare, “Hamlet”

Examples can be found everywhere – the Bible, Qur'an, and the Baghvad-gita – and the effects are similarly distributed.

You see, modesty hurts everyone involved. By segregating the “modest” women away, the other, I myself am immodest for choosing to remain in the co-ed, open gym. And by locking themselves away in a segregated room, I, along with other women, are now even more of an anomaly in the weight room.

Differences are exacerbated when we try to hide away. Separate but equal is not equal. And if you want to make the place more welcoming, quit the creeps, not the individuals.