I have been reading the book “A Return to Modesty: Discovering the Lost Virtue” by Wendy Shalit. Because I have not finished the book completely I will not give a review here. But “A Return to Modesty” has really got me thinking about the importance of modesty and how it affects how women are treated.

As a Muslim woman I have taken modesty for granted, given the fact that I practice modesty everyday. I take for granted the security it gives me. My hijab makes me feel unafraid of being attacked by some perverted rapist. As the Qur’an says: O Prophet! Tell thy wives and daughters, and the believing women, that they should cast their outer garments over their persons (when abroad): that is most convenient, that they should be known (as such) and not molested. And Allah is Oft- Forgiving, Most Merciful. (33:59). Sometimes my hijab brings unwanted attention, maybe because it’s different, and people are so attracted to it because it’s different.

Just the other day I was standing at the bus stop talking to my dad on the phone, when some guys started yelling at me from their car, “Hey, Baby!!” “Whoa!!”. Right in broad daylight! Thank ALLAH, no one was walking by to see it, the only witnesses were people driving by in their cars. How embarrassing! I hated it! I didn’t even look at those dudes, I just ignored them. Where has our society come to where men will treat women this.

That is not to say that men are the only ones to blame for how women are badly treated today. Women take a great deal of the blame as well. Modern women have been so preoccupied with being “equal” with men that they have totally rejected the natural things that make them different than men. These differences are beautiful blessings, but we have conditioned ourselves to treat them as ugly and inferior. In our quest to be “like the boys” we have completely lost ourselves.

Modesty is now looked at with hatred, when it was one of the very things that kept a woman safe and protected. Modesty is what kept respect for women high in the eyes of men. Today you see too many young women barely wearing anything and having promiscuous (casual) sex with any and every guy! When women forsake their modesty, respect a society has for them begins to plummet. At an all time high women are being raped, molested, beaten, and mistreated!

If we women really want to be free we must return to modesty!!

Peace, Wiggy Wack ♥