We live in a society that continues to view women that wear more revealing clothes as less respectable than those who wear less revealing clothes. They are said to be more modest and respectable if they cover up and hide their bodies.

Women deserve to be respected no matter their choice of clothes. We deserve to be viewed as more than just sexual objects where our worth is defined by what we wear. We need to end society’s continuous pattern of constantly body-shaming women and instead working on uplifting women’s self confidence.

Since I live in a conservative town, I hear people saying that fashion industries are now producing more revealing and “sluttier” clothes which are forcing women to look less modest. This is the complete opposite of what is happening today. If you look up the words “modest fashion,” countless links will pop up with articles talking about how modest fashion is more in style than ever.

Tribune magazine states that “more so now than ever, women from all walks of life and various faiths have been donning more modest attire.” New Humanist said that “modesty is enjoying a popularity it hasn’t had since Victorian times.” Modest fashion has become so common now that one of the deputy directors of the Museum at FIT, New York’s Fashion Institute of Technology, said that “it’s been insane to see how popular [modest fashion] is.”

People who feel that their idea of modesty is fading from the fashion industry are flat out wrong. In fact, they are only angered by the fact that women now more than ever are feeling confident enough in their bodies to wear whatever they want, modest or not.

How is it logical to see the clothes that a woman wears as inappropriate simply because she shows more of her body? It is sexist and wrong to see a woman and automatically view her as a sexual object that is less respected because she isn’t “covering up.”

Respect a woman’s choice of clothes and do not allow it to affect impact the perception of how women view themselves.

We must stop shaming grown women for wearing pencil skirts to their professional workplace because some co-workers see it as “inappropriate.” We must stop having schools say that they do not want girls wearing a certain type of outfit and clothes length because they will “distract” their male peers.  

We must stop shaming mothers for letting their three-year-old child wear a bikini. Nothing, and I mean nothing, should be remotely sexual about toddlers. Viewing women as sexual objects is so ingrained in our society that even toddlers are sexualized.

This may be hard for some to understand, but whatever women wear, revealing or not, they do it because they are comfortable with themselves in doing it. The length of a woman’s clothes does not have anything to do with her sexual availability, and it certainly does not have anything to do with how much attention she desires from others.

She is simply content with her body or finds the outfit interesting enough to wear. There is no hidden meaning to why we chose to wear what we wear.