Modesty in Space

My Dear Reader,

Growing up in a very religious family, I was taught the importance of modesty at almost every turn. And I always thought that it was a great idea.

I'm weird, I know.

I have this theory. You know how most people have a favorite vice? I think everyone also has a favorite virtue. Modesty is mine. So when people start talking about modesty and how the very idea is shaming and degrading to young girls, well, that wasn't my experience. But, like I said, I'm weird.

A lot of my weirdness, I think, comes from the fact that along with God, Star Trek also had a big place in my life growing up. On Sundays, my family went to church together. On Mondays, we watched Star Trek together. And something the both church and Star Trek has in common? Both are very heavy on ideas. Ideas like universal equality and unconditional compassion. Concepts like agency, kindness, and honor. I got one kind of lesson from the pulpit, and another from the TV, but to me, it all seemed to be two different perspectives into one great, eternal truth. And both church and Star Trek encouraged me to find truth.

So, that was quite an education.

Of course, there was occasionally a disconnect in the message. And as much as I learned the importance of modesty on Sunday, Monday's lesson went somewhat in reverse. Star Trek is almost infamous for its basement-dwelling teenage fanbase, and though it's not very accurate, you wouldn't know it by the way the characters were dressed. Star Trek is as show about people in uniforms, and yet in almost every incarnation of the franchise, they manage to have at least one woman wearing a skin-tight body suit. Sometimes for no real reason. It's just for those basement-dwellers who supposedly will never have a relationship with a real girl, so this fictional one has been provided. Fantasize away, pimply fanboys!*

One of these catsuit-wearing female characters was Seven of Nine, a character from Star Trek: Voyager who was portrayed by Jeri Ryan, who described being "poured" into that suit, it was that tight. Kate Mulgrew, who played Captain Janeway (my personal hero) on the same show, said:

I found that that was hard, Jeri notwithstanding. Certainly, I could see with my own eyes that she was a va-va-va-voom and beautiful-beautiful bombshell of a girl. Sexuality was brought into Voyager, and that’s what I resented. I chose not to use sexuality. I thought that if Paramount and UPN and Rick (Berman) were being exceptionally prescient and brave, they would give a woman a shot at commanding without sex. “Can we do this without sex?” There are always other ways. So I resented that and I was hurt by the immediate, extraordinary attention given to this character. The numbers went up. And I thought, “Ah, you can’t argue with a business decision and you can’t argue with sex.” That’s just part of life, but all of that is very difficult for a woman, particularly an actress like me. But it had nothing to do with Jeri.

And yeah, it was pretty obvious that that's what they were going for. I mean, that costume was ridiculous. But it worked, because ratings went up 60%. And when this was on the air in 1997, I was a very, very annoyed teenage girl. I had always looked to Star Trek for powerful female role models, which were in short supply back then (some would argue they still are). At church, I was taught that women are divine beings, equal in the eyes of God and important instruments in His plan. Star Trek was one of the few places where I could actually see that in action. Well, kind of. Until they needed a boost in viewership. Then, they would take a woman and use her as eye candy. Then, her value didn't come from her choices or actions, but from what fans could fantasize doing with her. I guess women in the future are only equal when the ratings are good.

And though I still loved the show, I always rolled my eyes when Seven of Nine came on screen. I saw her as a pointless character. I knew she was being used and I felt used just watching her.

But a funny thing happened when a rewatched the series a few years later. I was in college then, and had a few more years of experience under my belt. I had taken courses on literature and had learned how to look at stories critically. And when I watched Voyager again, I saw Seven of Nine with brand new eyes. I saw past her apparel and into her storyline. I discovered, to my own amazement, that I had found one of the best characters I had ever seen in any show, book, or movie. Her story is one of healing from abuse and betrayal, of repentance, redemption, and love.

But no one ever talks about that.

No one ever talks about Seven of Nine, who was abducted as a child and indoctrinated into an oppressive culture where she was no longer an individual, but a cog in a great and terrible machine of destruction. No one talks about how she is rescued from this machine and offered a chance to reclaim her humanity. No one talks about the people who show her a love and devotion she has not deserved, patiently teaching her how to regain her agency even as she promises to betray them. And no one talks about Seven's eventual success, and how she casts off the shackles of oppression and pain and becomes her own person.

Well, I mean the show talks about it. A lot. It's just that people are too distracted by the catsuit to notice.

And that, I think, is what is missing from the argument for modesty. So many who oppose modesty say that a woman has a right to express herself, and that is true. They say that it is not a woman's burden to control the thoughts of others, and that is true. But what Seven of Nine taught me is that dressing in a way meant to display your sexuality does not express who you are.

It hides you.

It camouflages you.

It allows you to masquerade as an object instead of a person.

And while it doesn't change your worth, and it doesn't make it okay for people to mistreat you, it changes how people see you.

And maybe it changes how you see yourself.

Dressing without to respect for yourself is like strapping raw beef to your thighs and jumping into piranha-infested waters. I guess it's your choice, but it's not a smart choice. Human nature is human nature, choices have consequences, and you have to be careful. You have to protect yourself.

And there's another lesson I learned here: I was wrong. I was wrong to judge someone's value by what they wore. I was immature and shallow. Church and Star Trek taught me to respect people, to see beyond the surface and try to find a friend. I was taught not to look on the outward appearance, but to look on the heart. But I guess I didn't learn those lessons well enough. I guess that in a better world, it wouldn't matter what we wear, because it wouldn't distract people from who we are.

And maybe we need to start making that better world right now. Maybe the destructive parts of human nature need to be cast aside and forgotten.

Maybe we can teach children (not just girls) about modesty in a way that makes them feel empowered instead of ashamed. It is empowering to have the ability to choose how people see you. It is empowering to be able to see people as valuable, despite their appearance. We have to learn to use these powers wisely. We have to understand that people make bad choices sometimes, and you have to account for that. But we also have to be better in order to make the world better.

Because despite Jeri Ryan's success, despite her beautiful portrayal of a complicated character and the many roles she has taken since then, despite the fact that she is a genuine, caring person*, people still ask her about that darn catsuit. More than ten years later, people are still treating her like a cog in the machine of corporate sexuality. There is more than one thing wrong with that.

In the end, I'm glad that I had the opportunity to learn truth from more than one source. I'm grateful that I was given the chance to find my own lessons. Most of all, I treasure the ability I have to think for myself. To act for myself. Because that's the real goal of modesty, right? To be free from objectification? To be free to be your true self?

I think so.

Best wishes, regards, and kindness,

-Cecily Jane

P.S. This is really just one facet of modesty. Here's another post with a different perspective that I also agree with. It's pretty genius, actually.

P. P.S. I couldn't make this argument in the post because it's long enough as it is, but I tried to hint at it: this thinking is not only degrading to women. It's also degrading to the male viewer, because it not only is the female character being sold as an object, but the male viewer is being enticed to buy an object. Both parties are being manipulated and degraded. Both parties deserve better.

*I base this on her Twitter profile. She is awesome.

Prayers, Phones, and Self-limitations

My Dear Reader,

As a lifelong Mormon, I have often been encouraged to seek for spiritual guidance on a daily basis, in even the most trivial matters. These spiritual experiences are the foundation of our faith, and we build it scripture by scripture, prayer by prayer.

Even for the little stuff.

Stuff that isn't necessarily in the spiritual category. Stuff, for example, like when things go missing. Even then, I have always been encouraged to get on my knees and pray about it. God knows everything, right? So He knows where I left my keys, or my wallet, or that thing I was supposed to bring to the party. And as Mormons, this is something that we regularly do. And I know so many people who have asked this seemingly trivial question in prayer and have received genuine spiritual guidance that led them to find what they were looking for.

But it never happened to me.

And you might think that it's not really a big deal. And it isn't until it's the end of the school year and you have to either return your graphing calculator to your calculus teacher or forfeit one hundred dollars of your hard-earned college fund.

And when you're running out of time, and you've turned everything in your house upside down trying to find it, and you're crying tears of frustration and failure because one hundred dollars is so much money when you earned it working minimum wage and you were so careful to save it, this becomes a pretty big deal to you.

And, yet, I didn't get my answer. Or any answer, really. Let me tell you, I was not happy to write that check.

But, you know, I told myself to get over it. It didn't break the bank or anything, and once high school was over and I moved on to greater things, I realized that it didn't matter much. Losing one graphing calculator, in the grand scheme of things, was such a small thing, right? Talk about your teenage drama.

And it's not like I didn't have more than my fair share of spiritual experiences. I received answers on all kinds of other things. Big, important things that shaped my life. Experiences so powerful that I could never doubt that they were real, even today. So it didn't effect my faith in God or my dedication to my church, or anything like that.

But it planted a seed in my brain that started to change my opinion about myself.

And I started to think that I was incapable of receiving answers to certain kinds of prayers.

And if that sounds silly to you, you do not understand how many times I prayed for help finding something, full of faith, and got nothing.

Not to mention the doctrine found in D&C 46:11-12 that offered a reasonable explanation to what was happening to me. God gives people certain gifts, and that was just one that I didn't have. No worries, right? I mean, I don't sit around worrying that I don't have the skills to be an Olympic gymnast. Why should I care if I can't do this?

But I probably should have cared, because I stopped trying. I assumed that I was limited, and that there were some things that I just couldn't talk to God about.

And maybe there was a part of me that thought that I was limited because I just wasn't good enough.

I have so many opportunities to feel inadequate, and you know, I tend to take advantage of them.

But one day, after I graduated college and was in desperate need of a job, I lost my phone. Which, at the time, would not have been a great concern to me except I was waiting to hear back from possible employers. This time, I was in a situation where if I didn't find it, I would break the bank.

I looked everywhere for that phone. Everywhere. I had other people pitch in to help me, and I even asked for them to pray to find it. Because that seemed a lot more productive than praying myself.

After two weeks, things were looking pretty bad. Imagine if you were expecting an important phone call and you had to go without your phone for two whole weeks. I almost tore my hair out.

I got desperate enough, in fact, to pray about it. And man, did I pray with feeling on this one. I'm pretty sure I prayed myself to sleep.

One thing I remember very clearly is that I woke up with this unshakeable compulsion to look under things. I just had to do it, just like I would have to take a drink of water if I was dying of thirst in the desert. I could not stop until I had looked under everything in the house. Could. Not. Stop.

I don't have OCD, so I'm not used to compulsions of that magnitude. There was nothing in the world to me except what I needed to do at that moment. And I kind of felt a little crazy, but I also felt this really amazing spiritual connection that told me where this urge was coming from.

And in just a few minutes, that phone was good and found.

Is that one of the lamest spiritual experiences of all time? Possibly. I won't rule it out.

But it's probably one of the most poignant moments of my whole life, because I had found something a lot more important than my phone. I found a piece of myself that I feared could never exist.

And I think that we are all aware, to some point at least, how much other people try to limit us. There's the bully who said that we were stupid. The coach who cut us off the team. The well-meaning friend who told us to move on long before it was time.

But how often do we become aware of the ways in which we limit ourselves?

Do the names we have been called on the playground or in the office really matter as much as the names we call ourselves?

And how many times do we let a small seed get planted in our brain, like a mold spore that multiplies and grows until it causes the decay of our own self worth?

I've been thinking a lot lately about the things that I think I can't do, that I have no hope of ever being good at. Is it really a fair judgement of myself? Or am I letting myself be limited by the pain of the past and the fear of the future?

Because God can do all things. All things. And I am His daughter.

Doesn't it follow that if I continue to endeavor to be like God, at some point, I will be able to do all things?

And I'm starting to think that prayer is about more than just building our faith. I'm starting to think that through prayer, we are building ourselves. With every spiritual experience, we are not just learning what we need to do; we are getting a glimpse into who we really are.

And this is something I really wonder about: when God makes the acorn, He knows that it will grow into the great oak. So when God made me, what did He intend me to become? How great can I grow?

And, yes, in the great scheme of things, maybe finding my phone really isn't such a big deal. But that part of myself I found? Well, I never intend to let that go.

Regards, best wishes, and shattered boundaries,

-Cecily Jane

Ignorance and Fire

My Dear Reader,

Last week I talked to you about my self-imposed challenge of reading ten classics in 2013.

I'm pleased to say that as of March, I've read The Hobbit, Fahrenheit 451, and Catcher in the Rye. Not bad, if I say so myself.

These three books were each important to me because, for various reasons, they were books I'd given up on as a teenager. I feel especially bad about Fahrenheit 451 because it's a dystopian novel, my absolute favorite genre. I tried reading it in high school and quit about two chapters in, probably because I didn't get Ray Bradbury's style. I also tried reading some of his other works (I was determined to be a fan of his at that age), and it just didn't appeal to me. I don't know what's changed between then and now, but I just loved reading it this time around.

Fahrenheit 451 is about a dark future in which all books are banned. Firemen, instead of putting fires out, are now in charge of burning books.

So it's pretty natural to think that the book is about censorship, and on a surface level, it is. But the deeper I went, the more I started to realize that it's not really about censorship as much as it's about how intellectual laziness leads to anti-intellectualism. That's a pretty powerful subject.

As I read, I came across this quote: "If you hide your ignorance, no one will hit you and you'll never learn."

And I thought that quote pretty much sums up my high school experience.

The teenage years are pretty confusing for everybody, mostly because your intelligence has finally risen to a level where you start to realize that the world around you isn't as perfect as you once thought it was. At the same time, however, you are not yet intelligent or experienced enough to know what to do about it. In most cases, this creates a lot of angsty whining. I wish I could say that I was above all of that, but then my pants might combust. 

So yeah, I was a pretty annoying teenager. And I was also pretty vocal.

Did you want to know any of my ideas on culture, religion, or politics? You barely had to ask. Did you want to know what was wrong with anything within my field of vision? You probably didn't, but I told you anyway. I usually managed to be nicer about it than I felt like being, but let's just say that it was easy to lose patience with me in a very short amount of time.

And you know what? A lot of people were pretty honest right back. A lot of people challenged everything I thought and believed. And they weren't always nice about it. And at a very vulnerable and confusing time in my life, it really, really hurt.

But the more I was challenged, the more I had to find a way to counter their arguments.

And the more I had to counter an argument, the more I had to think.

And the more I thought, the more I learned (by trial and error) how to separate what was actually true from what I wanted to be true.

And the more I figured out what was actually true, the more I learned that even though the world was imperfect, I had the opportunity to become a better person and make my world at least bearable.

So, to summarize: I showed my ignorance, I got hit, and I learned.

And what's so great about Fahrenheit 451 is that it shows you what happens when people hide their ignorance. It shows a culture where people want to look intelligent instead of be intelligent. So they read the CliffsNotes and say they read the whole thing. And then they get this weird but common idea that there is too much to read and learn, and it's not worth the trouble. They don't want to be challenged. They want to be entertained.

So they dumb down everything in their life until they are living on an intellectual diet analogous to Twinkies and Oreos.

And when everyone is like that, you know who the greatest threat is? Someone who reads.

That's why they have to burn the books. The best way to hide your ignorance is to surround yourself with people as ignorant as you are.

The really scary thing about all of this is how true it is, and how much I see it around me. What's terrifying is how much I see it in myself. There are days and sometimes weeks when all I ask of the world is to distract me enough so I don't have to think. Maybe it's not so bad once in a while. But on a regular basis? Well, then, it seems to me like I have a choice between burning my ignorance or burning my chance at becoming better.

Either way, there is going to be fire. I just have to choose where to direct it.

So yes, I did give up on reading a book at the same time in which I was essentially living its main conflict. Irony gets you every time. In the end, though, I'm not sure if Teenage Cecily would have benefited as much from the ideas in Fahrenheit 451 as much as I (Present Cecily) did. I think that as an adult, when it is a lot easier to hide my ignorance if I so choose, it is all the more important for me to remember the danger of intellectual laziness.

Of course, I have seven more classics to read, so my brain doesn't really have time for loafing.


Regards, best wishes, and the courage to be ignorant,

-Cecily Jane

God, Young Cecily, and the Art of Listening

My Dear Reader,

I often wonder how amusing my relationship with God is to my friends who don't believe in Him. It must be strange to hear me talk about God the way I talk about other people who also happen to exist. But I've known since I was very young that God is real, and that when I talk to Him, He listens. And sometimes, He answers.

And I think that something that proves God's existence above all else is how little He does what I expect Him to do.

For example, I'm pretty sure that if my sixteen-year-old self could see me now, she would ask me three questions:

1. Did you get into BYU?
2. Did you go on a mission to Australia?
3. Are you married?

And it kind of hurts to realize that at the age of twenty-six, I've only taken care of one of my three biggest life goals. I doubt that showing her a copy of my diploma would soothe her great disappointment in me.

I probably spend too much time thinking about the conversation we would have on the subject. I'm not sure how I would help her understand why I chose to serve missionaries food instead of becoming one myself, and why I didn't find a suitable Mormon mate while attending a university that had around fifteen thousand to choose from. And the more that I think about it, the more I know I would have to tell her that it's just not what God wanted me to do.

And I'd have to tell her all about the thousands of conversations that God and I have had in the past ten years, and how most of them didn't go the way I wanted them to.

Because if I'm honest, I'd have to say that most of the time I don't really want to know what God has to say as much as I just want God to pat me on the back and tell me that I'm pretty smart.

And when I do get answers, they are usually not the kind I want to hear. God, I have learned, does not bother with people-pleasing or patronizing. He just tells you the truth, even when it hurts.

I could tell my sixteen-year-old self about the way I pleaded with the Lord to let me serve Him by giving up everything and becoming a full-time missionary. I could express to her how I had such a great desire that even though I didn't get an answer right away, I started preparing for it. But eventually, I'd have to tell her that even though I took a missionary prep class, even though I had three returned missionaries as roommates, and even though I was working at the Missionary Training Center, and even after asking every night for over a year, I still didn't have an answer.

At that point in my life, I was so spiritually exhausted that I stopped caring, not about going on a mission, but about being right. Instead of telling God that I was going on a mission and asking for His stamp of approval, I actually started asking Him what He wanted me to do, and I actually started listening. I opened myself up to receive whatever it was God had to tell me.

And I got a clear and concise answer: NO.

So I didn't go. So I spent the next six months helping the missionary effort the best way I could, by keeping my job at the MTC and feeding the people who were doing what I couldn't. But then I would have to make my sixteen-year-old self understand that after a few months of full-time dishwashing, I stopped wondering why I wasn't good enough, and started to accept that there was a different way for me to go than the way I'd always planned. Then I had to convince my parents, which presented its own challenges.

Sometimes, no matter what choices you've made, it's a struggle just to not feel like a failure.

And then, when my sixteen-year-old self is satisfied with that, and asks me why I'm single, and why I stay in an environment where the eligible bachelors apparently find me repulsive, I think that answer would be a little harder to give. All I can really tell her is that whenever I tell God I'm fed up with it and all I want to do is leave, He is very clear that I'm supposed to stay put. And I really don't have any idea why, really. I try not to see this whole thing as a punishment for something that sixteen-year-old did. I try not to see my life as a giant waiting room. I try to remind myself that when I was standing at the mouth of Hell, God was the one who pulled me out. I try to remind myself that God has earned my trust a thousand times over, and that trust requires patience.

Because He usually doesn't answer my prayers right away. Not specifically. Mostly, as I pray, I feel the calm reassurance that I am loved. But when I ask Him what to do, or where to go, or if it's okay for me to just give up, it usually takes a while for me to get a straight answer from Him. Sometimes, it literally takes years. And sometimes it takes years because I've forgotten to listen, and I've forgotten that the shortest path to truth is accepting the possibility that I could be wrong.

I wonder how many times I'll have to re-learn that.

And as much as that young me would be disappointed in the person I now am, I would like to hope that I could move past that and tell her that everything in her life is going to work out. I wish I could tell her that the years she has in front of her are going to be hard, and that even though she is already well-acquainted with darkness and pain, things are about to get a whole lot worse. But then, I'd tell her, things are going to work out. Because I know that she will find a strength in herself that she never knew she had. She will fall into the bottom of a pit and manage to climb her way out again. She will find a spark of hope inside a windstorm of despair and manage to keep it burning. And she will do it using the power she will find in prayer. She will do it because she will become desperate enough to listen to God and trust Him. And together, both she and God will get through the next ten years. And she will be much, much better for the sorrow and pain. She will be better than she ever thought she could be.

And really, I would explain to her, that's worth a lot more than a name tag or a wedding ring. Those things can always come later, but her next ten years need to be focused on something else.

But I would tell her that above all, she needs to keep asking and listening. She needs to keep striving for something better and purer. She just needs to keep moving forward, and she'll come out ahead.

And then, after I've imagined this whole fictional conversation with the person I was in the past, I try to picture a conversation with the people I will be in the future. What would my thirty-six-, forty-six-, and fifty-six-year-old selves say? Would they say the same thing? Would they tell me to keep asking, listening, and fighting? Would they tell me that everything's going to be okay? Would they have found a better way to overcome the challenges I face? Are they any better at getting direction and finding purpose? Because as far as I've come, I've got a long, long way to go. There is such a distance between the person I am and the person I want to be that I honestly scares me. Sometimes I'm a little more than certain that I'm never going to make it.

But then, I know a sixteen-year-old who never thought she'd make it, and look how she turned out.

And look at all the things she's learned, and all the skills she's developed, and all of the strength she's gained. Look at the power she gets from the sure knowledge that God is real and on her side.

Maybe the future isn't so bleak after all.

So, you know, we'll see.

Regards, best wishes, and the will to ask, listen, and fight,

-Cecily Jane