How does gender relate to morality and modesty? HT to Stacy McDonald, who shares these quotes from this long series to whet our appetites:
“The reason men in our culture are becoming less gentlemanly towards ladies is not simply because there has been a general erosion in manners and basic decency, though of course that has been a contributing factor and is something I have explored in Appendix C of my book The Decent Drapery of Life. But it is also because of a subtle shift in worldview of which most people are not even aware.
“Chivalrous behavior, like modesty, presupposes certain things about our humanity. It assumes, for example, that women ought to be treated in a special way because they are women, just as feminine modesty proclaims that women ought to dress in a certain way because they are women. When a man embraces his calling to look after and protect women, or when a woman embraces her obligation to dress modestly, they are both proclaiming that there is a fundamental difference between the sexes. These very differences are what the Enlightenment began to undermine.” – Part 4 The Gender Benders
Part 1 from “Robin’s Readings”.
Few people know about the sexual revolution that occurred in Europe during the mid 18th century, but it is crucial for understanding the subsequent contour that gender has taken in the modern West ever since. At the risk of gross oversimplification, there were three main ideas of the 18th century Enlightenment that played out in how people began thinking of gender, morality and modesty. They were
1) Materialism
2) Materialistic Determinism
3) Nature
Read the entire six parts here:
Gender, Morality and Modesty Part 1 (Reducing the Human)
Gender, Morality and Modesty Part 2 (Utilitarian Ethics)
Gender, Morality and Modesty Part 3 (Ideas Have Consequences)
Gender, Morality and Modesty Part 4 (The Gender Benders)
Gender, Morality and Modesty Part 5 (The Disenchanting of Sex)
Gender, Morality and Modesty Part 6 (Liberated into Bondage)
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