Does modest dress overcome self-esteem and body confidence issues?
As a Muslim who has worn a headscarf for roughly a decade, I like to believe that one of the functions of the hijab is to raise one’s self esteem. That is to detract focus from the physical beauty and concentrate on the individual’s character and virtue as the basis of connecting with people. It seems to follow that if one wears the veil that covers their body they will be less inclined to compare themselves to others as who sees those stomach rolls or A cups. But I am reminded of what my mum used to say when my mum disliked my uncoordinated undergarments “Who will know?” “I will and you will”. Which leads me to believe that it is not simply what the outside world can see that can affect body confidence but the individual relationship you have with yourself once you have seen a beauty standard and gone home to remove your Abaya and stare at yourself in the mirror. Perhaps if the universal dress code was modesty of some description: men and women all wear loose fitted clothing as prescribed in the Quran.
Will we still face the societal problems we do now?
Again, I believe in my religion because I believe the prescriptions remain relevant for our time and part of me believes that the recommendation for Muslims to dress modestly circumvents the dire consequences body confidence issues such as 1.25 million people in the UK struggling with an Eating Disorder. Firstly, I recognise this is a gross oversimplification of the causes of Eating Disorders but I make the point to impact that possible consequences of making comparisons to idealised beauty standards can be mental health illnesses and that it is possible that Islam makes rules with these potential circumstances in mind. But I feel this is dressing up the problem so to speak as covering up does not prevent, as I mentioned earlier, the practices of body shaming in private. Covering up just means that other people cannot scrutinise you in the way or differently to the way you scrutinise yourself. But if everyone covered up, we wouldn’t have body types to compare ourselves to, even in private?
Once again this is an oversimplification of why we struggle with body image at times. I also believe that the essential component in feelings of dissatisfaction is comparison in general not necessarily who we are compared to. This is because as humans we defer to others above us as a metric of success. Beauty standards change over time indicating that the object of that comparison e.g. another body type is not the main issue but the comparison being made in the first place. In the world where we are all modestly dressed, I feel that we would find other objects to compare ourselves to and attach significance to that can result in our feeling of low self-worth. For example, we may compare the type of veil, our form in the abaya or the amount of diamonds on our hijab. I heard a youtuber say comparison is the thief of joy and as difficult as it is to avoid this, I feel that that is what we are dealing with fundamentally when we are discussing self esteem and body confidence. And what the example of the veiled world indicates is that self-esteem intersects in a lot of different ways, if we aren’t comparing the size of our waist, it is the fabric of our veil intersecting with class differences that effect the aim of the veil as a means of modesty.
I also feel that modesty in general when taken to the extreme can be worse for self-esteem as it leads to self-effacing individuals who second guess their behaviour so as to not come across as over confident. These individuals are better liked but also have been found to be less competent than self-enhancing individuals. This is not to say that physical modesty such as the veil vitiates self-confidence, if anything I believe it takes a lot of confidence to walk on the streets completely covered and a lot of self-belief that your character will supervene on your appearance in a world where first impressions are everything. But the main argument here is the desire to be modest when taken to the extreme can have the detrimental impacts on self-esteem that I hope being modest would help us avoid. But covered or not we must cultivate a culture whereby we empower each other and work together to undo the schema so many of us have developed regarding how we look.
