Once again seeing posts about radfems only criticize hijabs and not any other religions’ forced modesty like okay lol, this is my time to shine, I have such a bone to pick with Christianity. I had to veil in a Catholic Church to attend my aunt’s wedding. There was a little pamphlet explaining that veiling was a mark of respect towards women, since they were the vessels of life, and compared it to the veiling of the chalice used for the eucharist. My aunt was told by the priest that she better hurry up and start having kids before her womb shriveled up, haha. (She was in her late thirties and desperately wanted kids). I tore off my veil as soon as I got outside and refused to put it back on until my mom made go back inside for the pictures. I was an angry teen girl, and I was made angrier that I would go home in a few days, and have to face more modesty restrictions at my school and in my town. Now, we didn’t have to cover our heads, but shoulders and knees were verboten, and we would make fun of another school where girls had to wear ankle length skirts, because that school was “too strict”. We at least got to wear pants. I remember when my best friend, who had gone through puberty a little bit earlier than rest of us, was pulled aside by a teacher and told in no uncertain terms that she was showing too much cleavage and that she had to go and change. We were in middle school, and she was wearing the same simple crew neck shirts as the rest of us. She cried in the bathroom, and for years afterwards, she would always wear a camisole underneath all her shirts. I just gave up and wore nothing but long pants and skirts so I don’t have to endure the humiliation of having my shorts or skirts measured. I wore jackets all the time, so I wouldn’t have my shirts’ necklines scrutinized. We had similar rules in regards to our sportswear, certain length skirts and shorts, no bellies showing, and no wearing just a sports bra ever. This was particular issues with the girls tennis team, as we started training in late august in the American south, and would get so hot we wanted to strip off our shirts and pour cold water over ourselves. One girl did this, and brought out the school’s principle to yell at us about disrespecting the game, ourselves, and the school. Her shirt went back on. This was really irritating as the boys track team trained at the same time, and not only did the boys run shirtless, they wore the tiniest shorts that left nothing to the imagination. And they were never told off for being immodest. One year, the girls swim team had to take their yearbook photo in their school uniforms instead of their racing one pieces because it was too immodest. The boys team was photographed in their speedos and swim caps.

Maybe it’s because I grew up in the Bible Belt, but I am always hundred percent ready to levy any criticisms at Christianity’s modesty standard. We just didn’t cover our hair, but that doesn’t mean we weren’t still policed with same accusations of “slut” and “whore” when we stepped out of line. I was lucky, in that my parents didn’t particularly care what I wore as long I was neat and clean, but I knew girls whose parents would check over their clothes to make sure that they were modest enough before they went out the door.

I still struggle with wearing certain kinds of clothes. It’s summer right now and I’m wearing jeans, as I never show my legs unless I can help it, lol. The amount of times I skipped out of swimming bc I didn’t want to wear a bathing suite in front of people fills me with regret. My sister struggles from the same issues, and we didn’t even come from a religious family, this is just the attitude our town and region had towards women and girls’ bodies. I think head coverings and face veils are easy to point out, as the face and head are such important parts of human interaction, but modesty standards on general are terrible and should be critised regardless of religion, and I don’t think radfems pull any punches when it comes to Christianity lol.

There are some good books about American Christian modesty and purity culture that helped me to move forward, and well as making me extremely grateful to my relaxed and loving parents, especially my strong and independent mother who did her best to combat what the rest of the world was teaching us. “Pure: Inside the Evangelical Movement that Shamed a Generation of Young Women and How I Broke Free” by Linda Kay Klein is heartbreaking personal account of the American evangical purity movement, and I really recommend it to anyone who has been or is going through something similar. “The Purity Myth” by Jessica Valenti discusses how American culture deals with the concept of female virginity, and it’s consequences, and highlights a lot of the religious aspects involved therein. “I Fired God” by is Jocelyn Zichterman is the author’s personal memoirs of her life in and escape from a fundamentalist Baptist cult and it does touch on modesty standards and the consequences. And finally, there’s a book that I think every American radfem should read, which is “Quiverfull: Inside the Christian Patriarchy Movement” by Kathryn Joyce, which is a harrowing documentation of far right Christianity in the US and the wider world. It’s a tad bit outdated, as some of the major figures discussed, like Doug Phillips of Vision Forum, have fallen in scandal and disgrace, but it’s really important to read, especially in light of how politics in the US are moving against women right now.

When I read articles and such about gender critical trans people they're always compared to antifeminist women or racist people of color. What do you think? Do you ever feel that you're going against your own rights?

This is an interesting question.so get ready for a long ass answer.

I don’t consider myself a feminist but I also don’t consider myself an anti-feminist. I don’t consider myself a feminist mostly because I don’t like current mainstream feminism. This is something I agree with radical feminists on quite a bit. I find liberal feminism (which is the dominant voice of feminism) to be irrational, illogical, delusional, and harmful in some cases. I identified as a feminist up until around 2015. So it’s just fairly recently I dropped the label. But, I don’t call myself anti-feminist because to me an anti would be someone actively working to dismantle something. Like anti-porn radfems work with the end goal of ending pornography. I don’t aim to end feminism. I just like to debate the bad ideas I see form from it.

That being said, I don’t see myself as going against my rights. Feminism is more than just a philosophy, it’s an academic lens and a political movement. But, I assume you already know this. While I do not identify it with it as a movement, I can still appreciate and support the philosophy and academia of it. I’ve written papers from the feminist lens that I’ve really loved. I still see value in analyzing certain things through asking how it affects women.

I support many of the laws feminism has put in place and I appreciate it deeply. I think though, that we’re at a point societally where we can and need to start asking questions about how things affect both genders and how it affects men. I think a lot of the still standing oppression today comes as an effect of men being oppressed on some level. Things like a lack of paternity leave and child custody rates being heavily sided towards women create an atmosphere in which child rearing is still seen as “women’s work.” Women are still forced in this role because men societally cannot choose to take this role. If we made it easier for men to raise children and made it more socially acceptable, we will almost definitely see an increase of equality for women. But, this view is not entertained or approached by feminism. Feminism both refuses and cannot view things from how a man might be negatively effected and this genuinely stops the growth of equality and conversation.

I support feminism for everything it has done but I feel it’s nearing the end of its course. There is still a ton more to do for equal right but I don’t think feminism (especially liberal feminism) is the way to achieve it. I don’t think we roll back on rights, we keep going forward. The great thing is I can pick and choose what I support from feminism and use them in my own personal philosophy or even construct a new philosophy off of it. It’s like Judaism. I was raised Jewish but I don’t support it now. I have picked and chosen some of what I like from the religion. Like I still appose murder and theft but now I no longer thank god for making me a man. (That’s a real Jewish prayer by the way. Men thank god for making them male and Women basically thank god for existing. It’s horribly sexist and one of the things that made me hate the religion when I left it.) Feminism has a lot of equality rhetoric that I support but a lot I think is inapplicable or harmful. Like I push for better and more fair rape laws but I don’t preach intersectionality. I create my own philosophy based off my understanding of the teachings. And it’s more than just what I like and what I don’t. It’s mostly what I find applicable and accurate and what I don’t.

tl;dr No, I don’t feel I am going against my rights. I feel I am fighting for similar things in a different way. I support my rights and freedoms and I support the growing rights and freedoms for both men and women. I feel feminism is failing so I continue to fight for right where it cannot or will not.

I hope this answered your question. If not, send me another ask and I can clarify on anything you need.