Although modesty culture manifests itself in different ways in different parts of the world, in all cases it inflicts great harm on immodest and modest women alike. By breaking the cult of female modesty we have the power to solve a whole host of problems that plague women’s lives, from virginity testing, female genital mutilation, honour killings and child marriage to revenge porn, unwanted pregnancy and the late diagnosis of serious medical conditions.

Below I set out my manifesto for change:

1. Accept the inseparability of the body and the brain

Every brain is housed in a body, and every body is home to a brain. This means that you cannot have freedom of the mind without also having freedom of the body. A woman’s ability to make the best use of her mind in turn relies on her right to go out into the world, to explore, to attend school, to work, and - should she wish - to control her fertility. These are all things that the cult of female modesty restricts, with a view that a woman’s bodily modesty is more important than anything else.

As Judith Butler once wrote, “[t]here is no writing without the body”. That’s something that is all too often conveniently forgotten in a society which places the brain on a pedestal and looks down on those who are instead seen to make a living from their body. Women are made to feel that the respect they earn based on what they do with their brain is conditional on keeping their body under wraps; that if people see too much of their body, they will assume that they are “just a body”. Until we stop dividing women up into bodies and brains, and stop seeing our own bodies and brains as at odds with one another, there is a limit to what feminism can achieve. 

In the words of the artist Carolee Schneemann “I am not showing my naked body; I am being my body”.

2. Reject the demonisation of the female body

Human society first began to ‘cover up’ in response to a changing climate, so that we could protect ourselves from increasingly cold and wet weather. Before then, there was no such thing as ‘nakedness’, and women’s bodies were celebrated rather than derided. It wasn’t the act of removing clothes that first made us ‘naked’, it was instead the act of wearing them. The demonisation of the female body is not, therefore, natural; it developed as a means to strip women of power, confidence and freedom. 

Conveniently for men, women’s bodies came to be seen as the source of sin - as the cause of male misbehaviour, and as the origin of wars and natural disasters. As a result, for centuries women have been told that they must cover up in order to command respect. Even feminists pour scorn on immodest women, holding them responsible for women being treated like ‘sex objects’, mistakenly believing that the solution to sexism is to eradicate immodest women; that women, not men, need to change. But, the reality is that women are treated with no more respect in countries where they are more modest; similarly, they were treated with no greater respect in the buttoned-up age of Queen Victoria. It is the cult of female modesty - not female flesh - that causes the greatest disservice to womankind.

3. Don’t judge a woman on what she does or doesn’t wear

As I’ve seen for myself, modest and immodest women alike are perfectly capable of recognising the value in one another: they can respect each other irrespective of their state of dress or their sexual history. It is time for everyone else to do likewise. 

While we are frequently told that we shouldn’t judge a book by its cover, we commonly make assumptions about women based on their state of dress. When I stripped down to my birthday suit, I was called “trashy”, a “whore”, and a “stupid idiot”. People told me that I must have slept my way to my various degrees, the implicit assumption being that a woman who reveals her body must be incapable of any form of intelligence. Every woman is both a body and a brain, and we shouldn’t be dividing them up based on something as superficial as their state of dress.

4. Equality for all women, from rocket scientists to sex workers

All women deserve the same rights and respect. At present, women who are perceived to be monetising their bodies face a legal system that deprives them of the same rights and protections offered to other workers. In some countries, they are hunted down by the police, facing regular fines and prison sentences, and even risk losing their homes and their children. Depriving women of rights and protections doesn’t help them - it hurts them. 

5. Bodily autonomy for all women

From female genital mutilation to the denial of abortion rights and the implementation of burqa bans, women’s bodies often feel like they are not their own. The United Nations estimate that only a half of woman and adolescent girls ‘can make their own decisions’ when it comes to  ‘bodily autonomy and integrity’. While the constraints on women’s bodily freedoms vary across time and place, no society has yet reached the point at which women have complete ownership over their own bodies. This needs to change.

6. Embrace ‘my body, my choice’  

Feminism must support the right of every woman to do what she wants with her own body, whether or not any of us, including the self-proclaimed feminist elite, agree with her choice. Whether a woman wants to cover her face, or to appear in a glamour shoot, that should be her choice. ‘My body, my choice’, in the broadest sense of the term, needs to replace the whore-phobia that has for too long been at the heart of feminism. And, unlike in the past, it must not be applied solely to the issues of interest to women with intellectual and political power, but to all issues and to all women.

7. A feminism that welcomes all women

Feminism must be a broad church; all women should - and must - be welcome. Sadly, a powerful and influential vein of modern-day feminism increasingly appears like a group of ‘clever’ women, who reveal and monetise their brains, ganging up to obstruct and marginalise those who do the same with their bodies. It is unfair, elitist and hypocritical. If feminism is to achieve its goals, it must welcome all women.