Thank you all for your many, many thoughtful comments.
There is an underlying assumption on her part that plumage, adornment is "bad" and outer modesty is "good." It's also the unfair assumption that a well-dressed woman is high maintenance. Sometimes this may be true. However, I have learned it is equally true that a poorly dressed woman can be high maintenance -- I see it all the time as a server.
The author's defensive reply to the comments on Salon is interesting, I copy-pasted it below:
Lauren Shields:
Thank you all so much for commenting!
I haven't read all the comments-- some of you guys are downright nasty, and most of you who are seem almost not to have read the article at all, so go ahead and hurl insults at some stranger-- but the one point I do want to address is the whole, "Why is this such a big deal?" thing.
EXACTLY. Why IS it such a big deal when a woman changes her appearance because she's tired of trying to look how her culture tells her she should look? Why do so many people on the internet feel so strongly about one young woman's desire not to be looked at as much for nine months? I mean really, this project was just about ME trying to wean MYSELF off of my dependence on my appearance, and instead the discussion has become one of whether or not I'm just trying to get attention, or a book deal, or whatever.
Here's the truth: YES, I WANT A BOOK DEAL. I THINK THIS PROJECT CAN HELP PEOPLE, AND I JUST FINISHED GRAD SCHOOL AND HAVE LOADS OF STUDENT DEBT. Being "different" doesn't put food on the table. So yeah-- book deal please. But really, if I just wanted attention I would have gone on Girls Gone Wild, or some talk show about Badly Behaved People Who Hate Each Other.
I think the real issue is this: in the West, we equate feminine liberation with exposure of our bodies. We get real pissed off when a woman says, "You do NOT have the right to see my legs, or my hair, and you do NOT have the right to tell me to wear more or less makeup. Those are personal choices, and you have no right to critique them one way or another." Now, my project is related to my appearance of course, but the point is what I DID to try and get out from under the idea that I had to adhere to "mainstream" beauty standards to be taken seriously, not how I looked while I was doing it.
Thank you all for engaging in thoughtful commentary, and for those of you who have not but have left comments anyway, I say... thanks for visting.
End Quote
This part says it all: "Why do so many people on the internet feel so strongly about one young woman's desire not to be looked at as much for nine months?"
This is all about an attractive woman who decides for 9 months to be less attractive, to ward off all of the unwelcome attention she was used to receiving. And as MaryK says, guess what, she finds out, she's still beautiful! If you are not used to getting so much attention from the get-go, that is like a modesty project you live with your entire life.
Which reminds me of how stunning actresses, who put on weight, go without make up, and use prothsestics to make themselves less attractive -- win Oscars for it. (Charlize Theron in Monster, Nicole Kidman in The Hours.) Why do we need to celebrate the strength of an attractive woman to become less attractive, like it's worth a special prize?