In conservative cultures, women are seen as prizes, while men are seen as champions.
Like a gold medal or a silver trophy that glitters on stage while being out of reach of contenders, a woman too is expected to be attractive but out of reach of men.
Men are forbidden to possess a prize until they win her after competing with other men.
The more deeply conservative the culture is, the more pronounced the distinction between men and women are.
The more pronounced the distinction between men and women are, the more intense the attraction that is felt between the sexes.
In liberal cultures, women wear as they see fit because the attractive power between the sexes in a liberal culture is just a fraction of that in the conservative culture.
In a liberal culture, even if a woman wears a bikini, she might only invite a moderate level of attraction and arouse only a medium level of competitive frenzy amongst its male population.
In a conservative culture on the other hand, even the slightest display of flesh by a woman might cause an extreme level of attraction and competitive frenzy to occur amongst its male population.
In liberal cultures, it is females that control their dress code and their dress code is tailored towards attracting the males in the culture. The males in a liberal culture are harder to attract or arouse than the males in a conservative culture, and thus the dress code in a liberal culture tends to afford a woman a great degree of leeway in order to attract a male. If a woman’s dress is considered improper in a liberal culture, it is women, not men, that decide it is improper, and the reason that women will decide a woman’s attire to be improper, is usually because her attire is too revealing that it is undermining or making “cheap” the value of female sex as a whole.
In conservative cultures on the other hand, it is males that control the dress code of women and their dress code for women is tailored towards preventing a hyper competitive frenzy to occur amongst the males in their culture. A woman’s dress will be considered improper, if too many males are too intensely attracted to her, to the point that they become hyper competitive and aggressive towards each other.
We cannot say which culture has the right view on gender or dress codes.
The liberal culture's tendency of treating the genders as more similar than disparate has its advocates but the conservative culture of seeing the genders as being more distinct than similar also has its proponents.
The view that the conservative culture sees women as inferior simply because they see women as distinct is not accurate. Conservative cultures see women as prizes, and to see something as a prize is not equal to seeing them as inferior. There are many people, whether amongst men or women, who enjoy being treated as a prize.
The view that liberal women are out of control and immoral is also inaccurate. Liberal women are conditioned to behave in a manner that is similar or equal to the behavior of men, not to behave immorally or in an out-of-control manner. If you want to judge something, you have to judge according to its intentions and outlooks, not according to your impression of its intentions and outlook. Not all women desire to spend the rest of their lives as a prize that decorates and validates a male as a champion, no matter how esteemed the position of a prize is. Some want to be champions themselves. There is nothing wrong for a woman to desire to be a champion. The desire to be a champion is a desire that is proper for the males or females of any species to have.
The problem that arises between the dress code of a conservative or liberal culture is not a zero-sum problem. One is not an evil and unnatural outlook to be eradicated, while the other is not an absolutely good and pure outlook that must be promoted and advocated. They are both outlooks that are natural to the human condition.
The problem that arises between the dress code of a conservative and a liberal culture is arising due to a lack of self-awareness, understanding and boundaries. To solve it, we just need to be more aware of our outlook and why we possess that outlook, while understanding the merit of others who have a different outlook, and set the proper boundaries between us, so that we will know how to conduct ourselves properly according to the environment that we are in.
Nehru Sathiamoorthy was a columnist at FMT, a frequent contributor to the South China Morning Post, a mathematics teacher in the Klang Valley, and a seeker of the meaning of life. So far, there are three things that he holds to be unequivocally true. The first is that the purpose of life is to pursue happiness, the second is that you cannot be happy unless you carry your fair share of the world's weight and the third is that you can never underestimate your ability to take your own side.
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