A Return to Modesty: Discovering the Lost Virtue - Softcover

Maggie Gallagher New York Post [An] important book that every thinking young woman (and her mother) should read. Suzanne Fields The Washington Times [An] earnest and serious book....A fascinating subject [brought] to our attention in a fresh way. Katie Roiphe Harper's Bazaar Intriguing...[Shalit] writes about...how not going through with something can leave a deeper imprint on your imagination than going through with it, and how we have lost the playfulness and mystery of old-fashioned courtship. Norah Vincent Salon The first book of its kind...to blaze down the center of the postfeminist battleground between left and right. Shari Roan Los Angeles Times The book of the moment...makes a compelling case for the idea that the sexual revolution hasn't been entirely good for either women or men...Social workers, health professionals and others who bemoan the loss of "boundaries" in the lives of troubled girls will find a hopeful message in the book. Emily Eakin The New York Times Book Review A Return to Modesty provides one invaluable service. There is a growing body of scholarly research on young adulthood that may, in the aftermath of Shalit's booming polemic, be more difficult to ignore. Ruth R. Wisse The Wall Street Journal Ms. Shalit marshals impressive evidence from philosophers as well as the tabloids to make her case for a return to modesty -- as both a sexual ideal and a strategy for greater pleasure...[a] serious yet bouncy study. Tamala M. Edwards Time Her book has touched a nerve in a society overdosed on sex...Shalit defends...compellingly, shame, privacy, gallantry, and sexual reticence. Florence King National Review A Return to Modesty is...so uncompromising in voice and stance that one is tempted to think of its author as Simone de Shalit or Wendy Wollstonecraft, but make no mistake: she imitates nothing and no one...Every page of this book [is] wise, fresh, and funny, sparkling with her special brand of astringent charm. George F. Will Newsweek [Shalit is] a prodigy at cracking the codes of culture....A Return to Modesty is a call for women to wield their potential power to transform society.

At the same time that young women today enjoy the right to unparalleled opportunities, Wendy Shalit argues, there has been a marked increase in sexual harrassment and date-rape. With sex education beginning at school and sexual promisicuity encouraged in the media and at college, it has become almost impossible for a young woman to say 'no' to sex. Those who do are labelled 'repressed' and their desire for romantic love is ridiculed. Is it any wonder that young women today suffer from anorexia, bulimia, and other disorders? In A RETURN TO MODESTY Shalit explores the philosophical debate over modesty and knocks down the accompanying myths one by one. Female modesty is not about a 'sexual double standard', as is often thought, but is related to male virtue and honour. Modesty is not a social construct, but a natural response. And modesty is not prudery, but a way to preserve a sense of the erotic in our lives. By asserting their right to take intimacy seriously, girls can find the happiness they would otherwise be denied in a culture that has discarded the idea of feminine virtue.