My Home in Israel

I’ve been tagged by A Mother in Israel with the meme about "Tzniut."

 Here are her questions, and my answers

1. For married women, do you dress by the same standards as you did when you got married?
• Not in the least bit…although we were Orthodox, I wore pants and didn’t cover my hair.  The pants went away after a year studying at Pardes. (Pardes is responsible, but in a very non-coercive way). Note: If doing an activity that would be best done in pants, I will–although other than cleaning around the house, I haven’t.
2. Also for married women, do you and your husband conflict about this issue?
• When I wasn’t covering my hair, I knew that he would prefer that I did, but he never pushed the issue–and now that I do but cut it short, sometimes I think he would rather it be long and uncovered
3. Have your standards changed from when you were growing up, and why?
• I wasn’t part of the Orthodox community, so it really isn’t relevant.
4. Do you often feel uncomfortable when you are in the company of a group keeping higher or lower standards than you?
• I think I’m finally comfortable with what and who I am.  I don’t know if it is really the haircovering itself, or the fact that now people can’t make assumptions about me based on my head.  I had some very bad situations before I covered my hair from people who said that why should I feel strongly about religious issue "X" if I don’t even cover my hair.  That type of comment sent me in the other direction for a very long time.
5. If you have ever suddenly changed your standard of dress, did people treat you differently or make approving/disapproving remarks?
• A few "kiruv queens" made comments about how nice my hair looks, and I had one person say "so, you are covering your hair now" (in a not-so-nice tone), but generally people have just left me alone.
6. How accepting is your community of women who "deviate" from the generally accepted mode of dress?
• The range in my community is very broad, and I don’t see any criticism of people for it
7. If you have a daughter, has tzniut become an issue yet?
• Since I started covering my hair, my 6 year old has started commenting that people who don’t cover their hair aren’t religious.  I’ve had to run through the list of our religious friends who don’t cover their hair about a zillion times.  She also seems to forget that it has been less than a year that I have been covering my hair.

Anyone that thinks that telling someone they are doing something halichicly wrong will "bring them around" I can say from experience it doesn’t work.  If someone is going to change what they do, it needs to be on their own time frame.