You're 100% right that any kind of explanation about spirituality that justifies rules imposed from without (read, men) is disingenuous. Coercion negates any possible genuine spiritual value. Because it's about women trying to find some kind of meaning within a system that is by definition oppressive. And impositions like this, even if somewhere deep down they may have once had value, are completely antithetical to spirituality.
I think that the trend towards the "tzniusdik fashionista" reflects a dual oppression, actually, not any kind of real freedom. If religious women are subject to body rules based on a male-rabbinic gaze on the female body, fashion-conscious women subject themselves to sometimes equally oppressive 'rules' about the female body based on a secular-sexual male gaze. A bikini is in some ways just as oppressive as haredi garb in summer. Same for mini-mini skirts and stilletos. Bad for our health. Just as bad as trying to swim with a skirt and shirt on. It's all limiting women's freedom of movement because of men's ideas of our sexuality.
Liberation from both these sets of eyes would mean that women look internally at their own sense of body, that women allow themselves the freedom to feel what we feel as we feel it, to dress in ways that feel and look comfortable and comforting to us. It's about setting our own rules on our own terms and not dressing or walking or behaving because others expect something from us. That is freedom.
You're 100% right that any kind of explanation about spirituality that justifies rules imposed from without (read, men) is disingenuous. Coercion negates any possible genuine spiritual value. Because it's about women trying to find some kind of meaning within a system that is by definition oppressive. And impositions like this, even if somewhere deep down they may have once had value, are completely antithetical to spirituality.
I think that the trend towards the "tzniusdik fashionista" reflects a dual oppression, actually, not any kind of real freedom. If religious women are subject to body rules based on a male-rabbinic gaze on the female body, fashion-conscious women subject themselves to sometimes equally oppressive 'rules' about the female body based on a secular-sexual male gaze. A bikini is in some ways just as oppressive as haredi garb in summer. Same for mini-mini skirts and stilletos. Bad for our health. Just as bad as trying to swim with a skirt and shirt on. It's all limiting women's freedom of movement because of men's ideas of our sexuality.
Liberation from both these sets of eyes would mean that women look internally at their own sense of body, that women allow themselves the freedom to feel what we feel as we feel it, to dress in ways that feel and look comfortable and comforting to us. It's about setting our own rules on our own terms and not dressing or walking or behaving because others expect something from us. That is freedom.
B'vracha, Elana