So it looks as though the ever estimable Antonia Zerbisias took exception to the feminist concept of modesty recently, linking to the patriarchy, rather than to a woman's own ability to control access to her mystery and thereby preserve her privacy and husband her feminine power. While the patriarchy's incursions into this realm are all too real, a thinking feminist may well understand why many women voluntarily follow the modesty code.

While it is a shame that Ms. Zerbisias does not appreciate things in this light, one must commend her blog for being otherwise a celebration of feminine rights, reason and good taste. Perhaps she will come around, perhaps not, but here is the comment that I left on one of her recent blog posts. I was led to her blog by the initimable Laura Kaminker of We Move To Canada, who, incidentally, and here is quite the digression- also recommended and inspired readers to watch Taxi to the Dark Side in recent months, a true and timely documentary which I felt was very important for people all over the world to seee.

In any case, this blog will be focussing much more heavily upon the burgeoning modesty movement in the weeks and months to come, as the theoretical underpinnings of this movement certainly need to be more fully fleshed out and developed.

But in any case, here is the text of my comment at Antonia's blog, which can be found by googling "Broadsides", the name of her home on the web- it is hosted by the Toronto Star.

"There is a certain element of the population that is pushing modesty, or a return to that certain glamorous age when women's validation included a right to their own mysery, insofar as such a concept counts for women's own privacy. Although this photograph* may have been an error, hat's off to those that would further this intriguing and uniquely feminist concept. Naomi Wolf has been writing about this with great alacrity recently, just in case anyone has some room for a contemporary feminist's examination of such things. As to the rest of your blog: thanks as always for the wonderful reads, Antonia."

*= note to readers: I am referring to an allegedly altered photograph criticized by the blog that was published by the NYT this week.