Good Men Are For Good Women But… By Tawfiqah Billyhadiat

 

There’s a quiet promise many conservative girls grow up believing, even if no one ever says it out loud.

That if you cover yourself, carry yourself with modesty, and perform religious womanhood well enough, the world will respond in kind. That your visible piety will filter the kind of attention you receive. That you will only be wanted by men who are good. And somehow, through your modesty, you’ll signal to the universe that you’re not like “those other girls.”

However, what’s often left unsaid is that your predators know this too.

They learn the language. They know the signs. They say things like, “It’s because you’re modest that I’m drawn to you. I’d never go near girls who dress/ look/ act / think like that.” And so, you start to believe them. You think: if I am good and he is drawn to me, then he must be good too. You think you’ve been chosen because of your light.

I mean, it’s comforting to believe that modesty protects you from being sexualized, objectified, or harmed. That harm only finds those who are visible. That invisibility equals safety. That the more covered you are, the more protected you become. That your hijab is a shield, not just of faith, but from the violence of the world. That the “right” kind of man will see your soul first, and that alone will be enough.

But harm doesn’t always ask what you’re wearing. It doesn’t check your piety. It doesn’t discriminate.

That’s the dissonance many modest girls eventually face, not because modesty itself is flawed, but because the fantasy built around it is. The idea that your appearance alone can shape your destiny. That good things only happen to good women. That you can trust someone simply because they reflect your lifestyle or beliefs.

But not all rapists are at clubs. Not all wife-beaters look violent.
They don’t always look like danger. They know how to dress the part, how to speak the words, how to disarm you. And perhaps most terrifying of all—not all of them are pretending.

That’s why over romanticizing outward religiosity is dangerous. When we assume that a pious exterior guarantees safety, we leave ourselves wide open.
We struggle to imagine that harm could come from someone who physically validates our choices.
And that denial creates gaps, huge gaps that predators step into.

It’s why I hate the tired trope of “Oh , women be modest so you don’t attract bad men”
And the bad men in this context are probably men who drink, smoke and party . But they are not necessarily bad people. They just don’t physically validate / conform to our beliefs.
And it’s even scary how when we think of bad, that’s the context we think of as bad, makes me wonder what our idea of a good man is. Thobes and beard?

Or the cliche trope “Oh, if you want a pious man, know he won’t celebrate your birthdays”
Are you joking?

But then, modesty saves.
By all means, stay safe, be modest, but as you wear your Hijab and live modestly, you should also build internal tools. Learn discernment. Learn how to say no. Learn how to recognize manipulation even when it ticks your ideological boxes. Build a little sharpness, a little resistance, a liru sprinkle of weyrey. Because being conservative doesn’t mean you’ll only be wanted for the right reasons. And being visibly modest does not make you immune to harm.

The world is changing, the scope of harm is changing, and so are its victims too.

There’s even a specific kind of danger that modest girls are more vulnerable to—the kind where abusive men avoid women who don’t look like you, because they have ‘tear eyes’ and they come for girls like you, modest, shy, and stereotyped to be easily impressed and unsuspecting.

Harm no longer fits a predictable pattern. There is no single “type” of girl who gets targeted.
For example, when you read news about girls who got mirdered for ritual, you realize some were lured during one-night stands. Some were deceived with fake job offers. And some were just walking home from school, never imagining that they’ll be next. Some were the kind of girls who would never, ever exchange sex for money. And yet, they still fell victim.

We are all vulnerable, but just in different ways.

Being modest won’t make you invincible. And believing “it could never be me” is the very thing that makes it you.

Because by the time it starts to become you, you in all of your glory might be feeling untouched by something already in your circle, or you might not even know how to name it. You’ll hesitate. You’ll question your instincts. And You’ll wonder if your pain still counts when it doesn’t match what you were taught it would look like.

And that’s the real danger. Not just the harm itself but how unrecognizable it becomes when it wears a face you thought was safe.

Tawfiqah Billyhadiat writes on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Tawfiqah.Billy

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