As a first-year seminary student, I was inspired by covered Muslim women. They said the hijab made them free. I designed an experiment: for nine months, I covered my hair, arms and legs and stopped wearing makeup. The result changed the way I viewed beauty, power, and faith.

I summarized the Modesty Experiment in Salon. It launched my career. The Beauty Suit (Beacon Press), the book that was born from that piece, is about my nine month modesty experiment and the limits of Kardashian-esque hotness as "empowerment." (Hint: it's just capitalism, rebranded to look like feminism.)

Find it on Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and IndieBound.

Some of my shorter pieces:

• Salon, Dressing Modestly, for Feminism and Faith

• Medium, Dear Fellow White People: Go See Black Panther

• Feminist Current, The Internet, Self-Objectification, and Untimely Beginnings

• Emory Business, From Bean to Cup: Goizueta Balances the Scale of Financial Equity for Female Coffee Farmers

Articles:

• Yahoo, Young Woman Covers Hair, Arms and Legs... for Feminism

• The New York Times, Piling on Clothes to Lay Herself Bare

• Beacon Broadside, My Closet Tried to Hold Me Hostage But We’re Cool Now: What Lauren Shields’ “The Beauty Suit” Taught Me About Different Kinds of ‘Modesty’

• Brown Girl Magazine, ‘I Cover My Hair—and I’m a Feminist’: An Interview with Author Lauren Shields

• "Sunday Morning: 'Lauren Shields: A Nine-Month Experiment in Modesty,'" a great live interview with RNZ (Radio New Zealand)'s Jim Mora

• The Beauty Suit on MeaningofLife.tv

• Voices, a podcast about progressive faith

• Makin It Through Comedy: A podcast from Stanford's KZSU 90.1FM, on what it's like to be a working comedian in the Bay Area