India - Reasons why assuming real women dont expose is bull 31.10.2013

5 reasons why assuming real women don’t expose is bull

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If women should not expose because society has laid some norms because norms are necessary for civilisation, then why are these norms prejudicial to women?

“Real women don’t expose” is how the rest of the statement goes. A “moral” upright individual will tell you how women become victims to Western hegemony when they wear revealing clothes and how that is un-Indian or not truly beautiful.

Victim blaming begins somewhere and a large part of the “asking for it” debate starts here. The idea that wearing “provocative clothes” is unsafe even if one does not deserve to get raped for it, also, shows how somewhere or the other we have accepted that we have to dress according to others’ rules. In the Indian context especially, one tends to sentimentalize the qualities of a woman because the Indian woman is defined in contrast to the Western woman and clothes become a major part of that formation.

Let us explore five reasons how this can be negated:

1. Biology

If one had to accept societal norms in its face value, what if we were to reverse this part for a moment to a statement like, real men don’t expose. Why isn’t this the norm? Why is this the more natural one or the less problematic one? What lines create the division that separate men and women in their actions and behaviour? And what is the basis of those lines? If we say that it is okay for men to “expose” because they don’t really have anything to expose are we saying that breasts imply the need to cover up? Should women not expose because biologically they are different from men? But that essentially makes no sense.

2. Social norms

If we are saying that women should not expose because society has laid some norms because norms are necessary for civilisation, then my question is why are those norms prejudicial to women? If we imply that a woman should be covered because she carries the honour of the family or community, we think we are just praising them. This misplaced honour is selfish and self-created. And it is created by the man for himself.

The honour is not hers but as a physical, displaced projection of his. It is a displaced site for his honour that can be hurt, mutilated and removed to injure his honour separately because it exists for him. It is conveniently not located in him and the punishment that her body suffers is considered his, “he feels the pain”, feeling. We have created or at least adhered to bogus abstracts that are unfair to women, so when we think we are being their champion, we should actually question our whole ideology.

3. Being beautiful

By ‘real women don’t expose’ one implies that the higher beings, the true class of women on earth are the ones who cover themselves if not fully then at least the most strategic parts. Wait, aren’t women supposed to be beautiful no matter what they wear? Or does the line have an invisible, understood half that goes something like ‘as long as they wear something or rather a lot’? Shouldn’t it rather be ‘you are beautiful no matter what you wear or how much you wear’?

4. Loving your body

One thing one that is clearly implied is that any woman who wears less clothing (amount wise) obviously seeks attention and when that attention goes the wrong way then the woman is responsible, at least partly. Could a woman not dress a certain way because she likes it that way? Is that too simple an explanation? Isn’t it healthy to love your body and doesn’t it exude confidence if you can? Weather conditions govern all human beings but here again who’s partial to men? Only men feel the true heat and unreal women, of course. That’s why women aren’t overwhelmed to rape half-clothed rickshaw pullers or other half-naked or even fully naked men, but men, they are different creatures altogether. Women shouldn’t expose. Men can expose. But men shouldn’t rape. But if a man rapes an unreal woman, the woman should also know that she was wrong for exposing.

5. Being a person, not just a body

In popular media, especially advertising, skin show becomes a major factor for the marketing of the product. Women are the objects on sale through the consumptive male gaze of the consumer (and even women tend to buy products through the male gaze because they look at themselves as men would see them). While this is blatant objectification of women, the exposure is not a choice of the individual or even if it is being willingly done, the consumerism of the age has left no option that women might think otherwise. While, patriarchy would insist more covering because the woman’s body is a respectable site of honour, consumerism feeds on the images of women by treating them as commodities. Both ways, hence, put the emphasis on the body than on the person-hood. We should see a woman as a person and more importantly, a woman should see herself as a person and not a body.