Trigger warning: rape, sexual assault, victim blaming
“Is it that hot outside?”; “Umm, you should cover up because the guys are getting distracted”; “Gee, that skirt! What a slut!”
Can you fantasise about living in a world where women cover up because of weather and other valid reasons? Probably not! But, let’s not accuse ourselves of it. It’s not just you or me; we all live in the same society that sexualises a woman’s body for any possible reason. For instance, the clothes she is wearing.
A Gist Of How It Started In India
Society sexualising a woman’s body for wearing revealing clothes isn’t something new, but has it always been this way? In ancient India, revealing clothes wasn’t considered vulgar or offensive. Nude bodies are worshipped in some parts of India, even today.
It all goes back to medieval India. Women avoided going out; they had to cover up their faces or heads (ghunghat, purdah) if they did go out. Women’s clothing was now associated with her family’s honour—the higher the standards, the higher the restriction on the women. A woman’s character was questioned for not living up to these expectations.
The Indian society started portraying western women negatively since they wore revealing clothes. As time passed, western outfits got more acceptable in urban India, but ghunghat and purdah (covering up faces and heads) are still practiced hard-core in rural India.
Sexist Politicians In India
Indian politicians are an enormous disappointment. Their reasons why rape happens are the worst or like Chandler Bing from F.R.I.E.N.D.S would say: “Could they BE more misogynistic?” Imagine the state of women living in a country where the people with authority pass comments like these:
An Invitation To Rape?
Women and teenage girls cover up because they feel cold? Hah! What a myth. Most of them cover up because (ahem, ahem!) they want to walk safely to their homes.
Revealing wear is considered a “risky” act by the majority. According to an “eight city survey”, 50% of urban Indian men aged 15-29 years believe that a woman in short clothes is an invitation to rape.
Their wickedly misogynistic minds constantly propose that women are raped because of their clothing. They ask: “What was she wearing?” after she is raped and murdered, not to identify the body, but to make it clear that the victim was asking for it by wearing provocative clothes.
Women in burqas, an eight-month-old girl, and an eighty-year-old woman have been raped. Do you want to know what they were wearing, dear victim blamers? Is an infant in her diaper and an old woman in her saree provocative?
Do you have the courage to tell me, a 13-year-old girl, that my girlfriends, sisters, mother and even grandmothers, are at the risk of being raped if they wear revealing clothes, not because no-one teaches their sons to be human?
Why ‘Stranger Danger’ Is A Myth
If you aren’t angry now, you aren’t paying attention! Studies show that women’s clothing a little or no impact on their safety against sexual assault. Women are more prone to sexual assault within their homes. 93% of the rapists aren’t strangers to the victims. The rapist of the eight-month-old girl was her 28-year-old cousin.
In the movie “Highway” (2014), Veera Tripathi (played by Alia Bhatt) is a young woman in her twenties, who reveals that her uncle sexually assaulted her in her childhood. Her mom asked her to stay silent about it. There are numerous real-life examples of women’s sexual assault within the home—some are revealed to the real world, some kept a secret, and only a few get justice.
Half the world is asleep, and it’s time we wake them up because no one else will! We urgently need to make our boys and men aware of how women have to live in constant fear and oppression. Boys need to be sensitised about their gendered privileges and be educated about their misleading entitlement. That’s the first step.
Someone is raped in India every 16 minutes, and every minute in the US. Don’t you dare leave the world like this for me to live! “I want change”. Don’t you think we deserve to feel safe in the streets irrespective of what we wear or who we are?
We deserve a safer environment where our bodies aren’t sexualised for everything! Let’s stop blaming their daughter’s clothing for something that’s unquestionably your son’s fault! Let’s fix this world together.