Is there a ‘right thing to wear’ and what does it have to do with women’s safety?

Comments making a connection between the way women dress and their ‘safety’ are not uncommon. And they come from all quarters – ministers, police personnel, family, friends, relatives, passersby, ‘street Romeos’. This time it happens to be Karnataka’s Women and Child Welfare Minister CC Patil who recently said, “I don’t favour women wearing provocative clothes and always feel they need to be dignified in whatever they wear.” What’s uncommon is a unanimous condemnation of such comments. This lack of unanimity seems to stem from murkiness around an understanding of what the implications of such remarks are.

Some of my friends, who would consider themselves to be ‘progressive’, often respond to my absolute opposition to such remarks by saying that there is a right time and place for everything or asking me if I would wear party clothes to work. A similar sentiment has been expressed by Anant Rangaswami in his opinion article on First Post on the debate stirred in India by Karnataka’s Women and Child Welfare Minister.

Anant Rangaswami is careful enough, as are my friends, to assert that it is never acceptable to assault a woman because of what she wears. However, they are all missing an important point here – comments like the one made by CC Patil are not merely remarks, they are part of a wider discourse that blame women for violence against them. Anything less than absolute condemnation of such comments is too less.

By promoting the idea that there is actually something as ‘the right thing to wear’, Anant is only adding to the ideology that informs most men who don’t hesitate even for a minute before commenting on the propriety of a woman’s dress. Drawing parallels between smoking and drinking and dressing/clothes is too simplistic. It is almost as shallow as the ‘If you leave your house unlocked, it’s going to be robbed’ argument. It does not differentiate between the assertion of control over a woman’s body and sexuality (in case of clothing) and restriction over consuming certain things (smoking/drinking).

One of the biggest points being missed by those who believe there is a ‘right thing to wear’ and those who talk about ‘dignity of women’ as very easily measurable is that there has been no research to suggest any link whatsoever between a woman’s dress and her rape/assault/molestation. There are plenty of cases of rape of women in salwar kameez, in sarees, in burkhas, rape of girl children not even aware of their bodies, marital rape within the four walls of the house and so on. To then suggest that women should take responsibility for their own safety by dressing ‘appropriately’ is foolishness.

To go back to my friends’ question – would I wear party clothes to work – the correct answer is not a simple ‘no’. The correct answer is that this question is not relevant in this context. Sure, a mini skirt could cause outrage in Purani Dilli or Virar East but have you heard the story about two men being chased by a tiger? One of the men sits down to put on his jogging shoes. The other man asks him if he thinks those shoes are going to help him outrun a tiger. He replies, “No, but I don’t have to outrun the tiger, I just have to outrun you.” The moral of the story is there is always going to be a saree pallu too short, a skirt hem too high, a kurta too tight and a salwar too transparent and that the only actual problem is the ‘tiger’.

So let’s hope any further conversation about women’s safety is concerning the criminals and the failure of the state and police to deter crime, not the woman’s clothes, behaviour or presence in a certain place at a certain time.

Women second class students at AMU*

One would think that the focal point of any university and the experience of being at university is the institution's library. Not for students of Women's College at Aligarh Muslim University, it seems. Denied access to the central university library - the famous Maulana Azad Library - most girl students of AMU Women's College graduate without knowing what it is like to walk down aisles of bookshelves, to browse through journals and chance upon that one-very-interesting-article, to explore and discover the wealth of knowledge beyond the realms of textbooks.

Confined within the walls of the Women's College campus with all halls of residences within those boundaries, undergraduate female students are relegated to the position of second class students at AMU. While the rest of the university students enjoy the wealth of the famous Maulana Azad Library, these female students can borrow books only from the College library. The College library is not only poorly equipped but is also a closed access library - students cannot browse through bookshelves, they can only look up the reference number of the book in the catalogue and ask one of the staff to fetch it for them.

When Sir Syed Ahmed Khan founded Mohammadan Anglo-Oriental College in 1875 to provide elite Western education to Indian Muslims, the issue of educating women was hardly considered worthy to be deliberated upon. It was common understanding that the institution would cater to the provision of education for Muslim men, initially at least. It wasn't until Sheikh Abdullah and his wife Waheed Jahan Begum started rooting for women's education in the early 1900s that this issue gained some prominence in Aligarh.

In 1906, the couple established, not without facing any resistance, a small school with ten female students enrolled on the opening day. This humble beginning was a major breakthrough for the early 20th century when Indian women, especially Muslim Indian women, were still very much confined to the home and domestic duties. This school went on to become a degree college and got associated with the Aligarh Muslim University in 1937.

It is very unfortunate that what was once a progressive, almost a radical idea and institution has today become riddled with apathy towards and ignorance of social and political issues that affect women. The institution that by promising safe space for women started a new wave for women's education has become a stifling detriment for women reaching their full potential on par with their male peers.

The issue of granting access to the central library to students of Women's College is primarily that of mobility. Undergraduate girl students of AMU don't have access to the same resources as their male counterparts do. This restriction, however, is only a ripple effect of the restraint on women students' mobility in the university. Allowed to step out of the intimidating gates of Women's College only once a week at the most, these students are excluded not only from the library but also from the literary and cultural activities and programmes at the university, most of which take place in the magnificent Kennedy auditorium on the main campus.

Regressive elements in the university often cite the need to 'protect' women to justify restrictions on their mobility. In the age of Facebook and 3G internet, it is impossible to restrict mobility of those who don't want to be restricted. But wait, maybe the university can try banning use of internet on Women's College campus as well? Who these women are supposed to be protected from is not entirely clear because if it's their fellow male students, then surely the university needs to be concerned about the behaviour of its male students rather than its female students?

Another oft-cited reason for these restrictions is the fear of girls 'misusing' their 'privileges'. How does one ensure that these girls will go only to the library and back? The fear that allowing these students to go to the library will result in them proliferating other university spaces is indicative of the insecurity of the farcical patriarchal structure of the university. Others have gone as far as to say that the main library is already crowded, allowing female students will only put more pressure on its services. Sure, how about disallowing half of undergraduate male students from using the main library?

Besides being blatantly discriminatory, this exclusion is also illogical. Often passed in the name of Muslim and Aligarian 'culture' and 'tradition', these restrictions are not applied uniformly to all girl students at the university. Girl students enrolled in professional courses like MBBS and B Tech (and hence lodged outside the precincts of Women's College) can step out of their hostels every day and can access the main university campus and the Maulana Azad Library. Are these students not the same age as students at Women's College? Or is there any reason, elusive to me, that they do not have to subscribe to the same traditions and culture?

There are more, equally unreasonable, and quite predictable, excuses that one can come up with to perpetuate the status quo, the bottom line being that they are exactly that - unreasonable and regressive.

I am an alumnus of the College. The first time I stepped into the Maulana Azad Library, I was awed by its grandeur but more than that, I felt frustration at not being able to reach out to those shelves, browse through books and borrow a tiny bit of that wealth. It is time that the university stops infantilising and discriminating against its female students and starts treating them with equal dignity and respect.

*Originally published on CNN IBN

A gendered reading of the UK riots

It's the fifth night of rioting today and I am yet to make up my mind about how I feel. On the one hand I have a 'Cameron - take that!' feeling; on the other, the loss of lives and damage to properties and local shops (don't really care about Debenhams and JD Sports and Poundland) is making me cringe. But there's another question that has been lurking in my mind about these riots - what are the gendered dimensions of this spurt of violence?

In hundreds of photographs of the riots floating around on the internet, it is obvious that the majority of rioters are young men. That doesn't come as a surprise given the inherent 'masculinity' of gang culture and violence. But is personal safety and security the only reason that women have largely kept out of this storm?

With the dust settling this afternoon, there were quite a few write ups discussing these riots as a consequence of socio-economic disparity that has been growing in recent times. Though Cameron and co have been quick to dismiss it as 'sheer criminality', the opinion that these riots are not a random incident has been growing. Surely there are cultural, social and economic aspects behind the firing up of this violence.

In that discussion, we need to spare a thought about whether men feel more disaffected than women in this economic downturn. Though studies show that women (especially single mothers) are going to be hit harder by spending cuts and the current economic downturn, there is a possibility that the joblessness (impending or current) is more of a threat to masculinity than femininity because of the expectation and assumption that men are the primary breadwinners. The social pressure of being able to feed a family makes men's lives more vulnerable in the current situation and these riots, though many would disagree, are to a certain extent an ironic expression of that vulnerability and the looming emasculation.

At the other end of the spectrum, these riots have also seen men as playing that very role - that of breadwinners and protectors. There has been plenty of praise for the Turkish and Asian men who defended their communities from violence and rioters. In this defence of their communities, these men have been the alpha male models - men who defend their 'properties' and women (so synonymous) from the enemy - true epitomes of masculinity. Here again, the visibility of women has remained minimal demonstrating how ownership and guardianship of properties, businesses and communities is still in the hands of men.

But there is one narrative in these riots that has been speaking exclusively about women - and, very interestingly, that is the narrative of moral responsibility for these rights. Who to blame for these riots? Let's put it on mothers who have failed to bring up their children decently because it's these children who are causing a mayhem out there. Twitter is full of 'momma' tweets and jokes, here's a sample -

Discussion of the riots on Mumsnet drew similar comments -

So, let me get this straight - though women have been mostly invisible (both physically and vocally) throughout the riots, when it comes to assigning moral responsibility, women are made hypervisible. The synonymity of parenting with mothering in this narrative is only half as disturbing as the view that it's single mothers who have ruined our society.

And to add to that, I am yet to come across articles on the gendered dimensions of these riots in the mainstream media. There have been plenty talking about the cultural, racial and socio-economic aspects of the UK riots, which is good, but it needs to be recognised that gender, just like class, race and culture,has a bearing on this violence which needs to be taken into account when analysing these riots. So let's start talking about it.

High heels and feminism: thinking about Feminist Guilt on World Femininity Day

Femininity and feminism have long been seen as arch enemies; after all wasn’t bra burning and chucking away heels and lipsticks the whole point of feminism?

(c) Flickr user Stephen Mitchell

Though a staunch believer in feminism, I have had my moments of weakness and subsequent guilt. I have had so many conflicting opinions about my own ‘femininity’ and my belief in feminism that it’s hard to count them. And I am not one of those ‘post-feminist’ ones otherwise it would have been easy to rationalise my behaviour as ‘having it all’.

When I put myself through the torture of wearing high heels, I curse myself for indulging in something that doesn’t make sense at all and for betraying feminism and yet, I do it. I wear hoops and earrings and pretty dresses and yes, I do look quite ‘feminine’. It’s a matter of feeling that this is something I shouldn’t do but wanting to do it, and it’s the want that wins. It’s what I call the ‘feminist guilt’ and I’ve felt the pangs plenty of times.

Why I'll be joining the London SlutWalk (in the Guardian)

(c) Flickr user creatrixtiara

Back home in a small conservative town in India, it would be considered perfectly acceptable to "Eve-tease" me if I went out in "western" attire (aka fitted jeans and T-shirt). In the capital city of the UK, things are surprisingly not very different – I run the risk of being called a slut if I "dare" to go out alone in the night wearing a short dress. The two scenes might not be exactly the same, but there's a common thread running through them – you are a slut provoking sexual attention if you don't conform to male definitions of modesty. And that is exactly what SlutWalk is protesting against.


Read the full article in the Guardian.