was flustered about two reports I read in the papers yesterday ( 11 June ) on a similar subject . The news about Kota Baru Municipal Council imposing restriction on what women should wear in recreation parks and the other on the ban on girls wear jeans to college in a state in Uttar Pradesh, India.
I am vexed, but not surprised that the PAS-run state government has gone for women’s clothes, after the slapstick on lipstick and heeled shoes. I laud Wanita MCA Datin Paduka Chew Mei Fun’s plucky statement criticizing this latest attempt to further thwart women’s freedom, or the little they have in the state.
She rightly pointed out that,“ … no one had the right to infringe on the way people dress whether for sports or work and even when resting at home”, and I totally agree.
We being Asians are brought up with the cultural values that define what is decent and what isn’t and going by this we should be given the liberty to be what we are. I am sure an average woman on the street would know when she had infringed on public decency without having the municipal council playing the schoolmaster.
Further from home, if we recall early this year there was an attack on girls at a certain pub in Mangalore, India by some activists and self-proclaimed guardians of religion and culture. Scores of female patrons in the pub were beaten and sexually molested by these champions of morality, a shameful irony.
Also in the news yesterday ( 11 June), we have colleges in Uttar Pradesh enforcing blanket ban on girls wearing jeans to colleges, supposedly as a crackdown on sexual harassment. This is like chopping off the entire hand to treat a cut on a finger.
I fail to understand why is the entire burden of maintaining culture and tradition always on women and not men, mostly in Asian cultures? Women have been an epitome of oppression and exploitation in the name of religion and culture practiced by the conservative male chauvinists and social patriarchs. Will we see any positive digression?
We are in living in cyber world today and we have far more important things to busy ourselves with than to be fussing over women’s clothing in the park and in colleges.
Sadly, save for Chew, the few women we have in power and position have chosen to be silent on this.
BHAVANI KRISHNA IYER
Petaling Jaya
