Why are women judged for showing their skin?

KAKALI DAS

If you are an Indian woman, showing even a little bit of cleavage or thigh will get you reactions like, “What kind of clothes are you wearing?” But why are women always under scrutiny for what they wear?

‘Revealing’ clothes were not considered ‘vulgar’ in ancient India. Excavated figurines and temple art reveal that nude bodies were even worshipped. Historians often trace a widespread shift in this attitude to the Delhi Sultanate in medieval India.

Elite women’s movement in public spaces became restricted, and they were required to observe a ghoonghat or uroni or purdah in public. Women’s clothes became a matter of their family’s honour, and elite households created zenanas or dedicated and protected spaces, for women.

This cultural practice was further strengthened in the north during Mughal rule. Nonetheless, in other parts of the country, like Bengal and Southern India, women didn’t observe this practice and many of them wore sarees without covering their breasts.

In the 18^th century, Victorian notions of propriety ended up influencing women’s dressing across the country. The British considered draping the saree without a blouse ‘vulgar’. In the 19^th century, Jnanadanandini Devi, who belonged to an elite Bengali family, ended up popularising wearing the saree with blouses or jackets after she was denied entry to British clubs bare-chested.

Why are women judged for showing their skin?

From the mid-19^th century, as feminist movements emerged, and British notions of morality evolved, it became acceptable for Western women to wear more ‘revealing’ clothes. At the same time in India, in discourse around nationalist movements like Swadeshi, the binary of the ‘good Indian woman’ and the ‘bad Western woman’ emerged. The ‘good woman’ covered her body and was associated with domesticity, docility, and ‘good’ upbringing.

The dichotomy was reinforced in early Hindi cinema, where the heroine was the ‘good, cultured covered up’ girl, while the woman who wore revealing outfits was always the Westernized vamp, with her short clothes, nightclubs, drinking, smoking and other vices that made her a bad influence on the hero.

As the Indian economy began to open up in the 1980s, and 90s, we saw a shift in Hindi cinema. The ‘good’ versus ‘bad’ woman binary ceased to exist, and the heroine too began wearing ‘revealing’ clothes.

A booming global beauty and fashion industry had to sell the image of the ‘modern’ Indian woman who could wear short clothes and still be respectable.

And so, through cinema, beauty pageants and advertisements, a new notion of the liberated ‘modern’ Indian woman became aspirational. New emerging women consumers in cities embraced the freedom to show their skin, but the cultural tensions, around women’s clothing still remained strong.

Practices like ghoonghat and covering their bodies, has become even more important for many rural Indian women, who now view this as a marker of their rural honour. Women don’t wear the ghoonghat are denigrated with insults like ‘shameless’ or ‘naked’. And unfortunately, even though wearing short clothes may be seen as more acceptable in Indian cities, it is still seen as a ‘risky’ behaviour.

An eight-city survey found that 50% of urban Indian men between the age group of 15 and 29 believe that a woman wearing short clothes is inviting rape. Indian politicians often blame victims of sexual assault and violence for ‘attracting’ men because of their ‘indecent’ clothing. Conservative groups have attacked films and TV sets, protesting against women’s attire, and attacking their characters based on their clothing.

But here’s the thing – studies from around the world have shown that women’s clothing has little to no impact on whether they are at the receiving end of sexual violence. In fact, women are more likely to face sexual assault within their homes than they are outside. People around the world are calling bullshit on this misguided policing.

Through social media campaigns, art installations, and awareness raising efforts on the ground, we are questioning not only on these false notions of respectability, but also the arbitrariness of what body parts we choose to police when.

Whether it’s freeing their skin on Instagram, or protesting against sexist uniforms, what we are asserting is women taking control of their own sexuality, and demanding the right to wear what we want, when we want.

Images from different sources

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