Dress, decency, and mentality
How many parts of the body can be covered to make a woman decent? This question is very relevant today as humans surpass the intelligence of human society and reach the level of artificial intelligence. The definition of elegance also varies from country to country. Wearing the burqa in Afghanistan is only a decent dress.
A woman is elegant only if she wears a dress that only reveals her eyes through the mesh at the top. The slightest deviation from this in Afghanistan or Iran is rude, and it is considered a terrible crime. Moreover, in Iran, a woman who does not wear the hijab is rude, even if she goes out covered. Iran’s moral police even shot and killed women for the small reason of not wearing the hijab. Now, in the nectar of the independence era, India is also frequently involved in dress code controversies. Those who argue in favour of women’s modest dress believe that such measures improve society and reduce women-related crimes. In most cases, many think the crime of rape and sexual assault is due to the short dresses. But Western countries pay no attention to clothes differently. According to a recent survey, the five safest countries for women are Norway, Finland, Iceland, Denmark, and Luxembourg. These five European states have in common that no one cares who is wearing what in these countries. Teenage girls walk in the streets in these countries wearing short pants and T-shirts until midnight, with almost zero crime. The top ten countries in terms of women’s safety are European. But Iran is the sixth-most dangerous country for women, followed by Saudi Arabia and Afghanistan. The crime rate is very low in countries where clothes are not important. This clearly shows that dress has nothing to do with women’s crimes. If anyone wants to say that women are victims of men’s desires for clothes, it is a mediaeval mentality. In cities like Oslo, Helsinki, Copenhagen, London, Berlin, Bom, and Paris, it is common to see women wearing half pants. In those cities, it doesn’t matter that nobody looks at you, even if you wear short skirts and bikinis. Because their society has created a progressive environment since childhood, parents teach their children about sex in schools without hesitation in a scientific manner. Women and men should be taught that dignity should not be measured by someone’s dress in every household.
It is hard to believe that our society is still male-dominated in many ways. Even in today’s progressive India, women’s representation in the Lok Sabha is only 14.94 percent and in the Rajya Sabha, 14.35 percent. There are only six women MLAs in the 126 constituencies of the Assam Assembly. There is only one seat in the Lok Sabha and zero in the Rajya Sabha. The issue of equal rights remained in papers only, although recently a bill passed for women’s reservation was implemented after almost six years.
Most of us don’t want Western clothes to find a place in Indian society; this thinking is partially revived by pseudo-Santana (a sect of Hinduism) culture. Men’s brains need to be elegant to see a woman decent in all kinds of clothes. A teenager needs scientific education on how to treat a woman with respect when he becomes an adult. Certainly, dress also judges elegance and immodesty. But it depends much more on mentality. Society has trained our brains to view women from the perspective of that particular atmosphere. Today we are enriched with nuclear energy; we send spacecraft to the moon and take photographs, but as long as we stick to our clothes, even if our bodies are on the moon, our minds will remain in the darkness of the Middle Ages.
Arup Saikia
arupsaikia07@gmail.com