It was my birthday. I picked out the dress myself, for my special day. It was navy blue – chose the color scheme myself as it complimented my skin tone. Hop on the bus and there you go.
One comment. Just one. A simple man wandering by, someone I have or will never see in my life has every capacity to diminish the entirety of the confidence in me” – Girl of Dhaka, I do not need to be named. She may be your friend, sister, or mother.
The amount of resilience and mental strength a girl needs to pack her bags with before heading out of home is incomparable. As per the reports of Laura Rowland, a program chief in the Division of Translational Research at the National Institute of Mental Health, it is seen women develop hypertension from the trauma they face on an everyday basis.
Why is it that a woman’s choice of clothes is the brand image of her family and society as a whole? Why is it that women leaving for abroad feel more at ease with their choice of clothing? The patriarchal framework particularly in the South Asian regions, love to suppress their women in the name of religion, family dignity, safety, and the list continues. Does the fight ever end? This section is filled with questions – much like the ones we ask ourselves often in front of the mirror. Am I being too “easy”?
Amidst the fights, we fight every day both mentally and against societal norms. Just when you expect your fellow women to sympathize with your woes, she calls you out as the reason men rape during your daily commute as if we were not terrified of buses already after the Nirbhaya case in Delhi. Just a typical day when a girl might have wanted to step out in jeans not caring for the world, she faced the harshest trial for which she is never to be blamed. Just when someone needed to tell her, you do you, wear whatever makes you feel just a tad bit better today, rape is solely an offender’s fault never the victim’s; other people on the bus applauded the incident.
Just as the Karnataka High Court’s verdict of upholding the hijab ban is not fair; instead of calling out rapists, blaming women for wearing jeans or any other form of clothing is also not appropriate. “Beauty lies in the eyes of the beholder”, a beautiful quote by Plato embarked upon how the observer interprets what he sees. The different sets of observers will see the same thing from different perspectives with dissimilar mindsets. Seeing the society today, 21st century Plato would have definitely come up with the contrary phrase for his idea – “crime lies in the eyes of the offender” and of course not the victim. The mind will perceive the woman however it wants to regardless of the variations of string that wraps her body.
Discipline the eyes, not the diversity.
