Blaming women’s clothing for rape is a threadbare argument

Blaming women’s clothing for rape is a threadbare argument

Bangalore University is at the center of a
dress-code controversy.

By Rajnandini Ghosh

BANGALORE (Jan. 10)—“I have been persistently telling successive vice chancellors to implement a dress code in Bangalore University for women students and staff, but they don’t bother about it for the simple reason that they are callous and are men. All we need to do as women is to protect ourselves by wearing good clothes.”

I might read further if this was an illiterate, hapless, oppressed village woman venting her frustration.

But no, this was K.K. Seethamma, former head of the Women Studies Department at BU speaking recently about the welfare of women in society.

She added: “Many women lecturers in Bangalore University wear salwars and jeans. What respect can they expect from boys? Only a sari with long-sleeved blouses invokes respect for women teachers—nothing else.”

So women invite men to harass them, molest them and rape them by wearing provocative clothes? Point taken.

‘Why are children raped?’

Devika, a final year sociology student at BU who was clad in modest salwar kameez, said, “I have just one question: Why are kids raped in the country then? What provocative clothes do they wear?”

This question does not come as a surprise when a 4-year-old girl was raped in a bus by the driver when she was the last one to be dropped home after school. I assume school uniform is modest attire. And I have no idea how a 4-year-old can be seen as provocative.

Talking about “sari and long-sleeved blouses” being a safe bet, why are Muslim ladies hidden behind burqas raped?
It’s high time we admitted that a sexual assault on a woman has nothing to do with the kind of clothes she wears. It’s the intent of the man concerned.

There was a time when Indian women couldn’t even think of wearing anything other than a sari—forget low-waist jeans and tank tops.

We still had men brutally raping women in those days.

The principal of BU’s Law Department, Dr. K.M.H. Rayappa, told The SoftCopy: “Enforcing a dress code cannot help. Parents should ideally orient their children from childhood to dress appropriately. The students have to take their call.”

BU students outraged

Students busy before an exam at the university campus

Rajjasri, a law student at BU said: “I don’t advocate Seethamma’s idea wherein she said that women are raped only because they wear skimpy clothes. I would cite the example of Aruna Shanbaug, who has been in a vegetative state for the last 37 years after being raped by a male sweeper during her night shift at a hospital in Mumbai.”

Rajjasri is not the only one who feels the pain.

Shiva is another undergraduate in BU who’s strongly against the dress code introduction. Hailing from Nepal, she is fair-skinned with bright blue eyes and stands out in a crowd.

She said she is followed all the time on the streets, rowdy men hoot at her from the bus and she has had the misfortune of having to deal with stalkers as well.

Looking tired, she said: “When I wear shorts the boys stare at me, and when I wear a salwar with dupatta, they still stare at me.”

Like any other young girl, Shiva wants to try out the new fashion trends. But every time she walks into a store, she must stop and think whether the dress she just picked up would make her a “rape instigator.”

Time for a change

It’s astonishing how nothing has changed over the years. A certain Dhananjoy Chatterjee was hanged a few years ago 14 years after raping and murdering a 14-year-old girl in her apartment.

I didn’t know the girl personally. But it intrigues me when I think how much skin she might have shown to provoke her apartment security guard to break in to her apartment and rape her.

Seethamma sure will have a convincing explanation, I guess.

Shiva said, “If you can’t handle a mix of culture and Western outfits on women, do not accuse women of instigating men to commit a heinous crime like rape.”

I can imagine writer and women liberalist Taslima Nasreen thinking on the same lines when she tweeted: “Bangalore University telling women to wear certain clothes to prevent rape. They haven’t told men yet not to rape.”

We are waiting.