Every person on this planet has a different sense of fashion and style that defines their personality. Yes! You read that right personality, but not the Character.
The question is do your clothes define your Character? Well, we live in a society where many people judge women and even men based on their personal clothing style. People call out derogatory words to women if they are wearing short or revealing clothes. Catcalling or slut-shaming women because of their way of dressing has become the new normal in society.
What we need to comprehend is that it is not the clothes, but one’s way of thinking. There is a need to raise awareness that what women wear does not define their character. In this article, let us talk about how society sees clothing as a cover for judgemental views.
Hypocrisy prevailing in the society
There is no bigger hypocrite than the society we live in. Let us understand it this way, a woman who dresses up in a traditional sari is considered cultured or what the society calls it “Sanskaari”, but when the same woman wears a crop top she is Uncultured and indecent. The question is should others define what is appropriate and what is inappropriate for you when it comes to dressing?
Our Indian society is so possessed and influenced by the culture and tradition that they tend to judge women’s character based on their clothes. Much has been said about women and their sense of clothing, and many arguments have been put forward by society about how a woman dresses in public.
One of the arguments that were put forward by our judgemental society is that wearing revealing or concealing outfits is increasing the rate of rapes and sexual harassment in public places. OH! So what if we start wearing traditional Saari’s or clothes that cover our entire body, will that stop the rapists or bad people from thinking differently? Or why do we hear news about innocent girl child getting raped, these innocent girls don’t even know how or what to wear. Can you answer this question? Well, we thought so. Clothes or no clothes, it does not decide someone’s consent. People have no right to assume the consent for someone based on their clothes.
What we need to understand is that there isn’t any outfit that a woman can wear without getting labeled certain terms such as Whore, Slut, Characterless, indecent, uncultured, and many other such words. Makes your blood boils, isn’t it?
We live in a society where many people, not all, but many judges a woman based on her clothes.
You may also read the article on India’s Rape culture and how the society blames the girl’s choice of clothing for her rape – https://democraticnaari.com/2021/05/21/rape-culture-a-society-observant-to-girls-clothes/
Conclusion
We say that India is a developing country, but is that really true? Development is not always about infrastructures, educational and health care facilities, but about developing one’s way of thinking and growing with the advances of the time. Development is about breaking free of the shackles of chains that restrict us from believing in our personal choices.
A piece of clothing does not depict the amount of respect a woman is going to get in society. With the hypocrisy prevailing in our society and the constant judgments towards one’s way of dressing, we don’t think society will ever be satisfied with how a woman dresses, so you might just wear whatever you want to without a care in the world.
