Recently at the Harvard India Conference, India’s elite fashion designer, Sabyasachi Mukherjee made a remark regarding Indian women’s choice of dress. Basically, he said, “I think, if you tell me that you do not know how to wear a saree, I would say shame on you”.
This comment was met with a Twitter storm where he was crucified for his remark, with feminists expressing anger over that telling woman what to wear was bad enough.
The above Tweet from @Diogenes even pointed out at the expensive sarees that Sabyasachi designs and his capitalistic intentions behind shaming women for not choosing sarees just because they are Indian wear.
Shaming women for their choice of dressing and instantly relating it to morality and culture is not new at all for us.
Be it the Kerala story where girls were shamed for wearing leggings or the Assamese TV News, slut-shaming girls wearing shorts. Shaming women for their choice of dressing and instantly relating it to morality and culture is business as usual for Indians.
Men 1: Indian Culture 1: Common sense -10, Women’s Progress -20.
Let me tell you how this looks like in a middle-class woman’s everyday life by giving you an example
A Real-Life Example
My friend got married to a guy from a conservative family. This was an arranged marriage, a highly orthodox environment and super old-fashioned.
My friend was an engineering final year student when she was married off and it was a ‘written-in-stone’ decision by her in-laws that she would never work outside home.
Cut to two years later, she has two kids to take care of. Her husband constantly shames her for being homely, for not wearing jeans and skirts. He wants her to accompany him to his lavish business parties and high profile social client meetings.
Born and raised in a super conservative environment, she is highly uncomfortable and awkward around strange men. She cannot hold a casual conversation with a stranger. These are the attributes that were highly sought after by the husband’s family members before the wedding. The husband too wanted to marry a woman who has never spoken to unknown men, let alone dated and more that, he wanted the typical stereotype of a ‘pure and pious virgin’.
Now, he constantly shames her for being a “dumb, boring housewife” who he is “ashamed of”. He wants her to join English speaking classes and change her wardrobe with two kids under the age of 4 to fend for. She doesn’t have any time left to invest in herself. Besides, they live in Dubai; they have no relatives, neighbours or domestic workers to help with the kids. She tells him that with these kids to take care of, she cannot find time for all that he expects. This ends in more and more humiliation and abuse.
What does this mean?
When it’s convenient (and profitable) for men to have women wrapped in an Indian outfit, they shame women for not wearing it.
When it’s inconvenient for them, they shame women for wearing it.
It’s all in the Patriarchy 101 chapter that comes with the Indian men’s guidebook to oppressing women.
The Onus Of Culture Preservation On Women
For a minute, I want to talk about the Indian culture and our relationship with it through our dressing and language. What does it really mean to be an Indian woman, bear the burden of culture and our right to pick and choose what parts of it we like?
When I went to Switzerland for the first time and saw how many people didn’t speak English, I was shocked. How could they not know English? A local told me that it’s a matter of pride for him to speak his regional language and that locals like him don’t hold English to such prestige. In fact, European languages such as French, German, Italian and Spanish come first for us, he said.
I paused and thought how people are shamed in my country for not speaking English. A Hindi-speaking person has lesser job opportunities and is looked down upon in a high profile setting.
While speaking the English language is great, why is Hindi or any other regional language a matter of shame? And with this, language-shaming comes clothing-shaming.
How many of us have heard and even used the phrase ‘behenji types’ for a girl who wears salwar kameez?
Many times these girls are disrespected and stereotyped as dumb, desperate, cheap, lower middle-class and greedy.
The class and income come into play. To avoid this categorization, in the first year of university, when many girls come from nearby small villages and towns, they are forced to wear jeans. Of course, no one forces them literally, but to look like a ‘city girl’ and worth becoming friends with the popular ones, they ditch their preferred outfits.
Conservative or right-minded people would stand for girls wearing Indian outfits but all for the wrong reasons.
Wear Indian outfits all you want but not because you are responsible to be the embodiment of your culture. Not because you have to somehow put your morality on display through your choice of clothing. Not because your family wants you to reflect their ‘nationalism’ through you. Wear it if you like it and feel comfortable wearing it.
So here’s my take: stop shaming women for their choice of clothing whether it is ethnic or western. While a woman in jeans doesn’t become a prisoner of Western civilization, a woman wearing a saree or salwar kameez shouldn’t become a subject of ridicule either.
I wish we stopped judging women by what they wear and start judging society by how they categorize and shame women for making any choices at all.