Hemlines and baselines

Imagine for a moment Leander Paes 8212; at a time when he was getting increasingly involved in his tennis and grabbing national and interna...

Imagine for a moment Leander Paes 8212; at a time when he was getting increasingly involved in his tennis and grabbing national and international attention 8212; suddenly being told that his shorts were far too immodestly cut and that he should take care that his underpants don8217;t show when he battles a volley. Sound ridiculous, doesn8217;t it? The reason why Sania Mirza finds herself smack in the middle of precisely such a kerfuffle over her clothing is because she belongs to the other sex.

This is not to say that at least some of the current natter about hemlines and baselines is not deliberately created for public consumption through a media hungry for the newsfix. Fatwas are sought for primetime viewing and there are enough imams willing to pronounce them. These statements would almost certainly have affected young Sania Mirza. She has for the most part avoided responding to them publicly but did reveal once that it is 8220;quite disturbing that my dress has become the subject of controversy8221;. In fact, in the Sunfeast Open she even switched to shorts.

The interesting question is this: why is it that it is only women who are required to 8220;dress appropriately8221; in conservative societies, such as our own? Possibly it has something to do with the fact that, in most cultures, women have played an iconic role to terms of defining community and national identities. Icons, as defined by Roger Horrocks in his work, Male Myths and Icons, are 8220;key figures or exemplars8230; who seem to contain within themselves a whole resume of emblematic meanings8221;. Clothes play a defining role in their construction. Take the figure of Bharat Mata in pre-independence nationalist discourse. She was invariably depicted as a beautiful, long-haired woman clad modestly in a sari. Shahnaz Rouse, a Pakistani social scientist, in her work, Shifting Body Politics, writes about how, after Partition, while men in Pakistan were allowed to take to western clothes, women were expected to wear 8220;Pakistani8221; garments 8212; the shalwar kameez as opposed to the 8220;Indian8221; sari.

8220;Dressing appropriately8221; implies by, its very nature, dressing in a way that does not reveal the body. Here we confront one of the most assiduously cultivated fears in traditional societies: the fear of female sexuality as a potential destabiliser of ways of life and social hierarchies 8212; not least those governing men and women. The fear is an old and familiar one and is especially associated with unattached women. The Hindu widow of yore had to conform to strict patterns of life and dress. According to the Dharmashastras, the widow 8220;should give up adorning her hair, chewing betel-nut, wearing perfumes, flowers, ornaments and dyed clothes, taking food from a vessel of bronze, taking two meals a day, applying collyrium to her eyes; she should wear a white garment8221;.

The social anxiety gets more pronounced as the young girl becomes an adult. This crucial rite of passage, rife with numerous dangers, required the laying down of carefully crafted social prescriptions. She needed to remain free from the taint of 8220;promiscuity8221;, 8220;pure8221; for her future husband and his family. She needed to be trained into the required ways of conduct, sit with her feet together and her body covered at all times 8212; in short, learn what it is to be 8220;become a woman8221;, not just in the eyes of the world, but in her own eyes. The 8220;bad girl8221; phantom, constantly lurking behind every 8220;good girl8221;, had to be exorcised.

One of the concerns that an imam, while voicing his displeasure over Sania Mirza8217;s tennis garb, recently expressed was the worry that she will 8220;be a corrupting influence on other young women8221;. He was not interested in assessing Sania Mirza8217;s own behaviour, even by the yardsticks he ought to value as a man of God. She has herself stated, time and again, that she is a devout Muslim who does her namaz five times a day. But he does not really consider this in his evaluation of her. There was also, of course, little value attached to the fact that she is ranked 34th in the international circuit. The fact that she had done her country, her community, and her gender proud, is also of no consequence to him. What he is seeking is the complete subjugation of an individual woman to a prescribed norm. What he is exercising is his power, as a perceived community leader, to control her body.

Such attitudes are not, you may be sure, confined to any one community. A few months ago we had that incredible front page statement in Shiv Sena8217;s Saamna, which warned women against wearing 8220;low-cut jeans and mini skirts8221; since they symbolised a 8220;breakdown in Indian culture8221;. It linked rising incidents of sexual abuse to such 8220;provocative dresses8221; and ended with the amazing question: who can blame a man if he is incited by such clothes? It is difficult to decide whether these words demean men more than they do women. Implicit in them is the wisdom that men are sex fiends on the rampage who cannot be blamed if they rape those women who are not 8220;appropriately dressed8221;. Such reasoning contributes towards making society less secure for women, not more so, because they do not demand anything from men in terms of basic, decent human behaviour. The onus of sexual crimes is on the woman, and the woman alone. There is no recognition of her intrinsic right to life, bodily integrity and freedom; no condemnation of men who violate this right.

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Over three decades ago, the Boston Health Collective came out with a radical tract they called, 8216;Our Bodies, Ourselves8217;. It proved to be a decisive document 8212; not just in the West, but the world over 8212; in redefining the relationship that women had with their bodies. It spoke for the majority of women when it said: 8220;Our feelings about our bodies are often negative8230; we8217;re never okay the way we are. We feel ugly, inadequate8230; The ideal is not what we created. Yet we are encouraged to change in countless ways so that we can fulfil this image. We are encouraged to feel as though our bodies are not ours8230;8221; It went on to argue why women should learn to become okay with the way they are.

Perhaps we need to reissue that book and make it prescribed reading 8212; not for the women of this country this time, but for the men.