On the night of New Year’s Eve, women in Bengaluru suffered at the hands of lecherous and perverted men who seemed to have forgotten that morals, consent, and boundaries exist. The narrative progressed in a way that it has always been when it came to crimes against women — victim blaming. Politicians who are too deluded to represent an electorate commented on the crime by blaming the women for their “Western” attire.
As ludicrous and insensitive as this comment was, it also goes against everything that we have been taught; it doesn’t matter what clothes you wear, what matters is who you are on the inside. Doesn’t that ring a bell of validation? If clothes are just accessories, why does it really matter what women wear?
Extending that narrative, other women who came out in support of the women who were molested were almost shut out by men who made the issue about themselves by turning defensive and protecting their fragile egos. The hashtag ‘Not All Men’ trended on Twitter on a day when women were coming out to tell the world how common sexual assault is. This narrative that I keep referring to has remained the same for over centuries — Men attack women. Women stand up for themselves. Men get defensive and blame it on the women’s clothes.
Women have been objectified and sexualised by men in just about everything, from art to advertising. And it’s the men who decide what the women need to wear in order to gratify the male gaze. If you are reading this and you still think that women ask to be assaulted because they were wearing clothes that reveal regular human parts of a woman’s body which have been sexualised by men, then you really need to understand how crimes happen, draw parallels to other crimes and know that you would never blame a house owner for being robbed, and just for once know that the male gaze, pertinent in men only affect women because men are indeed the ones who created it, hence the term, ‘male’ gaze.
What if all of us just roamed around naked? That way regressive politicians and other defensive men will not have any clothes to blame it on. It’s an experiment that is certainly worth investing in. If you think women ask for it because they wear revealing clothes, then why wear any clothes at all? Not just the women, even the men. That way, if sexual crimes on women were committed, ‘she was asking for it’ would not be an excuse.
Proposing to make the entire population of the world a nudist colony is a step in the right direction. This will stop Tamil film directors from chopping of actresses’ clothes to make them look ‘sexy’ and boasting about it, and stop men from designing clothes that satisfy their gaze and subsequently blaming them for their own actions.
Sexual crimes aside, it’s also a good way to come to terms with one’s own body. Fat shaming would finally end. Toxic nicknames would stop existing. When you are subjected to a person’s entire body, you have no choice but to like them for what’s on the inside, because that’s the part you truly can’t see.
The next time you hear a tale of a woman being attacked by a man, instead of blaming her for it, have a little discourse in your head - why is it that only women are assaulted, maybe it has something to do with men?
(When he isn’t writing, the creative producer with The Rascalas watches
a lot of ‘cat videos’ on YouTube)