"Yes, we want justice. We want safety. We want to be able to walk on the streets and not be harassed, and violated, and stripped, and raped. We want to be safe. We want to be treated like citizens." Why should women have to demand these things? Why should they have to picket the streets, organise protests, yell and scream until they are heard? Why was this shit ever an issue in the first place?
Recently in Kenya there have been incidents of women being forcibly stripped on the streets. This was done by men who professed that the women's attire was "offensive" and "morally wrong". I don't really want to get into the mind-numbing idiocy of stripping a woman naked and leaving her battered and humiliated to prove a point about morality. What I do want to get into is the fact that no-one, man or woman, should be subjected to violence because of what they choose to put on their body. Everyone should be able to make the conscious decision to wear a fucking tight top or a short skirt and feel safe in the knowledge that they can walk the streets that day and not be harassed because of it. A woman should not feel unsafe waiting for a bus in a skirt that doesn't cover her knees, or a top that doesn't cover her shoulders. A woman should not be told to cover up and wear more clothing in order to feel safe around men. That isn't right. Girls are taught from the off, in homes, in schools, and in public, that they should tone themselves down, stay covered, keep a low profile in order not to antagonise or provoke men. "Your short skirts are making the male teachers uncomfortable." is something I heard a lot in secondary school. Which is fair enough. Men don't want to be in a situation where they may be tempted by the female body, especially if the owner of the body in underage. But why is this even an issue? I understand that biologically men are attracted to women. It's nature, a primal, animalistic, basic part of humanity. But humanity was also blessed with the ability to reason. Why does everyone have this idea that men are these beings that should be catered to, tiptoed around, pacified so that they don't feel uncomfortable? It's the same thing that comes to mind when people justify rape by saying the girl was "asking for it" because of what she was wearing. Justifying men taking advantage of women because they were "tempted" by the "provocative clothing" just implies that men have a startling low level of will power and likens them to animals. Put a piece of meat in front of a dog, it will eat it. It's nature. Put a piece of meat in front of a dog and tell it "NO" and the dog, if well behaved, will not eat it. The dog will learn to wait for consent or approval before it eats the meat. The dog will learn self control, no matter how close the meat is or how low it's top is or how much of it's fucking legs are showing. Why are girls being taught that men a creatures of whim and impulse? Why aren't boys being taught that women are creatures of worth and substance? Instead of teaching girls how to be wary and modest, why don't we teach boys to be respectful? These men in Kenya, these testosterone-fueled vigilantes of public morality, have not one fucking iota of authority over any single woman who wants to get her legs out because maybe she thinks they're nice, or who wants to show her chest because maybe she thinks she had a great set of boobs. She does not owe a single thing to the men who catcall her, who eye her up, who think that she is proud and arrogant because she doesn't blush and swoon at their compliments. She does not have to answer to anyone for what she chose to wear that morning, and she should not be subjected to any kind of abuse because her clothes make her too enticing to a group of men who apparently haven't grown past the childhood stage of grabbing a toy and screaming "Mine!" I watched a video that showed hundreds of Kenyan women and men marching in the streets wearing mini skirts and low-cut tops and shouting for justice to be brought upon the men who took it upon themselves to dictate the boundaries or morality. They marched not just for the women abused recently, but for women in the past who had the courage to come forward but were just met with more horrific violence. They marched for themselves, for their sisters, mothers and daughters. They marched for me. They marched in anger and solidarity and defiance, and they rose as one to make damn sure that everybody knew that this kind of shit would no longer be tolerated. Nobody is in charge of another person's decisions. It is their body, and therefore, it is their choice what they dress it with. If you don't like what someone else is wearing, don't wear it. If a woman's legs are offending you, don't look. Turn around. Get another bus. It seems pretty fucking simple to me.
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Annie LilygreenA collection of ramblings about things that inspire me. Archives
September 2015
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