Being Naked is Being Liberated

A poster in one of the anti-rape marches organised in Delhi, after the Delhi gang-rape, said: “My body is my Property.” Another one said, “Just because I show my legs, doesn't mean I spread them.”  A third one said, “Don’t you dare tell me what to wear, tell him not to stare. My body is not public property.” The most interesting one was: “I can walk the street naked if I want, but you can’t rape me. I am a liberated, self–respecting woman.”

We are the liberated women of a liberated country. We understand freedom and rights and shout for them. We call ourselves “self-respecting women” but we can’t act like one. Why would a “self-respecting” woman want to, or even think of roaming the streets showing her legs? And if she thinks it is her ‘right’ to show her legs or whatever, why should she shout and protest when a man’s body reacts to a natural urge? Sure, a gentleman won’t lech at or try to rape a girl who is walking past him half naked. But the fact of being aroused by naked bodies unless they are entirely ugly is biological. It is nothing short of cruelty to condemn men for it.  It is like calling women dirty because they menstruate!

Why would a woman like to flaunt her near-naked body and call it ‘liberation’? Liberation from what, I wonder? One reason can be seeing women in the household being oppressed for years. May be they are tired of seeing mothers being beaten up. Not being allowed to do what they want. That suppressed anger might have come out this way. If they can’t stand up against their fathers and brothers, they choose to show their freedom by dressing how they want to.  And they call themselves liberated.

They call it ‘protest against gender bias’ too. If that is so, why are there so few protest marches against female infanticide and ‘arranged’ marriage and in favour of education for the girl child and better opportunities for women in business and politics? Is it that women are by and large incapable of talking about serious things or is it that liberation and equality for them is only about being able to dress how they want to? Why do women need to be vulgar to call themselves liberated (and if they are so keen on their own rights, why would they not accept that others, both male and female, have a right to call them vulgar if they want to?) What happened to claiming equal job opportunities? What happened to saying proudly that I stand equal to a man, because I am equally educated (why are there so few women mathematicians and writers around, even after at least three generations of ‘education’)? And what happened to general human sympathy – remembering that people suffer for reasons other than being women too, and speaking up for their rights sometimes?

As a kid I was always asked to study well, to read a lot of books. I was told, if I am not educated, it won’t be easy for me to get my due respect. Today when I see that “respect” can be gained and measured by the way I dress, or rather my freedom depends on the length of my dress, I wonder, did I waste my time reading all those books? May be I would have been respected much more if my parents had taught me to show my legs to random strangers on the street. Fact: I am still young, and not quite ugly myself!

It is ironical how women from a lower economic strata (e.g. the household helps), buy clothes which cover them decently, whereas women who have loads of money buy clothes that barely cover them. And I have been told, the shorter the dress, the costlier it is. So can I safely say that, decency and self-respect is inversely proportional to the economic strata we belong to? Also these women, from the lower income group have learnt to feed themselves and be independent from a very young age. Something the so called “decent, educated, independent” women can’t even imagine.

Being a woman, I am ashamed to say that I belong to a clan who call themselves civilised but don’t behave like one. When I see women claiming their ‘right’ to roam around near-naked, I wonder: are we going back to the Stone Age? Not wearing too many clothes was normal back then. Only they did not call it liberation or being smart.

Why does a woman need to go around showing her legs and other ‘assets’ on the street? If she doesn't enjoy the way the ‘pervert’ looks at her, she would take care to cover herself as much as she can, or is it that she enjoys that gaze, but cannot honestly say so, and cannot handle it when men ‘over-react’? Is it about the attention she is getting? Is it that she knows that she can’t get that attention in any other way? If so, why can’t she accept it? Why does she feel the need to cover it with a veil of protest? These same women usually cover themselves from head to toe when they stand in front of their fathers and brothers and husbands and teachers because ‘they don’t like it’. Do they forget that there are decent men out there who don’t like to see near-naked bodies of women being publicly flaunted? If women don’t care about what others feel, they shouldn’t shout and expect others to care about their feelings. Should they?

 The offended feminists would say that they are ‘intelligent women with personalities’. So they can do and wear what they want. Men should look at their personalities and not their bodies. I would say, women with personality don’t need to display their bodies. Mamata Banerjee doesn’t need to.  Damayanti Sen doesn't need to. They know they can attract any intelligent or even ordinary men by just their personality. They know if they talk, people will listen. When they walk, men won’t be raping them with their eyes. They will be looking up to them with respect and awe.

Yes I agree that this is a free democratic country, and women can dress the way they want to. But then it is wicked to arouse men and then curse them for it, and very stupid to then complain, “Men only think of us as bodies.” That is what we asked for. If the body is visible to such a great extent, what else can a man think us to be? That is what we wanted when we decided to come out on the street wearing that almost nothing. Why complain now?

Why don’t decent men feel this urge to go about naked except for a very small pair of shorts? Why don’t they call it a restriction on their “freedom”? Because, they don’t want to arouse women so commonly. And also because they consider it vulgar.

J.K. Rowling very rightly said, “Women… they pee in herds.” They literally do so. When I was in school, I used to see three of my classmates going to the wash room together. I wondered how can they all need to relieve themselves at the same time? But then somebody explained how it was necessary because they had the “best quality conversation” there. I used to think it was a teenage thing, but then I saw the same thing happening in college and also when I started working. It may still be acceptable in school, but when women in their mid-twenties and thirties do the same thing, I can’t help but considering it to be a sickness. A sickness to copy each other. Be exact mirror images. That is how wearing almost nothing is “so in”. That is why protest marches shouting for “liberty” and “freedom” is cool. And then they talk about individuality. It would do them some good if they cared to look up the meaning of the word first. No?

We live in a country where the girls, who were once daddy’s darlings, suddenly start becoming a liability, once they cross the age mark of 22. The parents dedicate all their time in searching for the perfect groom for their perfect daughters, and if the daughter is smart enough to find her ‘soul mate’, the parents are after the girl to get her married off. Surprisingly most girls succumb to that family pressure as well. They say they don’t want to get married, but a few tears from the mother and a fake pains in the heart from the dad, and the girl is ready to get married. Independence, freedom, liberation and all those strong words are packed in the suitcase and sent along with the girl to the house of the in laws, to be brought out again, when she will realise that marriage is actually a very serious issue which she can’t deal with. It is better to walk the protest marches rather…

I have recently heard that being able to talk about the vagina aloud now makes women “liberated”.  Poor-Box production is coming out with a play called “Vagina monologues” where five “wow women” talk about “discovering, celebrating and protecting their bodies.” Excuse me for saying this, but women don’t need to ‘discover’ their bodies. Girls do that. (If these women are mothers, I’d like to know what advice they give their own daughters).They don’t need to write a play and spend so much money to celebrate their bodies in public and if they can celebrate their bodies, they don’t need to shout about its protection. If we call ourselves women, we should try to act like one. Where did ideas of privacy, dignity and self-possession go? Is it all about how many ‘likes’ you get on Facebook, and whether you are mentioned on page three, whether you are 15 or 55?

Also, it is funny how we live in a society where women shout about being liberated, but talking about sex and about wanting it with men one loves is still a very big taboo. I have already at this age encountered far too many women who are hypocritical even with themselves: ‘Oh, I don’t think of him that way!’... and how offended they are when they are told their hypocrisy is showing! We can roam around half naked in order to be ‘admired’, but sex should be hushed up, kept under covers and giggled over only while reading Fifty Shades of Gray.  The problem with far too many so-called ‘liberated’ women even today, I think, is that they are far too nyakaa as they say in Bengali (‘coy’ comes close in English, but not quite) to deal with the world on really mature terms, regardless of their age, education and careers. I can’t help but agree with my mum when she sighs and says, “Dark ages are coming. The way some women are overdoing things, soon the government would make it compulsory that women should stay under the veil.” If the feminists are not listening, I would say, for the good! And it is more than strange that while in Iran women are fighting for the right not to wear the veil, in France Muslim women were recently fighting for the right to wear it. What do women want?