Girls wearing salwar in school represents our myopic society

Oct 19
NabanitaDhar

Are the recent diktats of the khaps in Haryana advocating lowering the marriageable age of girls from 18 to 16 to thwart rapes or attributing chowmein for coercing men into such acts surprising at all? Considering our society has always been patriarchal throughout history the self-professed omnipotent custodians of culture in our midst and their bizarre decrees have been part and parcel of a woman’s life for ages. The stereotyping of the path on which a female is supposed to live her life begins the moment she is born. People say our society has grown to be liberalized and now with the avenues available; education for starters; prejudices that existed once have vanished but I beg to differ. Our ‘cultured and illustrious’ society still is very short sighted when it comes to women.

We need not go too far, for just a glimpse of the uniforms of school going girls would make evident the thought process handicap that we suffer from when it comes to girls. Children merely teenagers are suddenly made to cover themselves in salwar kameez even in unbearable heat. Do you know why? Simply for our outlandish belief of warding off untoward incidents by not provoking ‘innocent’ boys at the brink of puberty or men ripe with overflowing hormones, girls are duty bound to dawn a certain outfit.

Schools are believed to be the nurturing platforms for children to step into the world. It is where they shape the future citizens of a nation. One of the first and elementary places where the biases in our society against women could be erased is in the schools. Students, girls and boys alike, could be taught the essence of equality and mutual respect. Righteous characters can be instilled in both, if the schools’ deem so. But what examples would these educational institutions end up setting when they mandate the girls to suddenly switch from skirts to salwars? That wearing skirts as uniforms by girl students is provocative and uncalled for! That a problem is better avoided than solved!

A long time ago it was the Sati system; wherein the lives of women were supposed to end with those of their husbands. If not that, then widows had to shave their head and give up all embellishments to avoid the ‘evil glare’ of the society in the absence of their spouses. Again the proof of an approach which believes in temporary solutions which actually is a non-solution in reality! Girls are made to believe that the way they dress directly influences their safety and perception in society while the boys are made to think that any girl who is not ‘modestly’ dressed is vying for attention. So again we preach steering clear of obstacles rather than dealing with them once and for all. In fact, what we sermonize only makes the problem more malignant.

Some steer clear of any controversy saying that the way girls dress in schools especially in salwar kameezes can be used as visual markers to distinguish between middle and senior school students. But is there really the need? The question becomes more prevalent when the same students are allowed to wear clothes of their choice by their parents; then why such forceful ‘moral policing’ by schools? Why are we so reluctant to root out the cause? Why do we prefer to evade the impediments?

To be fair, this is actually the inertia in which the society has been for quite some time now. A few decades earlier girls were made to wear sarees from a very young age. In fact, many would have worn sarees to schools and colleges as well. But the times are now different and hence it is imperative the society and its upholders change their outlooks too. It’s high time people realize that it’s not the way a girl dresses but the psychology of male offenders that need to be changed.

This shortsightedness needs to make way for a reformist approach. We need to punish the guilty and the wrong doers which are certainly not women but the men who dare to outrage their modesty. They say that at a young age it is very easy to mold a person’s character. If that is true then what better than the school going students. We need to make them realize the premise on which they could in future build a better society by not shying away from blizzards of change and reform.

We should stop this rhetoric of thinking that particular attire is advisable or is appropriate for girls and women. No matter how much a girl is covered from head to toe; a man devoid of morals would not stop from enforcing his cannibalistic instincts on her.

People in authority like in schools or leaders need to take the initiative. Cladding an adolescent girl in salwar is not the option. This propaganda of the society against girls needs to end here. Blinkered and Parochial thinking is not the key. If anything it is akin to closing one’s eyes in the hope of being invisible. A woman dressed in slawar might appear ‘safe’ from the hovering eyes of the ‘male predator’; but it’s just a fallacy. A fully clad girl is as much at risk as one who isn’t. Society needs to recognize that crimes against girls are manifestations of perverted minds and not the way they choose or are allowed to dress!


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35 thoughts on “Girls wearing salwar in school represents our myopic society”

  2. Unfortunately, people have started polluting the young minds and creating bias from an early age. There is a lot of exploitation of women going on in these villages and the Khaps in most of the cases are known to promote it. It is terrible that we are moving into a state of lawlessness.

  3. Not to forget the incidents like that in Mangalore, where girls who party are treated like whores. Hah, so much for a civilized society? WHat a shame! Good post Nabanita!

  5. Salwar kameez is a good dress, whatever people might say. My wife, who is a teacher, wears that every day. She refuses to wear the sari saying that boys (she's teaching in a boys' school) will look at her bare belly and the visible shape of her breasts when she raises her right hand to write on the board. There's nothing wrong with any dress. What's wrong is with mindsets. Given the filthy mindsets of the present generation, it's not at all wrong to ask girls to wear proper dress. Why should the girls titilate the boys showing parts of their skin? I don't mean to sound like Taliban. But if men can wear full dress and feel ok, why not women?

  6. You touched a nerve here. Back in the 80s we wore skirts to school and now girls are wearing salwar suits.. regression or what?

  7. This thought process is so much engraved in our society esp. in our patriarchal one…they just want to dominate us either way & raise their fingers on us for their own misdeeds. Sigh!

  8. 'Why should the girls titilate the boys showing parts of their skin?'

    You don't mean to sound like the Taliban? I hope you realise that's precisely what you're doing here.

  9. A dress will not change the way a potential rapist looks at a women or girl. The choice should be with the girl what she wants to wear. Nothing wrong with skirt, nothing wrong with Salwar..Wearing any one of them should not make one progressive or regressive. Considering the Dengu scare now a days I would prefer salwar or slacks, or jeans ( if I was a girl), or skirts with long sox so that mosquitoes dont bite. I think that should be the first purpose of clothes i.e. utilitarian fashion second. Rest all debate can continue.

  10. it is your wife's choice to wear salwar kameez and nobody has enforced her to wear that. every girls must have the freedom to wear any clothes they want.

    if you see a girl wearing a bikini on the beach, baring her body in public, you can look but it doesn't mean that you have to rape her. it seems that indian men have become sex starved men who can't control themselves and would attack anyone (or anything?) wearing skirt.

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  20. You don't mean to sound like the Taliban? I hope you realise that's precisely what you're doing here. I remember my own switching over to suit in the school, when I even didn't know how to handle dupatta…

  25. Matheikal Sir so it is a women who needs to cover herself but the men who can't control their urges can roam about free…Sad thinking I must say!

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