As a man, I may not be able to fully comprehend what a woman goes through, that is, I may not be able to walk a mile in her shoes (especially not a heel. That already rhymes with ‘kill’) but that does not mean I will stand by and watch her being abused and her dignity shredded from her.
My art teacher once snidely remarked, on observing how good I was at depicting the female anatomy, that people draw what they understand best or want the most. So I took up fashion sketching and designing, to spite him, maybe. In my defense, fashion is a multi-billion-dollar industry (well, in some parts of the world) and I want a piece of this delicious apple-pie. This could be why one joke that has been doing the rounds about this cracked me up real good. As you may know, God happens to be the first nearly- everything. I want to assert this day that He was the first fashion designer. Don’t believe me? Just Google Genesis 3:21. Who has time to read and peruse in this digital age ?...but just in case you don’t have the data bundles, it says, “ And the Lord God made clothes out of animal skins for Adam and his wife, and he clothed them.” See? Fashion designing right there.
Now, I interviewed about nine people before writing this, both male and female. What struck me was the very different ways in which men and women were looking at this. It was as if men were looking at the issue from one end of the telescope and women from another. For men it seemed as simple as, “Your dress is short, sista…you should have worn a longer one” whereas my lady friends were horrified that a woman’s dignity could be torn apart as easily as they made ripping the clothes off her seem. That may have something to do with the way women and we men are wired up differently; men mostly think logically, women emotionally. There’s a whole library of books on the matter like “Men are From Mars, Women are from Venus” by John Gray which asserts that most problems between men and women, particularly in relationships, are a result of the fundamental psychological differences between the genders that leads to misunderstandings and communication breakdown.
For many women, these videos and stories of naked women with a horde of hands groping and grabbing their fragile bodies and fingers prodding their intimate depths reminded them of the lines of consent and assault(sexual, physical or psychological) that men, strangers and friends alike, blur so casually and callously ,one ends up feeling like their body is public property or their “assets” are mangoes or tomatoes in the market over whose price the buyer vivaciously and voraciously bargains. They conjured up ghosts of ghastly experiences and ghouls of grating fears in the femaledom; that time someone groped your ample apple bottom yet you were decently dressed in some cobalt blue jeans and a pink sweater...that time in the matatu, when a man began jerking off while seated next to my very traumatized girlfriend...and this is on the less disturbing end of the scale. Ask around. Your sister, friend, auntie or even mother have probably seen or undergone worse.
These graphic images reached into the dark depths of their fears that, someday sometime somewhere, some man may decide that you, Missus, are too tempting and you need to be taught a lesson. And that’s the problem right there; using a woman’s body or the violation of her dignity and right to privacy -among a spectrum of many other rights that she deserves as much as her male colleagues- as a tool to punish wrongdoing or what the mob deems as unfit behavior. There is a problem when barbarism becomes bold and when people do things to others weaker than themselves because they can get away with it or just because they can. This tactic, where women and children’s bodies are used as battlegrounds is used in wars and you want to tell me what was done to these women is justified? That something is not wrong somewhere? That “My Dress My Choice” is an empty claim? Did you just answer that with that other famous political slogan made famous by our distant cousin in the U.S, “Choices have consequences?” I am giving you so much side-eye right now.
"A man’s greatest fear from a woman is that she will laugh at him (or reject him); a woman’s fear is that a man will kill her”-Margaret Drabble
Many of my female friends have told me of discussions in which their male colleagues have thrown in arguments such as “You don’t see us walking around in boxers and vests…” (Oh if only it was as simple as equating the power and pull the female anatomy has to that of a male member) or “When you dress so skimpily and provocatively, what do you expect?”( So, let me get this straight…if a woman dresses in any manner that you have decided is indecent, based on the world standard measure of how aroused you are, she should expect to be stripped or worse? Don’t even answer that...this “It-was-Eve-who-gave-me-the-fruit” kind of excuse never worked in the first place) or “Why wear a skirt so short that you can’t even bend down to pick up your dignity? Have you seen any Muslim woman get stripped, eh? Have you?” “Now you want all of us to wear buibuis, huhh? Despite the fact that Islamic religion has been often faulted for its strict doctrines and supposed oppression of women ”my friend had calmly replied as she herself finds the buibui quite lovely in fact, to which the guy had retreated with that famous phrase, “No, what am saying is…”( See how the measure of what’s decent changes? To one, it is a cute flirty skater dress, to another it is a long floor-sweeping maxi skirt and yet to another it is the buibui.)
Remember that bootyful lady officer who was reprimanded for what her seniors termed as inappropriate dressing because her skirt was a little too fitting? Remember the avalanche of comments on social media saying she was, in fact, quite okay and making jokes about how “security in the country should be tight”? And here we are, holier-than-thou fashion police. We even had to have an anti-stripping police unit. A country at its lowest, I tell you. We should go ahead and establish a committee of inquiry (as if we do not have enough of those already) to look into the acceptable standards of decency all over the country and maybe produce a fashion manual for women titled “What Not to Wear …and Where”.
Oscar de la Renta, famously called “The Sultan of Suave”, passed away late October this year. He once remarked that his job was “to make every woman feel her very best” and his designs were a true testimony to that maxim. He also said that “Being well dressed hasn’t much to do with good clothes. It’s a question of good balance and common sense” which I totally agree with and often have used as my closing argument for modesty and moderation for a woman’s own sake and safety. We have to recognize that clothes are a means of self-expression and embody the concepts of a free democracy as nothing else the colonialists introduced may. How do we expect industries like fashion to flourish if we debase women, the largest consumers and objectify them so much that the sight of something as slight as a curvy silhouette drives us into a sexual frenzy? And unlike the misconception many men may have; women do not necessarily dress to impress men...or seduce them as they sashay and strut their stuff in the streets. Let’s get over ourselves.
“Girls don’t dress for boys. They dress for themselves and, of course, each other. If girls dressed for boys they’d just walk around naked at all times.”- Betsey Johnson
Mr. Oscar was big on empowering women and wanted, as many of us do, to see women walking as if they had an invisible crown on their heads. He said to them, “Walk like you have three men walking behind you.” Oh, boy. Perhaps not in Kenya at the moment. Those three men might strip you down and then what? A Tale of The King and His New Clothes retold? What many may not get is that many women are afraid. Yes, even those decently dressed. Afraid that these incidences are a slippery slope of sorts; they may spark a wildfire of other gender-based crimes or give rise to a casual way in which violations of their rights are handled. Like the case a female colleague from Mombasa narrated to me where a woman was raped and took a shower, not knowing that she was washing away the evidence and this she was later told at the police station she went to report at. On asking what she could now do, the male police officer crudely told her that she should go and seek out the men that had raped her so that they can do it again then report back to the police station.
There is something terribly wrong when my girlfriend is afraid that all it may take to be undressed is for some random man, sometime someplace somewhere, to stare long enough at her decently dressed derrière to decide that it is still too provocative and do something about it as if she were his goat or chicken to decide to slaughter for Christmas or New Year’s. Or to consider how aroused a man will be by the new pair of jeans instead of whether she likes it or not, before buying it. Or that the smile she flashed the man who offered her a seat in the matatu is too sexy….and what shall we have we then? ; “My Smile My Choice”.
We Men need Women. We just don’t like admitting it. And I do not mean in that objectifying manner; I mean development-wise and for the sake of a sane society. The true measure of a civilized and developed society is how it treats its weakest and lowliest. We are already divided along so many lines; political, tribal, economic…go on…and then you want to draw lines on dressing? You just stirred up the hornet’s nest, my friend. Personally, I like my women how I like my coffee; strong and hot and I endeavor to treat every woman as I would someday want some man to treat my daughter; with respect. And I will teach her about consent and all other underlying issues blanketed under My Dress My Choice campaign. I will let her know that she doesn’t owe that seemingly nice guy who bought her a bouquet of roses, wined and dined her or even gave her a ride in his limousine a single wretched thing. Her body, her choice. And don’t tell me respect is two way as if a woman’s dressing is a way of appeasing you, Sir, to be a gentleman to her. As the campaign started up in India goes, “Don’t tell Your Daughter to Dress well; teach Your Son to Respect Women.” Don’t ask “kwani what was she wearing?” when he stripped her. Ask “what in the world was he thinking?” That is what this broth boils down to.
