How women dress
Less than a century ago, it was considered indecent for a woman to bare her ankles. Today, as fashions have changed, bare ankles are the least of our moral dilemmas, but the discourse about what constitutes seemly attire for women remains timeless. Alas, that debate usually is dominated by men who still claim authority over women in such matters.
In South Africa we have seen the appalling extremes of the male fashion dictate when women have been assaulted – physically, sexually and emotionally – at taxi ranks and elsewhere for wearing clothes which their attackers consider objectionable.
There must be no doubt that as long as it remains within the law, sartorial expression is a question of personal freedom.
The flip side to that liberty resides in the right of establishments to deny admission to people who fail to conform to a prescribed dress code. No personal autonomy is violated when a church adopts a policy of barring admission to bare-shouldered women or men wearing shorts, as is customary in many sacred places in Rome, the Holy Land and elsewhere. A prudently drafted general national policy on dress codes at Mass could settle controversies in Southern Africa, if a problem should be seen to exist.
It should not be necessary to point out, however, that no woman should experience harassment, never mind sexual assault, for the way she presents herself.
So when assorted bishops in Mexico suggested that women should dress more conservatively (whatever that means) to forestall giving a “pretext” for “being intimidated, victimised by violence and sexually assaulted” in an environment of high rates of sexual violence, they perpetrated the incongruity of blaming women for infractions committed by men. The logic that a mini-skirt or bared shoulders are so seductive as to serve as a rationale for sexual harassment or rape absolves men from a responsibility which in reality is theirs alone. It is also a calumny against men who succeed in tolerating the sight of women in revealing clothing without being incited to commit sexual violence, because that line of argument suggests that sexual violence is intrinsic to the male condition.
In other words, it supports the radical feminist notion that all men are potential rapists. This deplorable attitude shifts the culpability for unwanted sexual advances and even rape on women. Jacob Zuma’s defence in his rape trial (in which he was acquitted) argued that the suggestive dress of the complainant signified an invitation to Mr Zuma to engage in sexual relations. Sometimes suggestive clothing certainly is intended to do just that; however, men cannot use the state of a woman’s dress as a justification for misreading what they believe to be sexual signals. When they do, they may well commit rape. The liability for that does not reside with the woman. Holding women accountable for being sexually assaulted on account of what they wear is akin to the victims of car hijackings being blamed for the crime because of their ostentatious choice of vehicle. It is an absurd logic which must be expunged.
And what a poor example is being set by an archbishop who in our report this week publicly owns up to being distracted at the sight of a beautiful bride in a wedding dress (the designs of which generally are not obscene)? Surely the archbishop is projecting his own deficiencies upon others, and thereby gives sustenance to a wholly undesirable patriarchal bias.
Instead of trivialising sexual violence, Church officials and societies should make it clear that no form of sexual assault, physical or verbal, is tolerable under any circumstances – regardless of the length of hemlines.
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