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Hiding in plain sight
There was, most definitely, a time when I said women who live in Canada and choose to wear a hijab or burka (or similar) should be allowed to make those decisions on their own. I was naive to assume all women had the luxury of making those choices, on their own. I was also the person who was quite horrified when Quebec banned those types of head coverings (or other religious symbols) in the public service. Today, watching as the Taliban troops take over Afghanistan, I have changed my mind. Well, I’ve opened my mind to the other possibilities. I know it isn’t only about the feeling of modesty as some women say, it’s also about the shaming of women’s bodies and the controlling of women’s lives. When a person calls a clothing restriction a form of “modesty, or respect” I now know it’s just code for making women disappear. Aren’t we, as Canadians, fortunate we don’t live in a country like Afghanistan? Well, back that bus up about five hundred years, folks. We may not live in Afghanistan, with Taliban rule, but we do have built-in misconceptions about women’s clothing and of how women should appear in public. Yep. We do. Every single one of us has a notion about what women should do, what they should wear, what they can or cannot say, and who they should aspire to be. Every one of us has been trained to put women on a pedestal, in another room, away from prying eyes, to close the door and bring her out as needed.
Raise your hand if you’ve ever seen a female wearing low-rise pants and a crop top in public. Lots of raised hands out there. Of course we’re going to see some skin, it is the good old summertime, after all. Now raise your hand if all you did was notice the person wearing one of “those” outfits and then went about your business without a second thought, a snide comment or thought. A whole lot of people are shuffling around and putting their hands in their pockets. Come on, we all do it. Hardly a day goes by when we don’t see someone wearing something a little bit less than what we’ve been trained to believe is modest and decent. We’re mostly thinking the same kinds of things. We’ve been trained, groomed and conditioned to think women can wear whatever they want, as long as it’s whatever we want them to wear, based on their shape, how old they are, if they’re married and where they happen to be at the time of the sighting. We all do it. Our husbands, our fathers and our sons—and the females in our lives—all make comments, out loud or in their minds, about women who don’t know about the “dress code”. We, women, pick up on the slag-banter, but it’s been my experience we can dish it up as well as the next fella. “What was she thinking with her cheeks hanging out like that?” Or, “How can anyone walk around with so much skin hanging out. What about her children?” Or, “There’s more on the outside of that outfit than on the inside.” My favourite, “Isn’t she a bit old to be dressed like that?” And, “That would be okay for the gym, but seriously, not the grocery store.” For decades businesses, in particular, have imposed dress codes, mostly upon women they employ. Two of the organizations I worked for were famous for having a dress code for women and not having a dress code for the men. Obviously, women are clueless and need to be told. Men are an inherently a modest species and don’t need a “code”. Deep down we know women are “asking for it” when they don’t “dress properly”. Let’s face it, women never got the notes on “the code”. It’s long been men who dictate what women wear. Women are the targets of “the code”, which can change in an instant. A fashion magazine tells the world what women should be wearing “this season” and then everyone takes a step back to decide if it fits “the code”. Wear the ripped jeans and the abbreviated shirt, but not if you’re older, have children, aren’t rail-thin, are pregnant, are married or have a job.
I know a lot of women who have stopped playing the game. I admire them. They stopped playing “the code” game. Mostly, the women I know are my age. Most of us no longer give a rat’s nipple about acting our age, or dressing “age appropriately”, covering up the scars or stretch marks or containing the jiggle. We don’t want to be hushed up or hidden away anymore. Every time someone makes a derisive or dismissive or derogatory comment about what a woman wears or how a woman acts or about what a woman has to say, they are no different from those people who would have all women covered from head-to-toe and at someone else’s beck and call. Afghanistan isn’t the only country that wages a war on women. Afghanistan doesn’t pretend they aren’t waging a war on women. There’s the difference.
It’s not an easy “habit” to break—see what I did there? We must learn to be respectful of another’s choice. Time to remember there’s a person who was once under the wraps and who has made a decision to be herself. Notice what’s happening and go about your business.
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